Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

well ive been looking at everyones setups for weeks now so only fair i show you mine i guess [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH AND SMILING EYES] pretty much 2 220litre barrel fishtanks joined together to control water levels pumping up to 3 half barrel growbeds and returns to fish tank by bell syphons nice and simple [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH AND COLD SWEAT] still need 2 more lights over left and right gb and no fish yet mid cycle. ph is 7.5 temps about 20deg average ammonia is at 0 nirite 3.3ppl and im guessing ther are nitrates as plants are doing quite well but nutrafin test kit nitrate test is thrown off by nitrites so just have to be patient. ammonia to nitrites seemed quite fast but nitries havent really changed for around 2 weeks but no worries all fun and games [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH AND SMILING EYES] so heres what ive got.....




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Looks good

Does that shed get any sunlight at all? If so I would price out replacing half the roof with clear plastic and possibly save $$$$ on the lighting.

Neat little system - must be hard in the Northern hemisphere during winter - guess thats why a lot of you UK US people do inside systems.

Jayendra,it isn’t much in the summer in the UK,it just stays lighter for longer so you can see how cold and wet it is out side….

no i was thinking of extending system a bit outside but only get about 4/5hours of sun max and thats if it shows up lol and id have to control flooding from the rain!! the lightings only costing around £10 a week i think heating the water in winters going to be the expensive part but hopefully should balance out bringing my food bill down??
should be moving house within a year so this is practice for the big garden and ap greenhouse
thanks for comments quite surprised how helpfull people on this forum are especially with newbies like me and ther million questions ha ha


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so after fishlessly cycling for past 6 weeks nitrites have finally vanished couple of questions if anyone can help??
1am i now ok to put fish in a few at a time as not to crash the system?? or should i add more ammonia to see how it deals with that is there an acceptable time for ammonia-nitrite-nitrate conversion??
2 i seem to have a few deficiencys popping up i have dosed system with maxicrop+iron will these issues be resolved when i have fish in the system?? thanks mike


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Heres a good paper on how many fish to add
http://www.aquaponic.com.au/Aquaponic%2 ... %202.0.pdf

But its all through this forum as 1 fish to 20 liters of grow bed

thanks jayendra that was actually my next question but i was more getting at is my system ready for the fish having just converted the nitrites or is there anything else i need to do??


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I think you are meant to add fish after the nitrites disappear.
So if you add .25 ammonia you should see zero again in 24hours. I think...

i put some ammonia in yday and was zero within 12 hours nitrites havent gone from that dose yet tho. going to give it a week of dosing and see how fast it all converts to be on safe side then add them i suppose i can wait another week thanks for your help


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well finally got some fishys just started off with 4 golfish and 3 ghost koi was pretty worried as ph had dropped to 6 from 7 this morning but id bought the fish so they had to go in seem happy enough seen 1 trying to nibble a stray clay ball so threw a bit of food in there n they snapped it up


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got healthy bacteria when PH drops - its doing its thing.
You can raise it with doses of lime - be careful - read up how much

so will the ph continually drop now?? i have potassium hydroxide ph up product and added some yesterday little to much raised ph by about .5 and i think this resulted in a fish death this morning hopefully no more will go they are all huddled together and seem to bolt around at any little disturbance hope the little guys will be ok


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You need some slow releasing stuff like shell grit in a stocking
dang about the fish death

sorry if this is a real stupid question but can i just use regular egg shells or is it a product i have to buy thanks so much for your help


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