Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My system looked cycled quickly at first too. Still keep an eye on your parameters.

Sure, I'm measuring everything every day.

Today I'm a little worried, parameters are okay, same than yesterday, but fish haven't eaten anything. Water has a new brownish colour to it and apart from not eating, fish also behave differently, they don't go all in one pack but swim separate from each other for the most part.

They've always eaten ferociously and all of the sudden they don't anymore, is this common? I hope they're not sick.

Hiya 3doggg, what test kit are you using? Might be worth testing on a known source of ammonia.
System looks great by the way.

Api freshwater master test kit

What could I find that has a known amount of ammonia? You're telling me this so I can check that the test works right?

Thank you!

How's the system travelling 3dogggggggggg?

Hello Skeggley, thank you for the answer, I'm sorry that I haven't updated the thread, neither have I come to the forums since I posted last update.

I'm not home at the moment so I can't upload any photos, I'll do it in a few days when I'm back.

The system is doing great, considering it's my first one heheh. After about 6 months I think I've managed to lower the pH, which is now arround 7-7.4.

It's now winter and air temperatures are around 0 degrees celcius every night, some nights even less, so the fish are eating very little, but the fact that they are still eating is a great sign I think. During the day air temperatures go around 10-15 C, so it's not that bad.

I've had great success with some plants too, with great growth, such as chard, different types of lettuce, radish, cellery.. which I've been eating and still do regularly. Some other plants haven't grown as well, but the pH has been most of the time above 8 so good growth can't really be expected with all plants.

As for water chemistry I'm happy, I managed to fix the nitrites spike I had, everything's been great since.

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrites 0ppm
Nitrates 40-120 ppm

As for the black solider fly larvae I managed to produce some, but not as much as I wanted, I'm improving the "composter" after the winter and I expect to get much better results. I think the mistake was to add soil, larvae were pupating inside the composter rather than climbing up the ramps on the sides, I hope that's the mistake anyway because that's what I'm changing for the spring.

I can't remember anything else major of the top of my head, if you want to see some pics let me know and I'll upload them after I come back home.

Cheers.

Ones a one legged duck swim in circles?