Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a few questions about my system. When I took off the greenhouse dome I had a algae bloom and a ph spike from 7.6 up to 8.5. I covered the tank with a brown tarp and now my water is nice and clear and ph about 7.4. I can now see the fish when I feed and have noticed that they now range from 8"-12". I didnt realize they had grown so much even in the winter. My water temp is getting up around 65 deg during the day now and they are eating around 90 grams a day at this time. I have about 250gallons of grow bed space and 1100 gallons of tank. My plants aren't growing very well except the watercress. Should I get more fish? Currently about 12 lbs of fish. I also dose weekly with about 1/4 cup of maxicrop. Is this enough? The one thing I can say is I have not lost one catfish from what I first bought. Current readings are Ammo 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 1-2, PH 7.6

Hey, MM! Glad to see your system is healthy. Looks to me (from your nitrate readings) that you have too much plant growing for the amount of waste your fish are putting out. According to my numbers, you are feeding enough to support about 2 square meters of growbed, although that varies hugely with types of plants and density of planting. I've found water cress is a real nutrient sucker...so are tomatoes and summer squash.

I am going to thin out the cress and see if that helps