Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My brother hooked me up with some lime to use for pH up. I sprinkled about a teaspoon into my swirl filter two days ago. It brought the pH up from 6.2 to 6.8. I haven't checked it yet today but the alkalinity was still really low yesterday. I'm not sure the egg shells are doing much of anything.

The minor deficiency I was seeing is gone now, it was magnesium it needed. There are now a lot of plants in my 4x4 gb.

Sounds good. The shells take a long time to dissolve - there are some things you can do to make them dissolve faster if you want. You have to be careful with adding the lime but it sounds like it worked out OK (just keep an eye on the pH after the next rain in case more washes down in the media). This must have been Dolomite lime which also provides magnesium?

Glad it's going well
Cheers

I haven't been on the forum for a bit, could be a good sign, lol.

The lime does have magnesium carbonate in it but I also sprinkled about a teaspoon of epsom salts in the swirl filter a day or so before the lime. I have added lime once more since the first dose. I'm low on testing supplies so I haven't tested the water for a while.

I've got about 15 assorted goldfish, shiners and possibly a couple koi in the system now. They range from 1" long and smaller dia. than a pencil, up to about 2" long and almost as fat as my little finger. I have been feeding them about 1/2 gram of flakes per day plus clipping assorted leafy greens to the slo so they hang into the water but I haven't noticed them taking any intrest in the greens.

I had to thin out a bunch of brassica fam that were packed in too closely. I have been eating lots of lettuce from the system plus radishes and mustard greens.
I currently have lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, peas, 3 different peppers, nasturtium, radishes, carrots, beets, cilantro, basil, ginger, turmeric,marjoram, onion and a pineapple top all planted in a 4'x4' gb!

Forgot to mention, I've also been adding 1/4-1/2 cup of fish hydrolysate once every 10-15 days or so. Also added about 1 cup total of BioThrive into the system since setting it up. BioThrive is derived from alfalfa, copper sulfat, ferric sulfate, keiserite, manganese sulfate, mollasses, potassium sulfate, rock phosphate, sodium borate, sodium molybdate, soybean meal, zinc sulfate. It also contains 2% seaweed derived from ascophyllum nodosum and laminaria digitata, 0.2% humic acids from leonardite, 1.5% cane sugar and 0.5% glacial rock powder.

Don't go overboard on the additions - fewer is better and ideally most of your nutrients will come from the fish food. FYI - Copper can be toxic to fish.

Many of the ions compete for uptake by the plants, if you get things out of balance too far then even though you've added lots of nutrients the plant won't be able to access them all.

Thanks for the advice, Scotty.

I only really used the Bio-Thrive to help get some nutrients into the system initially because of the deficiencies that showed at the beginning. I had wondered about whether any of the ingredients could harm the fish but figured that most elements are present in at least small amounts in all lakes and rivers anyways and I was just trying to "seed" the system so to speak. I won't add any more if it could be bad for the fish.

Is there a good flake fish food you could suggest? I have been using omega one natural protein formula.

I'm not aware of any flake foods that I could recommend. Flake foods either aren't formulated for good growth or have other issues (according to some the floating feeds (pellet or flake) may cause the goldfish to take in too much air which can cause them problems). I'm not a goldfish grower but it looks like commercial catfish or tilapia food with about 35 to 37% protein will work (and Joel (Earthbound here on the forum) has used 40% in a floating feed with no problems http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=23685.

Used to be some stuff called Thrive that people were really down on because they'd had fish kills that either were or seemed related. Couldn't find much about it and I don't know if it's the same as your product but some of the others might.

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1762&p=65280&hilit=Thrive#p65280

Thanks for the info, Scotty. I'll get some better food asap but will have to continue with the flakes for now. The fish seem ok with it, no swim bladder problems thus far.

I've had to pull a few plants that weren't doing well. A couple peppers which had been rootbound in 1.5" starter trays for a long time before transplanting and a bunch of brassica which were crammed in to tightly. I also had some cucumbers I had direct seeded which weren't growing well enough for my liking so they came up also.

I forgot to put chamomile on the list of growbed residents. I have collected about 3/4 cup of dry flowers from it so far that smell far superior to any store bought chamomile I've ever tried.

I also seeded some dill and carrots into the bed to see how they'd do and they are both growing but the carrots don't seem to like it as much as the dill.

The fish are doing great! Active and growing quickly.

My square bucket swirl filter doesn't drain the solids out of it's tap very well, it only really gets the stuff that is very near the 1 liter bottle bell I have over it. Maybe a larger diameter bell would work better?

Cyanobacteria. In my swirl filter. I've wiped it out once and it's coming back pretty quickly. Any suggestions?

Glad to hear things are mostly going well . The two plants you had to pull are heavy feeders and love warmth. AP systems take a while to warm up so that may be part of why they were growing slowly and the food may be the other.



Whatever type of algae they are blue green algae or regular, there is probably too much light is getting in either from above or through the sides. The top is usually easy to figure but if it's through the sides, painting or Tek Foil insulation works pretty well.

I still don't have a handle on what your system looks like but if it's not too big then a large muck bucket from Coastal or Wilco might work for your swirl filter and they are reasonably inexpensive. If your system is a bit larger then a 20 gallon sump pump basin from Home Depot would work pretty well http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-18-in-x-22-in-Sump-Pump-Basin-SF20/204733081. The sump basins are made from structural polyethylene foam.

Cheers

We're at very similar stages Scott!

I'm also running my small system to learn and as POC for the treasury manager.

All my neighbors come over to see what I'm doing.

All I need is more space!
We live on a small suburban lot.

Cheers - Jens