Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Guys,

Well, I stumbled onto Aquaponics as I was looking into ways to grow veggies indoors over the winter. The garden at our house was a huge hit this Summer with my three kids and I want to keep it going year-round. I researched for a couple months between reading books, youtube videos, and endless hours of reading on few different forums. I've now jumped head first into this new hobby. I've started with a CHIFT PIST system with 55gal barrels as the FT and Sump. The Grow Beds are another blue barrel halved and framed out with some 2x4's I had laying around. Here are some pics of the setup:

Welcome to the forum Aaron. Your research paid off and it looks like you're off to a good start . Might need a bit more bracing down low on the legs for the grow bed stand (tough to tell what's down there though).

Here are the grow beds with Bell siphon.

Here is the plumbing including my small filter tub.

The outlet is at the bottom of the filter tub with the water having to travel through two layers of Matala to get to the outlet.

Bottom Layer of Matala - This is a newer pic with the system already running

Top Layer of the filter - Pic taken during setup

DIY Venturi added to the inlet pipe of the fish tank. There is enough of a swirling action the all solids end up going though the SLO.

I added 25 goldfish to start the cycling process. I'm three weeks into the cycling and have not had any deaths in the tank. One fish died when he jumped out (I now keep a lid on the FT).

Here is the plumbing to and from the growbeds.

Design has slightly changed and I have added a second 90deg elbow to the farther away grow bed.

Here are my Growbeds. Ended up going with Hydroton as the media. Currently using a 240W LED Grow light that I got from Craigslist. Currently my only plants are clones of tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers from my summer garden and some strawberry roots. I also transplanted one pepper plant that was small. I'm trying some clones straight in the media and others in a DIY cloner tub. My Bell Siphon guards ended up way too tall. I'll cut them down someday.

Here are some of the strawberry roots after 8 days

DIY Cloner (Opaque tub with a big airstone inside)

Some roots have started

Here are my charts (PH, Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate) through today, which is day 20 with the 25 goldfish being in the system. All readings were taken with an API master test kit. I used well water from my house and added 5 gallons of water from the lake behind my house. All water was added 4 days prior to adding the goldfish. Water temps from the start were around 68 deg until day 12 when I added heat and bumped it up to around 76 deg.

My PH started at 8.2 and has pretty much stayed there. I'm hoping it will start to drop soon as the bacteria gets more established.

Ammonia only rose to 1.0 ppm (Day 9) before it gradually went back down to zero (Day 16).

Nitrites started to rise at Day 9, maxed out at 5.0 ppm from days 12 through 16 and has tested back at zero as of today (Day 20). I tested the Nitrites twice (in different locations) to verify zero.



Nitrates also started showing up on Day 9 and have gradually risen. I did some digging in the media yesterday which probably accounts for the drop in numbers on the test today. I'm sure that they'll keep going up.



A few questions:
1. Should I be concerned that the Ammonia only went up to 1ppm?
2. Is this a reasonable cycle time for bacteria to establish or should I expect more Ammonia and/or Nitrite spikes?
3. Should I worry about the PH just yet or just give it a few weeks to see what happens?

Thanks for looking,
Aaron

Thanks Scotty!!

It's pretty sturdy as there are supports under the growbeds tying the legs together, but I will probably end up with braces down low too. Thanks.

I wouldn't worry that the ammonia only went up to one and the time to cycle can vary. Even though it looks cycled I'd go easy on rapid changes for a while. It's pretty common to have some spikes early on so if you can, try to spread changes out a bit to give the bacteria time to adjust.

I'd wait on the pH for a few weeks. Iron will be unavailable so you'll probably need to spray apply iron to avoid the pH lockout or get EDDHA which turns the water red and makes it tough to read your tests...

If you do decide to adjust the pH, do it gradually by adjusting the pH of your top up water to 6.5 with HCL (Hydrochloric aka Muriatic acid) don't make the changes directly in the system. Once the top up water is adjusted, let it stand for several hours or longer and adjust back to 6.5 if needed. When it's fairly stable you can add to you system. Just keep doing this each time you add topup water and you'll get the pH down. Try not to lower the pH more than 0.4 pH points at any one topup.

Hi Aaron! I'm new to Backyard Aquaponics (and aquaponics in general). I am now starting to set up my first system, and I'm using a 55 gallon drum for my fish tank. Since you're using drums also, I thought you'd be a good person to ask, what bulkhead fittings did you use? I'm not sure the lifeguard aquatic fittings will work well against the curvature of the drums. Did you have to do anything special? How does yours work? Any leaks?

I used uniseals for every connection through the barrels. They work great with no leaks. I didn't use any silicone or tape or magic voodoo, just the proper sized hole, uniseal, and pipe. They are a lot lower in cost than the bulkhead fittings as well.

The curve of the drum wasn't an issue, in fact I used 1" uniseals in my 2" pvc supply pipe (for my growbed) without any issues (that has a much sharper curve to it).