Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I found a fertilizer from Miracle Gro that has the following ingredients:

Urea Nitrogen 12%
Available Phosphate 4%
Soluble Potash 8%
Chelated Iron 0.1%
Chelated Mangnese 0.05%
Chelated Zinc 0.05%

Would this be okay to use to feed the plants during the fishless cycle? Would it be harmful for the fish even if it's not used for some time before they're introduced?
Thanks in advance for the input

Hum......... Ya generally want to avoid stuff with zinc and copper since these are recirculating systems, metals can build up and zinc/copper can be pretty bad for many kinds of fish (the amount of these elements in fish food is usually enough for the plants and any additional could be bad for fish.)

All you really need is the urea for the initial cycling up of the system, you don't really want the other stuff. I personally would advise against it but then again, I don't like to pay money for my fishless cycling ammonia source (I am the author of the Pee Ponics thread by the way.)

Yeah good point with the metals, in all the stores I went to they didn't have anything more basic than this on the shelf. I was just looking for a basic fertilizer such as seaweed extract to get the seedlings growing in the GB. I've been running it for a while now with just a houseplant in the gravel to have something living to help the system but levels remain unchanged. Since adding straight nitrifying bacteria doesn't really cycle the system I imagine there are many other bacteria in the system that need to build up to complete the ecosystem and balance the system. So that's why I wanted to add the seedlings because I know there are lots of symbiotic bacteria that like to hang around in plant roots.

Do ya know anyone with a worm bin? A hand full of composting worms along with some of their castings in a grow bed can really go a long way to getting a good diversity of good bacteria going in your little eco-system.

I have heard of people using some fish emulsion to cycle a system. I've never done it myself.

Would a handful of soil dug up from around some plants deep enough that it never froze thrown into the GB help? I understand that a lot of the beneficial bacteria die when it gets below freezing so I'd have to dig somewhat deep. Would the small amount of soil become a problem later on in the bell siphon or elsewhere?

Most people will tell you to avoid getting too much soil/dirt or whatnot into your grow beds. If you are transplanting plants from soil into your system, you might simply not wash the dirt off the roots just shake off the excess. I doubt adding alot of dirt into your system will really help you.

The truth is, no matter what you do, cycling will take some time, plan on it. Even if you were to buy gravel from a pre-existing system, the act of taking the gravel out of the old system and transporting it to put in the new system before getting the water flowing again, is going to have an effect on the bacteria and it will need some time to settle into it's new home and get comfortable again.

Don't stress about it too much. If there is ammonia and water and oxygen, cycling will happen naturally. You don't have to go importing bacteria, it finds it's way in there all on it's own. There have been studies that show that cycling happens in about the same time whether you add extra bacteria or not. It probably has more to do with temperature, pH and the ammonia source as to how long it takes to get cycled up to the load.

It is nice to fishless cycle because you don't need to worry about killing the fish during those first several weeks when the ammonia and nitrite tend to spike but many people go with cycling with fish and just deal with the guilt of starving the fish while waiting for the spikes to go away.

By the way, searching for stuff like dirt or whatever to kick start the bacteria won't do much good if you don't have anything to feed it to keep it going till you get fish.

Came accross this while at the garden center. I was looking for root stimulator and saw this was used for hydroponic applications...not sure why I bought it. Smells a lot like fertilizer to me. No metals listed on the ingredients.

http://www.plant-success.com/soluble.html

beware anything sealed in a bag or bottle, I would expect a very short shelf life to anything sealed up. I'm also not sure a gravel bed is the best place for the fungus but I'm sure it could be beneficial if you have some rather sterile soil that needs rejuvination.

Look for a product called "Maxicrop".... there is a US distributor you can order from... I'll try and find the address...

I found Maixcrop a the local Hydroponics store. Put Hydroponics into your search engine and see what comes up in your area.

Which Maxicrop do you suggest? Seaweed plus iron?
And how does this get added exactly? If it gets added to the GB then drained into the FT the fish don't mind?

Yep on both

Just dont overdo it. Enough to lightly colour the water is fine.