Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I first heard about aquaponics on Feb. 1 while surfing the internet at work. Being a (semi) prepper, I thought this was a GREAT idea! A month later, I just started to cycle my system yesterday. The system is a chop system with a 275 ibc FT and a 4' x 8' x 12" (239 gallons) GB, auto siphoning to another ibc sump. Many thanks to everyone for ideas ( designs, bell siphon, pipe sizes, etc) Now, I'm doing a fishless cycle. For this size system how much ammonia do I add to kick things off? Do I pour it in the main body of the FT or into the top of the SLO? My first reading was ph high 8ish+ . I put 2 capfulls of pure ammonia into the FT. yesterday. Ammonia reading was maybe .025 ppm . (Color was hard to determine if 0 or .025) I haven't planted as we're about to get a week+ of rain . Any advice would help, Thanks

Welcome to the forum Randy

Hi there, I'm brand new too so please take my advice as only an idea.
I recently had a high PH too, I have fishies and don't want to do anything to hurt them. the advice I found was baking soda (or bicarb soda) from what I've learnt is you can't really overdose your tank/ trough/bathtub (just add a cup and let it disperse and add every day until you get your ph down to 7), its cheap, it wont hurt the fish or plants and its not a chemical as such so good for the environment.
Hope this helps, but please remember I am no expert.

Ok I got bad advice.
Low PH you want to add baking soda. Not high PH.

Ok I got bad advice.
Low PH you want to add baking soda. Not high PH.
Very very sorry.

Thanks Kat, I have aqua up and aqua down, but have read that w/o fishies PH is not a real big deal during cycling , because nitrification process will lower the ph. Really looking at ammonia and the n's. Happy growing

I don't think it matters where you add the ammonia. Just chuck it in.

Cycling will depend on things including water temperature and if you were able to "seed" your system with media or water likely to contain bacteria from another system or an existing pond. Just so you have a point of reference, I started with a similar system volume to you... added about three teaspoons of 25% ammonia first day and ammonia rose to about 4 ppm.

Waited a couple of days and nitrites appeared. Added total of about 2 tsp over the next week... about half a teaspoon every day or two to keep the levels around about 3 ppm.

Then the nitrates appeared and the nitrites started to drop. I was keen to keep feeding the system ammonia but wise heads on here persuaded me to go easy - maybe only half a teaspoon twice over the next week.

By that time, ammonia was close to zero, nitrites zero and nitrates about 30. I added about 50 silver perch fingerlings and haven't looked back.

you're right about the pH... it will drop eventually. But you can always get it down in the low 7s - where a lot of people try to have it - by adding some hydrochloric acid to your top up water.

Enjoy the journey.