Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Joel
Would it be ok to start my bacteria colony with a handfull of fertile river sand or could this presents other problems (unwanted critters)
Cheers Marc

You could Mark, but you would probably need more than a handfull to be much use. The amount of bacteria in the river sand will correspond to the amount of fish and animal life in the river your taking the sand from.

There is a chance that you may get something nasty from the river sand I guess. The best bet, if your not in a real hurry, is to set your system up and add a little household ammonia to the system, leave it running for a few weeks adding the ammonia each week. This will feed the bacteria and establish a strong colony before long without having to risk contamination.

You can also just add your fish straight in and put up with having algal blooms for about the first three months, then the bacteria will have established itself..

Joel

Hi guys,

Something REALLY important to remember here is NOT to use

"cloudy ammonia" as it contains detergents that may be harmful to both the bacteria and the fish.

By all means use the "fishless cycling" method, but try to find CLEAR ammonia.

All the supermarkets i tried only had the cloudy stuff.

I did quite a bit of research on this a while ago.

Steve

hi everyone

what about the starter bacteria pond places sell ? is that the right stuff

frosty

Thanks for that Steve, I didn't realize that the cloudy ammonia had detergents in them.

I would guess that thats the right stuff Frosty...