Hello all.
I am just about to start setting up my first almost "real" aquaponic system (I have garden ponds with fish, and have grown herbs in the stream, in submerged pots, and chillies wicking water from the ponds).
The system will consist initially of 8 metres of (greenhouse covered) growbeds evenly split between a floating raft system, and a media based system. The interconnected ponds (which currently only have a fish biomass of about 50kg and increasing (trout and ornamentals) have a volume of 18,000 litres, a vortex pre-filter with a static floating bed filter, which goes into to polygeyser biological filter, and finally through a UV filter (which was only used when the system was first setup to deal with green water). It was my intention to use the polished return water to flow constantly through the growbeds. Now I know that most people do not filter prior to the growbeds, but I figured with adequate fish bio-mass and feeding that the nutrient levels would still be fine. Has anyone out there tried using bio-filtered water in growbeds?
Also, I have read that water supplementation with calcium, iron, potassium (and boron(?) for tomatoes and chillies) is required. I historically have used calcium carbonate to harden the rainwater (I capture all my water) and have a test kit to test for calcium hardness. What forms should a person be using for these minerals, and what is a good source for them? Also, what types of testing can a person use to test the concentration of these in the water so as not to over/under dose?
I am sure I will be having lots of questions going forward, so beg people's patience with me, and look forward to your input.
Thanks
