Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah im starting to get concerned about the 40+ days (specially a bank of em as we had last summer) as my system is in direct sun on the back, north facing wall of my colorbond shed. Hence the want or need to shade cloth sail the area, it would prevent the shed wall copping alot of sun and absorbing and reflecting alot of heat. But thats not going to happen compo only pays me so much and i havn't recieved a payment yet.

My shade cloth (free) is black in colour and im assuming it would be of greater than 50% grade but i'm not sure if it would be too much shade for my grow bed if i do a complete tunnel over the GB. so was thinking that i could have it so i could roll it up to let in the afternoon sun.

Quachy just looking back at the photos in y0ur thread of your shade tunnels. They are obviously working well for you. I'm sure i'll get down there soon maybe later this week but until then, which way are your beds orientated N,S,E,W? I see you have a heavy shaded side an open side which way are these facing. Going to melb tomorrow morning and got physio in the arvo but maybe thusday or friday if your still on holidays?

Without going through your whole thread, do you have airstones in the tank?? If so, good. If not, do arrange to get some... for 500L fish tank, you need about 8.5L/min of aeration.... if water pump and the draining of the growbed back to the tank does create splashing water, you could get away with less... but IMO, more air is better...

Two reasons, 1) oxygen is required for the nitrification process hence additional aeration helps with speeding up the cycling process 2) when temperature of the water increases, there is less dissolved oxygen available for fishes, hence you may find that you may need to supply additional air compared to when the water temperature is cooler...

A cheap and possibly one that you might have... I have seen someone use a beach umbrella to cover up his growbeds... I believe they were IBC growbeds as well... I think the beach umbrella covered the IBC quite well.. Just a thought...

BB, the shade cloth is a 70% shade cloth. We cop a lot of sun in the marsh and it is often a few degs higher than melb! The more shaded side is the north side and the less shaded is south side. I find that this protects the plants during the hottest part of the day and then in the arvo, from about 3pm onwards, the plants get the afternoon sun with most of the bight from the sun gone. Haven't had any plants die on me under the shade cloth in fact they are going off!

You are welcome anytime and I will be on hols until end of Jan.

Quachy

Hey guys, few things, i'll start with todays test results
ph 8
amm 1
ites 1
ates 5
temp 22c

Ammonia is keeping steady but ites keep rising by about .25 per day
Ates looked to be on the higher side of the 5 mark so looks like i'm getting there.
The zuchini plant that is in my GB is starting to green up nicely and looking much healthier.
I'm still not feeding or adding anything like seasol, iron etc....

Went to bunnings today and found chelated iron, pool salt, and bought some seedlings to plant in GB.

Bit late to be asking this but what is the method for salting the FT. I just measured 500g for my 500lts and sprinkled around the tank. Should i have desolved it first????

Was going to plant the seedlings tonight also but was not sure if i should seeing as I was going to be salting the system, I bought a strawberry plant some beetroot, leeks, and a capsicum. Will probably plant them tomorrow morning as well as put up my shading for the GB.
Pretty sure my shade cloth is 70% and i'll make a tunnel frame and leave the bottom parts of the shade cloth unfixed so i can roll them up and down as needed.

Well yes you should have dissolved the salt first if adding the salt to a tank with fishes... the undissolved salt crystals can burn the fishes if they happen to rest on the crystals. If you are salting only to 1ppt, most plants would take it alright...

Thanks for the tip

regards
matt

Firstly, I had no probs with the salt. It was dissolved by the morning and still have not killed a fish.

My readings today 8AM were:
PH: 8
Amm: 1
Ites: 4
Ates:7.5
Salt: 1ppt

Quick question about the salt. How long with the system stay at 1ppt and how to you test for salt?

It seems that my Ammonia reading was starting to come down from 1 it was on the lighter side of 1. May be back up tonight but I wont be able to test till tomorrow arvo as i'm going to try and catch me some big fish, well I'd settle for one legal cod. Bah i'd be happy with any cod havn't been up to Toc in ages.
Nitrites look to be going through the roof but the Ates are definately on the rise too.
Looks like i'm getting close!

Got the shade cloth GB cover on yesterday and it looks really good. Hopefully it works as good as it looks.

Photos!:

sorry for the soor necks guys. I'll try again.

Nice one BB!

Salt usually stays in the system for a while... plants do take up some salt but not a lot... topping up using fresh water does not usually dilute the concentration...

The tester is called a salinity refractometer. Found a recent thread below, but search the forum for more info...
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6718&hilit=refractometer

In regards to the current ammonia levels, I would have thought it would have come down more quickly in the warmer weathers. I don't think you answered my earlier question about aeration. Is water pump/growbed drains back to your tank the only form of aeration?? I am no expert, but just speaking from experience. I had a smaller system doing fishless cycling a while back, ammonia levels were high and my only form of aeration was the water pump. Put into the tank an extra air pump, the ammonia levels came down from 4 to 1 overnight... from then, the ammonia and nitrite levels came down quite quickly...

I believe Rupe has posted an scientific explanation showing how oxygen combines with ammonia molecules to form the nitrite molecules... so with the lack of aeration, there is less dissolved oxygen in the water, hence the nitrification process is somewhat slowed.

+1 for me.

BB as I mentioned earlier, I would run the pump either 24/7 or have it running flat out during the day and then off at 10pm back on at 6am. The drop from the flood drain should give it plenty of O2 for the amount of fish you have and also help speed up the nitrification process.

Quachy

pH 8 also inhibits cycling.