Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeh patience is hard to come by for us hydro people, because normally its add a bit of this or a drop of that, this nature thing and bacteria is frustrating.

All the plants are starting to look healthy again even the ones that survived the system crash, so clearly pumping cycles were inadequate for a aquaponics setup, they work fine for hydro, but you dont have the bacteria issues

What I did find unusual however was that the plants were dying and stunting, which did not make sense, its like they were going out in sympathy with the bacteria, the pump cycle I had works perfect for hydro if not maybe a bit water laden the roots, so theoretically the plants should have still done fine becuase the water was nutrient laden, and this part of the system is no different in aqua or hydro. The only thing I can think of is the toxins of ammonia and nitrite and dying bacteria were enough to counteract any positive grow effects.

Each time I read your posts about your pumping cycle in your hydro... I'm left not understanding how you were setup and why... what model and principles were you trying to emulate???

Hey rupe,

Firstly as you have probably already come to gather, I like to to push the envelopes on any system I have, for me its not a case of 15/45 becuase it works for me its a case of well why does this work this way and I will constantly adjust to do this accordingly until I have proven to myself the limitations of the system

What hydro system do I emulate, thats a tuffy, I mainly stuck to the use of nft with a 2 degree slope and flood and drain, with the flood and drain I would do it for around 40 minutes 4 times a day

I have used and experimented over the years with ebb and flow, ariel nft, drip irrigation, mist irrigation etc,

The one that I found worked the best with oustanding results was aeroponics, absolutley magnificent growth rates just complicated setups and constant blockages

People class aquaponics as a mixture of Aqua-Culture and Hydroponics, whilst in theory it makes sense, the fact is they shouldn't be classed as such, Faye spoke about the same when she came down for the weekend, aquaculture uses series of filters to clean the crap and HP uses grow media similar to AP but a heap of over priced chemicals to make things grow, and if things go wrong more chemicals to fix, AP shouldn't need any chemicals if done correctly and filters are the GB's, in my short life as an aquaponicist I have found is the the best way to fix things in AP is to let nature take it's course, many HSM's have been caused by people *frack* ing around with things and trying to fix them in a hurry is unbelievable, I'm by no means a guru but have had most *frack* ups and fixed them naturally, I found the biggest mistake is thinking after a couple of weeks that system is cycled so throw in the fish and feed the crap out of them, then find test results go hay wire, I reckon a good 4 - 6 weeks to cycle properly and a bit of humonia to boot, I also think the best time to cycle is march - april whilst still warm, that way if things go wrong after adding fish it is nice and cool and fish can tolerate things a lot better, this is all my own opinion based on my own mistakes and climate, no doubt there is many varying opinions which would also make interesting reading, rupe how much HP methods do you use in AP?

Virtually none Nocky... other than I have two full ten channel 6mtr NFT tables... that I feed AP water... sometimes (rarely) I'll throw some hydro nutes in... more often I'll just top up with sea water... when I'm topping up my AP tank(s)

Simso.... NFT... in it's purest form implies a constant thin film of water... whereas you seem to be flooding... then ceasing pumping for a period... risky IMO, especially during summer....

Not exactly a traditional model... But it seemed to work for you... so what were you using in the NFT channels... net pots with media... net pots with rockwool plugs... or just seedling plugs straight into the trays???

Were you actually using hydro style channels... or PVC pipe???

Rupe my nft was a constant flow, my flood and drain was not, I dont use round tube pvc, always a gully setup. Netpots with rainbow stone worked the best for me, but I would pregrow the seedlings from seeds in a peat core with a rainbow stone outer in a flood and drain system with dedicated grow light and temperature controlled water until the roots were large enough to place into the nft gulleys

Ok.... now Im think I've got ya... couldn't figure...



But you had a seperate 4x40min/day flood & drained tray/system for seedling raising...

Sorry mate, it gets confusing the fact I run my sentences together.

I had a few stand alone systems.

One was the nft channels which I used for all annual plants,

Second was - the flood and drain which I used for my perennials.

Last was a little unit for germinating seeds in the optimum enviroment to be then relocated into either of the other two systems.

Ive tried all sorts of other systems over the years as well, aeroponics being my most favoured

Well we are there again, back on track that is, after a light feed yeasterday

Temp 19.6
Ph 7.8 (again gone back up)
Salt 3PPT
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0.1
Nitrate 5

So will continue for I guess 3 days at this feed regime and then increase and test after 3 days again, or should I set a feeding regime of longer eg 5 days before testing and increasing

I was either over feeding and hence sky rocketing readings or my pump cycle was to inadequate for the bacteria to populate and do there business,

I have two seperate systems running at the moment with plants acquired at the same time,

system 1, single large BYAP grow bed, standard 2000Lt/hr BYAP supplied pump, flood 15 drain 45, plants are looking really good considering they had there roots washed clean and transplanted only 3 days ago

system 2, 10 small grow beds flood, 26000lt/hr pump, flood 3 drain 27, the plants relocated into here 3 days ago are still doing okay as well, but they dont have that freshness look of the other ones, eg not as vivid green and slight tendency for the tips to curl inwards

So clearly somewhere in between is the point of perfection

When the sequecning valve that I bought from rupe arrives, will convert some of the beds over into the 15/45 cycle from the BYAP pump in system 1