Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

With syphons you wouldn't normally use a timer i.e. the pump would run full time.

If you want to use the timer however, you could drill a small hole at the bottom of your standpipes to allow the water to drain out after the pump stops.

I see, I will try to run the pump full time.

In the mean time some updates:

I have made a small greenhouse over the growbeds. We still have some frost here at night (-1°C, -2°C).

I've started testing the water, so I know when I can put some fish in

Thursday 17/03:
Ph: 7
Nh3: 0
No2: 0
No3: 0

Sunday 20/03
Ph: 7.5
Nh3: 0.5 mg/l
No2: 0
N03: 0

Hi Struisje

I may have missed it, but what are you using as an ammonia source to kick start the nitrogen cycle before you add your fish.

Initially I threw in a bit of fishfood. According to a professor at a local university here that should also start the bacteria growth.

After a week or so the neighbour's 8 year old son caught some tiny fish in the stream behind our house and put in about 10 or so. Because they are very tiny and very few I doubt there will be an ammonia spike high enough to kill them.

Watch out with adding things from a local stream; it might introduce parasites to your system. My fish have probably had parasites since before I got them, but I've had some unexplained fish deaths that might be (at least partially) attributed to parasites.

My personal experience is that it's not a problem to occasionally have the growbed fully flooded for hours. But this was during the winter, after my big pump broke and the old small pump clogged up so much that it took a day to fill the growbed to autosiphoning level.

How are the plants doing? Is your cover keeping the tomato plant from freezing?

I knew I shouldn't use fish caught in the wild and I didn't think about it... stupid

Anyway.
The plants are doing fine (the tomato plants died before I made the cover but everything else is full of life)

Here are some photo updates:


The cover I made over the growbeds to keep the plants safe from frost.


The cover opens on the front and on the backside for easy access.


The plants are doing fine, Strawberry plants on this picture

I've reveived my seaweed extract today and added a little bit to the system. It stains the water to a brown color, but I guess that is normal. The water was really clear before I added the seaweed extract, it cleared up a lot since last week (I didn't wash the clay pellets)

Looking good, shame about the tomatoes but I like the mini greenhouse, very nice

Looking great - love the mini green house. Don't worry too much about the wild fish, although next time a salt bath in 6ppt(?) is recommended somewhere else on the forum...

But don't do that to your system now, because it might kill the strawberries!

I will keep an eye on the watervalues, it will be a few weeks before I can introduce some real fish.
I will buy some goldfish I think, or some species that will do well in bad conditions, that way I won't kill any fish if I do something wrong.
If everything goes well this summer, I plan to build a bigger, permanent greenhouse (5m by 3m I think) next year with a 3000 to 5000 L system.
But first we'll have to see how my testsystem performs.

Here's an update:






As you can see: the plants grow, but quite slowly. THe plants I have in soil grow a lot faster. I think this is because my system is still very young.
Lettuce is doing good, some other plants are doing fine too.

But some plants are starting to produce flowers (like the spinache and the cauliflower). Why is this happening? I read somewhere it is a survival-strategy due to lack of nutrients.
I have about 35 fish in a 800 liter system, they are fed on a daily basis.
although the first two months I only had 10 fish.
I haven't added anything other then seasol.
Should I add iron or other supplements?

The water is nice and clean. 4 deaths in the first 3 months.

I'm learning a lot, running my first system. I have learned that the first few centimeters of the medium should stay dry. the first weeks it flooded above the medium and some plants had rotting leafs.

I learned that plants should get more sunlight. Because most of you on this forum are located in Australia, I understand why you use shadecloth. Me, however, I'm in Belgium, the sun is not as bright here and we have lower temps. I think my system would have done better in full sunlight. Now it gets a lot of shadow from some nearby trees.

Still learning from my mistakes.
I have the system running for about 10 months now.
We're smack in the middle of winter, we haven't had any real frost yet but we probably will have some before the end of winter.
I still have a few plants, some colliflower popped up, I guess there were some seeds in the growbed. I also have some rainbow chard still going ok.
THe fish are all doing fine. No deaths in months and the water is really clean.
I stopped feeding about a month ago, the water is so cold they won't eat anyway. They are in some sort of hybernation. I keep the pumps running to provide oxygen, I don't really need to filter the water, besides, I think it's too cold for the bacteria anyway...

My plans for the future:
If the fish survive the winter I'll be planting again in februari-march
I'm dreaming of building a passive solar greenhouse like zsazsa did but the budget is really tight right now and the wife won't let me :-)
Maybe next year... then I will be able to grow all year long.

UPDATE: Winter came hard
Temperatures went to -20°C



My fishtank is completely frozen



Check out this youtube clip




Yes there are still fish under that ice.
I estimate the ice at 20 cm thick
If there wasn't an IBC on top I could stand on it.

The plants left in the system are probably dead. But we'll check on them when it gets warmer again.

Next year I need to address that situation
I want to build a passive solar greenhouse where the rectangle is drawn
I want to put a 3000L fishtank in the unused horse stables.
Pipework will go underground to avoid freezing.

Just keep testing every now and then... keep an eye on your ammonia... as you say, the bacteria will be somewhat dormant... but the fish are still excreting ammonia.. just by "breathing"...

and keep some open surface water in your tank..an air stone near the surface should keep a small area "ice free" - which you need to do to avoid low DO