Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You can cycle quicker with urea though

thats the problem.

i want it all
i want it now.



but for those of us that do, urea would be the answer

You can make red wine quickly too....


I think theres a lot more to a healthy aquaponic system than just nitrosomas and nitrobacter....... Damn, hope I'm not becoming a purist.

you'll be driving a Volvo next

Tis alright, some of us are just not old enough to be patient.

Quick update on my new setup.

I noticed that the water was looking a bit on the dodgy side so decided to do a water test 2 days ago.

Ammonia was extremely high (don't have the actual number but was in the deadly range)
Nitrite was almost zero
Nitrate registered as zero.

I performed a 50% water change and waited 24 hours before doing another test.

Tested last night with the following results.

Ammonia was still high, but (as expected) was considerably less then the previous test.
Nitrite was zero
Nitrate was zero

Then it occurred to me..... My Nitrate test has Liquid A (7 drops), Powder B (1 scoop) and Liquid C (7 drops). I had actually just put in 7 drops of A, 1 scoop of B and then 7 Drops of A again. That will never work. I guess I made the mistake the night before as well which accounts for the zero reading the first time I tested.

I redid my Nitrate and found that it is at approx 40ppm.

So I have high ammonia and high(ish) Nitrate. This leads me to assume that my water in not cycling enough to remove the ammonia and I need more plants for the Nitrate. So last night I did the following.

At present my system has been filling for 3 mins in the hour 14 times each day (my timer has 14 settings available). I increased the size of the drainage hole and now it takes 7 mins to fill, with more liquid flowing through it. I am hoping that this will allow for more ammonia to be converted. I have stopped feeding the fish for a few days and have planted tomato and Honeydew Mellon in the system to help mop up the Nitrate.

Now I wait and monitor to see how that goes.

S

How'd it go?