Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well I have my system up and running for a week now I just transplanted all my plants from my Hydroponics system. Now my question is what should I do next? I haven't added any fish yet, so my plants will need nutrients soon. How many fish can I safely raise in this 275 gallon system? Witin the next week I will be adding a 55 gallon biofilter also.

Why a biofilter and not more growbeds?

I do plan to add more grow beds, just need more supplies & $$, Didn't know if my present GB's were enough right now & how many fish it would support ? and since I have this barrel ready to go didn't think it would hurt anything to add it.

Yuo can never have too much filtration... use the barrel until you have a chance to get more growbeds Mark..

Today I bought a test kit and 45 feeder fish.

To my surprise as I have the fish in their bag sitting in the Tank, I decided to test my water for the first time.
PH 8.2
Ammonia 1 ppm
Nitrite greater than 5.0 ppm ( Tested that twice!)
Nitrate 10 ppm

The tank has been running for a week has some algae growth and I did add some pee 3 times over two days to jump start it. Should I do a 25% water change because of the high Nitrite level?

Looks like you are either entering or exiting the nitrite spike. A water change might save your fish, but as they are just feeders - I would let the weak ones pass and let the cycle finish as soon as possible. You might get lucky and loose none. When I cycled my reef tank, I did it with fish and only lost a couple fish.

I'm sure others will chime in so wait for their replys.

Mark

Update: Well last night 26 of my 45 feeder fish decided to explore the growbeds, Not a good idea. It seems they decided to venture to close to intake pipe which I extended down to the bottom of the FT and is about 1/4 " from the bottom corner of the tank, these feeder fish are very small. I was thinking of putting some kind of screen on the end of the pipe but thought it would get clogged.

I had a bluegill end up in my grow bed the first day I added them. I put 1/2 chicken wire over the overflows. It has been running like that for a few weeks now. It is now just starting to build up some algea on it and looks like I'll have to clean the wire monthly. 1/2 inch might still be to big for feeders, but 1/4 inch should work nicely.

Thanks DejaVoodoo..I will give it a try.

Update: Well on second thought I think the die and then went to the bottom and then ended up in the grow beds found some more in the GB after work today, So in 24 hours I killed 45 feeder fish. Well better than the Tilapia I'm planing on putting in the tank.

Water Test
PH 8.2
Ammonia 0.25 ppm
Nitrite > 5.0 ppm
Nitrate 5 ppm

well - at least you know your solids removal is working...

Oooopsss..... But there is always a bright side hey DéjàVoodoo.

Might want to hold off for a week or so till the system settles down, let those levels drop a little, especially with a high pH..

Will the PH come down by itself or is there something I need to do? The PH out of the well is 8.0

hay there Mark, Welcome!!!!

Hold off on any more fish until you have 0 ammonia and 0 to just trace nitrite. Pee is strong stuff and no sense in wasting fish. (If you need tilapia, I might still have perhaps 10 that might need a home when you are ready. We now prefer catfish but I still have some of the tilapia that lived in the aquarium over winter.)

As for wire over pipe intakes, I like to avoid the wire and get netting or baskets I can put around the intakes to keep fish away and if possible make the area kinda big to make it take longer before cleaning becomes mandatory.

Let me know if you are interested in a visit, I'm located up near Mount Dora, FL.

Looking at your pictures there, it looks like you have 3 media filled barrel beds, if so, I would probably say stock with up to 15 tilapia for your first season, provided you have some supplemental aeration and you shade your fish tank really good to reduce the algae. As you expand the system and figure out how it balances, then you can figure out for yourself how many fish may be appropriate.

I would also say, skip the whole feeder fish thing and finish out your cycling Pee Ponically. Wait till your nitrite drops to well below 1 ppm and then dose again (if you can use aged humonia, that way it will already be converted to ammonia and you don't have to worry as much about overdosing.) When you reach a point where you can dose one day to get ammonia up to about 1 ppm and then within 24 hours both ammonia and nitrite are back to 0, then you are cycled. I expect around the time this first nitrite spike goes down, your pH may follow it down rather quickly too. Provided you don't have any concrete, limestone, shells or other strong buffer lurking in your system that is. Have a little bag of shell grit (like you get for laying hens) or something on hand so that once your system gets down to a desirable pH (many people believe between 6.5 and 7 would be perfect) you can add a small amount of the shell grit to keep the pH from going way too low. If the pH gets down to 6 or below, it is hard to tell with most test kits how low it has really gone so I personally think it would be best not to let it drop to 6 or if you do, make sure you have a way to accurately keep track of pH between 4 and 6.

Oh, and if you get mixed gender tilapia and you just throw them into a regular fish tank, you will have more tilapia than you will know what to do with before long so don't be too down that I recommended such a small number of tilapia for your system, I recommended that way cause I know they will reproduce.

Thanks TCLynx, I would love to visit, haven't seen anyone else's system in person yet. Thanks for the tips, I needed them. May be we can setup a time in a couple of weeks for a visit.