Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi

The place I bought has an existing pond which I want to use for an aquaponics system. It's irregular shaped so I estimated it to be 1750litres (380 gallons). It has about 15 goldfish for now.
Ph is at 8.2 , trace ammonia 0.25ppm and 0ppm nitrite. Nitrates are pretty low as well at 5ppm.

I'be built a 700 litres (150gal) growbed next to it and filled it with clay pebbles. Ebb and flood using autosyphon had been running for a week. I've disconnected the existing pond filter as well to make sure waste gets in the grow bed.

My question is : should I be waiting for nitrates to go up before I can sustain plants? Anything else I should be doing?

Thanks!




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My understanding... NO.. Go for it..
Plants will use the raw ammonia and the nitrites as well as the Nitrates..

The simple thinking is that the pond has got on fine, and so adding the GB, even though uncycled, should make little difference to the system..
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