Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am new to this forum and to aquaponics I have done hydroponic system in the past.


I have been running my system for about 3 months i have 2 grow beds with 1 plant. I have about 6-8 fish maybe 2-3 inches big.

my levels are
nitrite 5.0
nitrates 160ppm


i feed my fish about half a hand full of food 1 time a day

my fish tank is i think 55 gallon bin and by grow beds are 41qt bins

it is a flood and drain system

also if i look in the drain it is very brown not sure if that is normal

any info would help and be great


thanks in advance

1 plant?

Plant more and stop feeding till your nitrites drop.

will that drop both

nitrite and nitrates

also is there suppose to be brown and the bottom of grow beds

Don't worry about your nitrates but those nitrites aren't good for your fish. Can you post a pic of the brown?

ok i will have to post tomorrow when i get by the garden

but you can see it really good in the drain part at the system

will those lvls stop my 1 plant from growing

I have growing a pineapple plant for my 1 plant i have other fruit plants on order now

Ouch... that seems MASSIVE


fish MIGHT consume about 15% of their body weight each day.
FAR BETTER to feed a little and more often

even 10 fish.... 3" long... possibly 100gm total.. = 15gm of food a day
now that is about a tight fist full, but at the outside

IMHO

edit - re-read - half handful - maybe nearer the mark...

BROWN - I wonder how much is from the MEDIA - what is it..? Clay seems to continually shed fines..
..
.

..
and generally better to talk in actual measurements like volume or weight, so there is little confusion..

As for the high nitrates... is the ANYTHING in the garden, that you can rip out, wash clean , and add to the grow bed.. :-)
..
.

i only have 1 plant in my garden now i am waiting for the rest to be delivered so there is not much to take out except the grow medium with is hydroton that was washed before i used it do i need to take that out to rewash it and put it back in in

ok i cleaned out my grow beds and add new water will test and see if that helped at all

also with those levels being high will it hurt my plant and stop them from growing

also what are the best fruit plants to grow in aquaponics garden


thanks for all the help

Fruiting plants are a little harder but i was able to grow some bell peppers before. I had nitrates around 60 ppm so you should be fine. The one problem with fruiting plants is that you don't have large quantities of phosphorus... Adding phosphorus in some form to a system isn't great always either because you could see large spikes of algae growth. Heres an interesting site talking about it (http://aquaponicsideasonline.com/phosph ... ics-garden). They say using rock phosphates should increase the about of it in your system.
Those levels of nitrites and nitrates will not hurt your plants but it will hurt your fish like earthbound said.
What kind of fish are you growing?

i am using kio i was going to use tilipa but i cant farm them where i live and i am not talking about fruiting plant i was asking about fruit plants like strawberries, blueberries etc


i have done hydroponics with good results

If you try some "quicker" green plants first, then add some strawberries. Blueberries I think struggle as they like very low PH, I believe around 4.5-5.5. Lettuce, kale, bok choi, collards, chard, all do pretty well in AP. You could try some berries, most seem to like NFT tubes better then media beds, but you may have some luck. Sprinkle some lettuce seeds on the beds and let them germinate on their own. Easy, cheap, and effective.

I'm going to disagree with the fruiting plants being too hard.

Just plant them, and watch them grow. Add some seasol to deal with any micronuts you haven't built up.

Just with blueberries, they'll want a lower Ph, so if yours is still high, hold off on that for now.

will a low ph hurt the rest of my plants

as i will have pineapple strawberries watermelon growing and maybe some green plants as well