Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi from North Dakota everyone! I'm new to the aquaponics hobby so I thought Id find a forum to join.

I do have a quick question I thought I'd ask while I'm here. I've noticed my plants have completely stopped growing but are not dying. I'm so new I don't even know what to start with. I have a 100 gallon system and about a hand full of Minnows and Night Crawlers that has been cycling for about 3 months now. I have 0 Ammonia. pH is 7.2, Hardness over 300, alkalinity over 300, Nitrites 0 and Nitrates about 10.

Can anyone throw some ideas at me as to what I could try to change? The only possible idea I have is to maybe introduce more and bigger fish hoping to bring up Nitrates. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I'm new as well, but nitrates should be higher. Try feeding more or adding new/ more fish as mentioned. But take that advice with a grain of salt since I am new as well.

@thenumber002 - Hi and welcome, where is your system located? Is it in a shaded area? Pictures will help with us understand better what is happening.

Regards

I've still never seen nitrates in my system, and my growth is great.

I'll agree with Curious, pictures will help, it's a bit of a stab in the dark without it.

Good I'm not the only ND member with hard water! My system has no nitrates and is growing lettuce, toms, asparagus and cottonwood tree seedlings.

Curious - My system is in my basement so it has no direct sunlight and is heated to about 75 degrees .Maybe I can get some pictures added sometime but its just in a corner room I built in my basement and not really an interesting setup.

I have added another scoop of minnows and increased the feeding from twice to three times a day at the maximum my automatic feeder will allow. I also added 30 worms from my previous 12 but they are really small fishing worms I bought from Walmart. That's the best I could get. I'm also planning on getting some real fish put in there soon but I need to figure out where I can get them from or else Im just going to have to go fishing once the ice melts.

Thanks for your help guys. I'll keep you posted on any changes.

Sounds like you're progressing . I'm not sure it's a fish number issue so you may want to look at the water temperature and how much light these get each day.

I didn't realize light was important over the fish tanks. How does that help?

I can send you the list of fish suppliers in ND. You do need a permit for Tilapia... Just pm me your email and I'll get it sent.

The light is for the plants. The water temp is for both the plants and the fish. I missed the post to curious about the water temp for some reason. You should be fine on both of these since you've been growing the plants indoors under lights the whole time it sounds like. Day length and distance from the lights can have an affect. The water level in the media beds can also be too high and cause problems. There might be an iron deficiency or some other nutrient related issue. Even with enough fish, not using the right food can cause problems with not enough nutrients. Your comment about the lack of fish could also be correct. It really would help to have a pic of the system and the lights to see maybe if something jumps out as a problem though.

Sorry for the earlier misdirect

Cheers

I did my weekly check on my water recently and it looks like my nitrates are finally coming up. Around 20ppm or a little better. I wonder if its got to do with the bio wheels? They were new when I put them in and now they are all cloudy and circulating better. So between that and the more fish and more food I think my problems are over. I'm also starting an outdoor AP garden. Ill be starting a thread in a day or two with pics on that.