Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice work Janet.... It's great to see all of these system coming to fruition, after all this is what it's all about isn't it...

Now I feel like going and pulling out a fish or two for dinner...

got any pancake mix?

Love your set up and amazed at the number of fish you got supplying all the good stuff.

So the reason for the mods is boredom Janet ( a true aquaponian)

Think I need an AP fix starting early next week

I love the 'macano set' style construction, you can add things, mix and match shorten really clean and easily... well done.

Thanks, All!

Boredome, Les? Well some boredom, but also, part of my eternal quest to lower nitrates and avoid the ammonia spikes. As a general principle, it doesn't matter how big the growbeds are if you don't move the water through them. I have been suspicious that at times the siphons don't shut off promptly, meaning that the flooding and draining is happening less frequently than I designed. That in turn means less waste is being processed by the bacteria.

Janet, did the beach sand increase the salinity of your fish water? I had that going through my mind when I first read that you were planning on using it in your filter towers. (Lots cheaper than the swimming pool filter sand, but probably lots more salt and other minerals.)

Tell hubby he doesn't know whats good! Just eat it like you play the harmonica or eat corn on the cob. Start at one end and go back and forth!

Kevin

JP, nice work indeed. Full circle now in what 9 months? Those were the first you had eaten wern't they?
You said no off taste, you didn't purge them at all did you?
How many fishies are you feeding now?

Hi Kevin,
Well actually, it's sand from the bay, not technically the beach. So the nearby body of water is brackish, not seawater. Also, I took my bucketful from further away from the water. I did however run a salinity test just for you. I'm at 0.04% or 0.4ppt, but I probably had a trace of salt left from when I put some in as a preventative early on. I did not rinse it before I used it, but I wasn't overly concerned because of the above reasons, and also because tilapia will live in near seawater. Not that seawater would be good for the plants, of course.

Hi GotFish,
I built the prototype in November and cycled with goldfish, went into construction of the 'big' system in December, and received these fish as fingerlings at the end of January. So turnaround was somewhere between 6 and 9 months, depending on how you count. There should now be 41 fish remaining in the grow-out system, plus 3 breeders in the loveshack and nunnery, plus 40-50 fingerlings hanging out in the other half of the loveshack. I did not purge at all--it was a spur of the moment decision to eat them because the one I happened to catch first to cull was a beauty. :smacks lips: Yes, these fish were the first meal of fresh tilapia we've had. Mmmm-mmmm. Nice and tasty and moist, too. Somehow the grown-in-China-flash-frozen-shipped-across-the-planet-tilapia seems drier. I shall forever be spoiled.

Well thanks to Monya, VB, and You, I can no longer look at my fish without picturing them on a plate. Pretty fishies has taken on a whole new meaning.
Did they cause any fishie smell in the house as you cooked them?
One of the reasons I like Yellow Perch, no overwhelming oder dee fish.

No fishie smell in the house what-so-ever. Something to be said for freshness!!

Why worry about the fish odor, just means my inside cats will be more active than normal! (They love it when I visit Capt'n D's, and share some with them! I usually buy them an extra fillet! Now that is being spoilt!!!)

Kevin

Janet,
I wasn't too concerned about the salinity levels rising too high for your fish, as you're raising Tilapia, and I figured that the size of your system would moderate whatever rise occurred. I was mostly curious as to whether or not it caused any decernible increases.
Since the installation of the sand filters are you seeing any more drops in the ammonia levels, and are you getting a higher reading of DO in your water? (Just more questions of curiousity, just like the monkey on TV.)
Kevin

Hi Kevin,
I can't measure DO, but wasn't expecting an impact to DO with the sand.
Ammonia went from 0.5 to 0-0.25. No spikes since the auto-siphons were reconfigured. :fingerscrossed:
Nitrite went from 0.25 to 0.
Nitrate went from 400 to maybe 300. It's hard to measure because I have to dilute the water with distilled water, and I have to scale the dilutions to try to get a color I can read. And for the record, I believe I was over 1000 at the worst of it, but I did a water change and a top-off between the 1000-reading and the 400-reading.

It looks like the beginning of a favorable trend, but I'm eager to see that nitrate drop further and see if running at a lower nitrate improves the quality of the plant growth. Too much nitrogen will cause weak growth.

Janet, I'm interested in you experiment too, be nice to know of a simple way to reduce high nitrate levels which didn't mean a great turnover of water

Les, I'll keep testing the water, although it is hard to run this as a truly scientific experiment. There are so many variables that shift around every day. I'm keeping food constant, but even as the existing plants grow, they should demand more nitrate. I guess to really tell if this work, I should set up a sand column in a separate system with no fish, no plants, and water with a known level of nitrates. Then circulate the water and provide no additional inputs.

I need a bigger sunroom.