Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A thread outlining the Best Operating Procedure for system startup I felt would be a big help to new people. I'm listing what I've gathered from my reading, hope you all throw in your two bits as well

Its better to cycle the system fishless for at least a week, even two if you can be patient. This not only helps establish the system and save fish lives but also provides a great opportunity to test your system.
Add hummonia (pee), about 100 mL every other day, or a teaspoon of clear ammonia every other day to get the cycle started. (depends on system size I suppose, someone else point out the volume ratio?)
Getting water or filter slime from an established aquarium can kick start the process.
Add a table spoon of sea salt once a week
Regularly test water, when ammonia levels start to fall and nitrites spike stop adding ammonia/pee
Add fish slowly, two a week is a good slow increase for smaller systems, plants can be put in during initial cycling
Feed fish very frugally during first month, test water regularly, only increase feed once ammonia and nitrite have dropped to 0.
Protect the water religiously from sunlight so as to avoid algae.
Aerate, aerate and aerate.

great idea abdul, but some of the points you mentioned may not strictly be true.


Cycling is the process of turning ammonia to nitrite to nitrate. Length of time for the cycling is dependant on several factors, including weather, gowbed size, water volume, flood frequency...etc. A system also does not get "cycled". A system is able to convert the ammonia load to nitrite and then nitrate for the current bioload. So the length of time isnt a golden rule.


Adding ammonia or hummonia will allow fishless cycling. Water needs to be tested to ensure the Ammonia is converted to nitrite then to nitrate. if the ammonia additions remain the same and the water tests indicate no ammonia and no nitrite with alot of nitrate, then the system is cycled for that bioload.


This would help the initial bacterial seeding.



Adding salt is generally to aid in fish health. People here either say dont add salt or add salt to 1ppt, 2ppt, 3ppt...etc. For an initial system, not adding salt would be better as it is 1 metric to cloud the water.


If you had 100 fish in your system, dependant on how much you feed, there will always be a ammonia load to the system. If you stop the ammonia load, the bacteria that converts ammonia to nitrite will starve. In turn this will starve the bacteria that converts nitrite to nitrate, as you have no ammonia to feed the first lot of bacteria to produce nitrite and feed the second lot of bacteria. I would say to maintain the ammonia adding as long as the bacteria is working the nitrogen cycle properly.


Not sure about this. It is wise to not feed the fish initially so that the bacteria in the growbeds have a chance to catchup to the increase in bioload. Testing the water to ensure that ammmonia and nitrite are 0 is a good indicator. I would say no feeding in the first few days then feed as much as the fish will eat afterwards.


Start growing plants as soon as you start pumping. Fish/Fishless cycle to an appropriate load and then add the fish. It would most likely be cost ineffective to stock fish slowly, depending on size of system.


Sunlight = algae so a cover for the FT and ST is wise. Also do not flood the growbeds above the media.


A O2 pump is inexpensive. No reason why not.


Will be putting my system together this weekend. Planning to:
1. Cycle with goldfish (about 50 for my 8000litres - 4 ST and 1 FT)
2. Start planting
3. Add Seasol for plants weekly
4. Test water weekly

I am hoping to get the system running smoothely by spring for some yabbies, silvers and tandanus.

