Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

looking good mate

Whats the latest champ? Any progress?

Since my last post, I completed the system the following weekend, being 6th & 7th of October. I got the system going using a small pump I had lying around, not really adequate but good enough to get water flowing.





I have already encountered two problems with the design of this system. Firstly, because my standpipes come out from the bottom of my GB and as the GB are placed directly on the ground it made plumbing the system really difficult but also I was not able to check any of the joins for leaks.

My other problem, which will continue to be ongoing for some time, is as a result of the FT being at ground level. This causes problems as the area in which I am creating this system is very sandy and until I have the system completed and can stabilise the sand, the wind continually blows this sand into my tank. I am currently using the cutout from the TF as a lid in conjunction with some shade cloth to minimise this issue.

I managed to fill the growbeds with bluemetal using one slightly overloaded trailer. I did a rather poor atempt at washing this using a sprinkler and then shovelled near enough to 115 shovel fulls into each of the GB.



As you can see from the pictures that follow, my attempt at washing the bluemetal had little impact as within less than 1 hour of turning the pump on the water wash cloudy.






The following week, this cloudyness had already dissapeared.

From the first day I turned on the pump I have been adding 1 cap of seasol per growbed into the water surrounding the media guard and standpipe every 1-2 days.

It wasn't until the first week after starting the pump that I first added plants to the GB's and 4 small yabbies.

In the second week, the weekend just gone, I added another 16 small yabbies and have been continuing with the seasol. The plants have at this point already started to show some signs of yellowing from what I guess is a lack of nutrients. As I am writing this I remember that you can also apply the seasol directly to the leaves via a spray bottle, I will have to go and check to bottle to work out what the correct dilution is.

Today my new pump and water test kit turned up. Will hopefully get the pump installed this weekend.

I have performed my first test but am unsure what these reults really mean or if I am reading the results correctly.

ph- 8.2
amm- 0
nitrite- 5.0
nitrate- 40



Are these results normal at this point in the cycling process and what results are we hoping to ultimately obtain? I do realise that these may be different from system to system, but what are the ballpark figures?

My system was filled with bore water which tends to be hard around here, as is scheme water, which is drawn from limestone. I remember reading that this will result in a high ph. Is this correct or is the high ph just a result of the cyling process?

wow your progress is fantastic!

I like your design.

Your test results confuse me so we need to delve deeper on your development me thinks..

The yabbies you have introduced no way have produced the levels you are seeing in your tests in the short time its been running.

Have you introduced another source of amm? I think from memory your IBC's had urea in them.. maybe that has produced the nitrite and nitrate values we are seeing here.

What is interesting is there is next to no amm which tells me your on the back half of a cycle, Id say your amm spiked.. then followed nitrite and then the nitrate (as nature intended), so because you are only testing now you have missed the rise in amm and now what you are seeing is the decline of nitrite and the increase of nitrate.

Just as it should.

Your amm source is what is boggling me. Can you shed any light chooka?

I am using two different ibc which contained two different substances. The GB originally contained canola oil which was pressure cleaned and scrubbed out but I don't think that would be any source of ammonia. However, as you remembered correctly, the FT originally contained adblue which was simply washed clean by squirting out the excess adblue that was left behind in the tank, which probably left some residue resulting in the added source of ammonia in the beginning.

Yea the conolla is no prob at all.

The main thing to remember is this is a good thing, I may be mistaken (and I hope others chime in) is that you seem to be cycling, I mean you have a nitrate colony establishing and thats fantastic. And amm seems to be gone.. which means the conversion is active.

Looks like you have landed the easy road with this one mate. Sweet!

Also thinking back, the water was put into the tank the week prior to intalling the pump when I made my first major portion of the build. Would this have started the cycling process? If so that would mean that the system is now in about the third week

This probably also means that the build up of sand and grass clippings is actually about 1 weeks worth, and not 24 hours as previously mentioned.

Yep. If the amm source was there in the begining... as possibly suspected from the urea. The cycle had begun so to speak.

Nothing wrong with that.

If you had of added fish in the beginning... different story.



Id monitor your levels every couple of days and report back so we (and yourself) can follow your findings, Id like to see what happens from this moment on, and you might as well make most of that new test kit.

Your PH is in the top end so the water will prove toxic to your yabb's if temps rise to a certain degree but they do prefer and are much happier in a alkaline environment as low PH will soften the exoskelleton and cause disease and possible deaths.

Your in a good place I believe so keep on testing and we can follow you through it.

For interest sakes I perfomed another water test today. All results other than the nitrates remained the same. The nitrate level seemed to dorp dramatically. I had then added some seasol and decided to perform the test again about 1 hour later to make sure the results were true and found that there was little variation.

ph- 8.2
amm- 0
nitrite- 5.0
nitrate- 5.0





Again out of interest, I thought I would just test the ph of our mains water. I first performed the test with the low ph bottle and then performed with the high ph bottle. It had a reading higher than I thought it would which surprised me. Makes me think I am going to have trouble keeping the ph down when top ups and/or water changes are needed.

While performing these tests and giving the yabbies a feed of carrots, I found one of them climbing up the pump output pipe.

To stop any of them escaping, I firstly cabble tied the pump output pipe and power cable together. I then got hold of a platic plate, made a cut to the middle of the plate and cut a hole the size of the pipe and cable in the middle. I then placed this above the water line around pipe and cable and secured it so that it formed a cone around the pipe similar to what they use on ships ropes to stop rats.

Novel adaption, hope it works. System looking good. No matter how clean you think you have the gravel there will still be some dust to turn the water cloudy. Cheers

Since my last post I have, I now have had my new pump up and running for about 2 weeks. During that time I have performed a few water tests and added some chelated iron.



About 4 days ago I got hold of a venturi vacuum so I did a bit of vacuuming of the bottom of the tabk to remove some of the sand that has built up in there. Upon inspection of the collected sand I found 10 gastroliths, (the photo that follows only show 9 but I found another later), telling me that I now have five less yabbies. During a quick count of the tank I managed to count 14 yabbies, I know 5 have been converted to yabby food so from the 21 I had in the tank I have two unaccounted for.



I was then playing around with things, as I am sure everyone else does, when I was distracted by the kids for a short period. During this period I had diverted the return water from the GB away from the FT and lost over half of the total system water. Nothing to drastic for me at this period but just a reminder to myself to be careful.

I replaced the water with town water and then took another test a couple of days later.

Originally I thought my limited plant growth and yellowing was just due to low iron uptake, but my plants are looking very sad and have progressed to leaves turning black and dying. Is this simply due to high ph and nutirient lookout?







I am a patient person but things are not looking so good. I am really keen to get some fish in the tank but with the high ph and low plant performance I am reluctant to get any.

You coming this way anytime soon charlie? Hopefully everything will be sorted by the timeand you do and you might be able to bring some fish this way?