Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello all! New and so jazzed about this forum and all the great information you have here! It has been a true wealth of information to wade through and I cannot tell you how much we appreciate it!

My husband and I are very new to Aquaponics. I have some experience with hydroponics but didnt stick with it long because of all the chemicals required. I prefer organic gardening myself and didnt have much luck at the time converting Hydro. With aquaponics, we want to eventually start some much bigger AP systems in the yard and grow edible fishes in addition to the edible plants. Everything we're reading suggests it is so much easier to get things running once you already have a successful system running anyway, so for now we're going with what we have on hand: thirty gallon fish tanks, about eighteen gallons of grow bed with approx. 25% gravel, 75% hydroton, bell siphon, and a simple fish tank pump to run it back to the bed (at least until the pump dies, but its doing the job for now). We have supplies for a second setup like this one, but again, easier once one successful system is setup, right?

We just got this very small system started this week and opted to throw in some goldfish a couple days ago. So far ammonia and ph are holding steady at neutral. I was thinking about using fish emulsion to help jump start the process as well as feed a few seedlings I put in yesterday. Anybody have any suggestions on how much emulsion is a good idea to start? Package recommendations do not help, of course. Any and all help, suggestions are very much appreciated. Thank you!

With the Charlie carp I use, you only need a small splodge, a cap full or two to get started, then see how u go from there.

Instead of fish emulsion, I'd be more inclined to use a seaweed extract, such as Maxicrop, especially if you've already got fish in the system.

I have a small system with about 70L water capacity, 50L gravel capacity and 6-7 x 8cm Bronze Comets... and I give that 1 capful (15ml) of Seasol (similar to Maxicrop) every two weeks.

Thanks for the info, guys!
We decided to go ahead and try the fish emulsion since that's what we already have on hand. As expected, it spiked the ammonia and clouded the water for about a day. We lost two goldfish that night. Then the water cleared up, and the ammonia levels are holding so far at about .5. Thankfully the goldfish don't seem to mind; they are very active and we haven't lost any others. Ph never deviated from around 7.3-5. At this point it's all experimentation, so we'll see what happens from here...

Yeah sorry. Didnt read that u already had fish. You don't want t add too much of an ammonia source if u have fish