Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Has anyone looked at getting there bacteria going a little faster. I'm seeding my larger system from my smaller system but the cold is slowing things. But my idea is to get a tub of water running through gravel inside where the temp is better for the bacteria and try to cycle that. My salt water tank I cycled in 2 weeks inside without fish. Has anyone tried something similar. Keep the Am at 1 and the temp in the 20's while the bacteria grows then seed the outside system when the weather warms. Any ideas?

Well you could, or just wait for it to cycle normally and have another umm, Beer



In seriousness, you'll save a week at the most, is it worth it for the trouble of moving stuff inside?

You know me, just trying to speed things up. Patience is a vertue so I don't think I got any of that. But I made it up on deadly sins.

Was thinking more as tool for uping the barteria before adding large amounts of fish for new seasons. On another note Cycle in a fish shop costs a lot less than the bacteria I've seen being sold for AP systems. But I did find this out after I ordered my air blower and mag pump.
52 lpm
3.5 max head height
240 volts
45 watts

See what you are trying to do Duff, but it is normally only a one off thing to cycle and not needed every time new batches of fish are added...that is unless you eat all your fish and need to start from scratch each time.

Adding large amounts of fish usually relates to small fish so the extra load on the system can be easily balanced by removing a couple of edible sized fish (and so the cycle continues)

I tried it with my system, I got a working system cycled inside garage using a heated tank (18c) and fishless cycling then moved the GB out side when I started the main system.

But to be honest it wasn't much help, the change in temperature seems to select different bacteria, the system basically died then took about 5 weeks to cycle again. I did get a little speedup when I added pond water that had been at the same temperature as the system.

Good point Nova, I had thought about it but had no information to back it up

Thought I read something about adding the bacteria to soil garden.

Seeding a system with already cycled bacteria always helps but if you are changing the environment too much (temp, pH, etc) you will loose a fair bit of the benefit. Now if you are planning on a seasonal system due to weather and lack of greenhouse or whatnot, there are a few members out there suffering thought such challenges as fish in the basement.
Even if a system might not have fish over the cold months, provided the climate is warm enough that the pumped water and water in the growbeds doesn't freeze, you might think about keeping the system running to grow cold weather crops (there are crops that survive fine even through frosts and minimal snow) and feed it with humonia or something to keep at least the cold weather bacteria surviving on life support.