I cycled mine originally with Humonia, about a six pack of beer worth (not sure what that converts to ) twice a week for first two weeks, and once more 2 weeks later, added fish after week 5 or 6 and got a spike 3 days later, but settled very quickly with no problems, when I had no fish over summer I added the same volume of humonia weekly to keep the plants going and worked fine, had good crops of corn, tomatoes, etc, I personally think that fishless cycling is the only way to go, nothing to kill if something goes wrong, after system has cycled and you add fish, you probably will still get a spike but this can be controlled by varying feed, in my experience anyhow
System will cycle better in warmer weather, I started cycling mine in end of Feb and a and added fish middle of April, weather was cooler then and fish can handle ammonia better in cooler water.
I can't see any advantage of adding a spoon of sea salt per week, from memory 1kg per thousand litres of water will give you salt of 1 ppm (someone will correct me if I am wrong) so unless your system is a cereal bowl adding that amount of salt will do nothing.
Yes add plants as soon as you start cycle, can't see any benefit in adding 2 fish a week, put them all in, feed at a rate of 1kg of fish, 10gms of food, as fish increase in size increase feed, if ammonia goes up stop feeding for a day or 2 it will eventually even out, don't stock to water volume, stock to growbed area, a good ratio appears to be 20-25 fish to 500lt of grow bed, I had 50 fish last year and 1000lt of GB and all was fine,
Protecting water from direct sunlight certainly prevents algae growth, and yes keep the water below media in grow beds, and certainly add air, I haven't found a level that is too much yet, but hotter the weather more air
I never added seasol, a lot do, whatever works for you

If you are going to fishless cycle up a system, there are threads out there with instructions for fishless cycling. Cycling up a new system takes more than two weeks. I would advise that if you add hummonia or ammonia to start the fishless cycling, plan on it taking longer than 3 weeks and don't make your plans to get fish until the nitrite spike is past. Dumping new fish into a system with a huge nitrite spike is a likely way to kill them.
Make sure your ammonia and nitrite are both 0 before going to get new fish!!!!!!

It is often a good idea for some salt in a system when putting in new fish since the salt can help mitigate nitrite if there is a spike and 1-2 ppt of salt makes for a good tonic to sooth stressed fish, which they will be stressed after transport and introduction to a new system. 1 ppt would be 1 kg per 1000 gallons of water. Make sure it is plain (not iodized and not table salt cause the anti caking agents can cloud the water.) I usually use the cheapest solar pool salt or solar water softener salt you can get at the grocery or hardware store, it's just dehydrated sea water. Make sure to dissolve the salt completely in buckets of system water before dumping back into the system, large salt crystals thrown into a fish tank often don't dissolve quickly and if a fish rests against on on the bottom of a fish tank, they get burned.

Adding fish a few at a time would certainly be a way to slowly increase the bio-load so as not to spike but unless you are raising ornamental fish, it is normally hard to get fish just a few at a time. Most eating fish fingerlings are purchased in larger numbers all at once. So, When getting the first batch of eating fish, don't over stock the system. Get the recommended amount (or less) of fish for the amount of grow bed you have. That would be 20-25 fish per 500 liters of grow bed. If you get small fish to start and are slow to increase the feed amounts (and of course watch the water tests and stop feeding if ammonia or nitrite show up) the system can cycle up as the fish grow. (if you cycled up fishlessly before getting fish, there will be less spiking once you get the fish but one must still keep an eye on things.)

+1, TCLynx. Certainly if you have decided to start fishless cycling, you should commit to it until it is cycled, unless your intent of adding fishes is for their dead bodies to add to the ammonia load...

Although I do have a question... 1ppt.. my understanding if 1 kg per thousand litres... but I believe you mentioned 1 kg per thousand gallons... which is 3700 litres... ??

I know in Australia we don't use gallons, but if we did then it would be 4.54 ltrs per gallon.
A US gallon though is 3.79ltrs!(3.785...)
I say this because some of us still work on Gal.
1000 US gallons = 3790 ltrs, so 1ppt would work out to 3.79 grams per US gallon..
Or 4.54 grams per Aussie gallon.

1000gallons - 4500lt aprox unless your in US gallons then its 3785lt, why do you use metric weight and imperial fluid to get ppt?, is what I meant above as well not ppm not even beer o'clock

Are you sure Nocky?
Beer o'clock that is

its beer oclock in NZ thank you very much!

yes C1, I know Margs operates on a different timezone I wish it was though

its always beer'o'clock somewhere [;

SO if you get donations from a friends aquarium in the form of water and filter slime, where do you put the slime? in the GB or the ST or the FT?