Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Today's test results:
Ph 6.4
Amm 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40

What's a desirable level for nitrates?

40 is good. If everything is growing well, keep it up. ดี ๆ

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After lots of heavy rain, the water table came up, crushing and lifting the sump. I'd got slack with keeping it full and paid the price.


There was a lot of ground/rain water in my system, the solids were super fine, the filter didn't trap them and lots ended up on the roots in the DWC slowing clogging them up.

That was a week ago, things seemed to have cleared up now, readings are stable at:
PH 6.4 - 6.8,
Amm 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 40

Growth has been good, especially the cucumbers, mint and kang kong.

It's been a busy few months, I neglected the system a little, as we were busy opening our wood oven pizza restaurant. Now that it's open I have a goal to grow as much of the veggies as possible.

Growth slowed a lot due to low nutrients and poor filtration. The coco worked OK, but eventually became clogged with solids. I've changed the coco in two GBs, using the old stuff for wicking beds which are going well.

PH dropped to 6. To correct this I tried adding biochar from rice husks, which is around 9 PH. I placed a sock full of biochar in the filter. After two days there was no change, so I added another two socks. After another few days PH had moved up a touch to 6.2.

To correct PH a bit more and add pottasium, I placed a sock with wood ash (from our pizza oven) in the filter and after two days the PH is now 6.6 - 6.8. I've now removed all biochar and ash from the system.

As an experiment, I've been brewing up worm casting teas. I use a sock of worm castings, some EM, molasses added to about 70lts of AP water, then fed oxygen for 24 hrs until there is a nice foam. Then add it to the system, as well as foliar feeding.

This seems to be adding iron - because after more than a month of not adding any iron I'm not seeing any deficiencies. In the past I'd be adding iron weekly. It would also be adding micro nutrients.

The weather is hot and getting hotter. Yesterday was 40, overnight low was 27. I'm managing to get my water down to 28 overnight, but it climbs to around 31 by the end of the day, despite doing my best to seal everything up during the heat of the day. In this climate I think insulated DWC's at ground level are the only way to go, similar to what Dasboot is doing.

Nitrates are sitting on 40 - 80, plants are nice and green, doing well considering the heat. I will try to post pics in the coming days.

Congratulations on getting your restaurant up and running Plachon . Keep us posted on how the system does as you try to grow more

Molasses contains a bunch of minerals, including quite a lot of iron, so that would definitely be helping. Your system looks awesome, Plachon! I'm looking forward to seeing your updated photos, the stuff you've built is really inventive.

Congratulations on the restaurant!

In this climate I think insulated DWC's at ground level are the only way to go, similar to what Dasboot is doing.


We have had a couple of days at 39c and i see they are predicting 40/41c next,our night time temps are going down to 22c, the trickle tower picks this up lower the temp,during the day with everything painted white and insulated we see temps rise only up to 24c,i will note what happens next week if we get up into the 40c.

Thanks for all the positive comments.

It's been 40 everyday for the past week, some nights it only gets down to 27. Water temps are a high of 32 and low of 28. I've tried everything, but can't get them any lower.

Nonetheless growth is OK and plants are generally healthy, especially the mint and basil - which we'll need for the restaurant.


I'll stick to tropical vegies for the next month or so, then start with some lettuces and rocket.

The coco coir is working, it doesn't breakdown but does put a lot of fibers through the system. Screens around the media guard help with this. I've switched to using a chipped variety. It does color the water a lot though.


The beds became full with solids, so I replaced the coir, using the old stuff in wicking beds. There is a reservoir on the bottom, then a screen, with the coir in the middle and a mix of coir dust, rice husks, bio char and worm castings on top. I use AP water on these, along with waste from the filter and worm tea. Growth has been similar to the AP beds. I've planted Thai herbs, kangkong, with tomatoes and papaya self seeding from the castings. I've used terracotta pots as they're cooler.


I'm really happy with bamboo frame. The poles are borax treated, then painted with cheap acrylic. Normally even treated bamboo will not last long if exposed, but my frame looks fine, with only a single crack that can be sealed with paint (this part is most exposed to the sun). The bamboo growing behind is convenient for a simple trellis.




Some of the cucumbers are being attacked by aphids, with assistance from ants. I sprayed them with a chilli, garlic, soap concoction which killed the aphids, but the ants trying to get them reestablished. Any advice?

It's looking really good Plachon!

Can you bait the ants, or spread something like vaseline / petroleum jelly around the growbed supports and edges so the ants can't climb up? Baits are safer than sprays, and more effective on ants as they'll carry the poison back to their nest.

I tried the petroleum jelly, it's stopping the ants, but might be a bit late for the cucumbers. Thanks for the tip.

Glad I could help! Hopefully the cucumbers will rebound, and if not at least your other plants won't be next on the aphids' menu. The ants will just have to go farm them somewhere else.

The system is going well, I moved it to a sunnier spot a couple of months ago which has helped a lot. This meant a smaller sump, which didn't have the capacity for 3 flood and drain beds. To increase this I added buckets which are linked to the sump level, so that the level fluctuates. It's difficult to explain, but hopefully ppl can understand from the pic below.



I put some toms and papaya in the buckets, besides the fluctuating height, there is a constant flow from the top.


These were growing at an incredible rate, until recently when some of the Toms stared getting skinny, curled leaves. I've read this is not necessarily a problem but it seems to be worse. Can anybody offer suggestions?


I'm trying an alternative to foam floating rafts, by suspending coco chunks over the GB and adding aeration.




I've been trialing this idea for about a week Toms, so far so good. I'll post pics in the coming days.

How did the tomatoes work out?

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They grew really well, but produced too few flowers, then some became diseased from too much water (this was in the F&D bed also). I think toms are tricky in AP, foliar sprays are probably the way to go.

But the coco suspended by the netting worked well. The toms grew at the same rate as those in the F&D GB, then I replaced most of these with 'Pak Boong', which has gone really well even without aeration. Next I will try the same method using rice husks.

Media is one area (of nearly every area) that I'm still mulling over. My missus suggested coconut husks but I think it would intruduce to much extra 'dirt' into a larger system. What about those rock hard Thai beds that use coir for the filling? I wonder if they would stay held together once the plastic covering is removed?

My first thought was to use that plastic matting stuff that's made up from plastic 'threads' in a similar way to a coir mattress (I'm hopeless at remembering the names of things) as it should float nicely and allow roots to both penetrate and pass through. Hopefully someone can put me out of my misery and remind me what it's called.