Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Be prepared for fluctuations, but do not panic.

Aquafan ran an experiment with pythium (root rot) in which he deliberately gave a tomato root rot with high temps. Then he put it in an Aqua system and it not only healed up, it flourished.

If your root zone has troubles trying to convert roots, plants will shed a fair bit of waste material as they right themselves. This will pull your pH down, once the pythium and plant cells are gone the pH spikes back up.

The origin of these spikes is bacteria converting themselves to function.* This will cease upon the plants regaining health, and by the look of them, you won't have much, if any, trouble.

*Algal and fungal enzymes recreating at a great rate of knots to deal with the food source (rot and dead plant cells). This pulls more proteins than normal into this job function and balance shifts a while. Just like a person who's antibodies all flock to an infection.

Keeping in mind that water with a very low KH in aquariums ( & aqua) always swings to low PH simply due to to nitrification.

Drop in ph is directly related to amount of nitrification going on which is directly related to stocking density and feeding rate. I think you'll be pleasently surprised with the "shells in a sock" after a week just make sure they are in a fow of water

PH update. Aquarium between 7 & 7.5. Pond between 6.5 & 7. Have now added some shell grit in a bag near the return pipe in the pond. Hopefully this will help with bufferring. Fish in pond are pretty happy, so should transfer the rest from the aquarium. Meant to do this on the weekend, but didn't get around to it. I will probably leave the 4 remaining small silver perch in the aquarium to let them grow a bit bigger without the jades for competition, before chucking them in with the rest in the pond.

An update:

- really busy on Saturday with other stuff, so still haven't transferred remaining fish to pond
- PH is creeping down again in both systems, so had to add some more PH up. Have not done a water change, as am hoping that within a week I will connect up my Murray bed and have my 2 ponds joined together again (which will result in about 40% new water being added to the system). Because of this, I want to keep the old water.
- Today I was determined to do some work needed to get the Murray bed going. I headed off to Mitre 10 with my list of things I needed and a couple of bits and pieces which I didn't know how to attach to pressure pipe (ie I needed to find some parts to do this). Despite good intentions of avoiding Bunnings, ended up there anyway because Mitre 10 had bugger all of what I needed. Got most of what I needed from B - but as usual had to pay ridiculous prices. The worst was nearly $6 for a 25mm - 32mm pressure pipe joiner (just a basic bit of PVC). This was needed because the tread into my sump pump needs to be 32mm but I will be using 25mm pressure pipe throughout. I have now found a better and cheaper way - so this bit will be going back to B for refund.
- Today I also bought 3/4 cubic metre of 10mm drainage gravel. Took me hours to wash what I needed to fill the Murray grow-bed (about 1/2 cubic meter as I have not filled right to top). I started with the fire hose and trailer technique, but this didn't work very well due to the sheer depth of gravel, so I ended up resorting to the fire hose and worm farm tray technique, washing 3 shovel load at a time.
- Have not done the plumbing yet, but did block the grow-bed drain, fill it, then remove the block and let it drain. Good news is that the water was almost clear and the grow bed stand that I welded (meaning pretty dodgy) did not break under the sheer weight of it all.

Next job is to put all the pipework together and get the bed going. Will need to have the ponds connected for this as I will lose quite a bit of depth on the flood cycle. Not looking forward to getting the pump float switch adjusted just right to have the system cycle correctly, paricularly given that my ponds are quite shallow.

To get things moving on the bacteria transfer side of things, while I await setting the plumbing up, I may just chuck my little continuous grow-bed on top of the big bed's gravel (container and all) and let is drain through the big bed before the water returns to the pond. This means I only need to organise the drain return, which I should be able to manage tomorrow night. This should kick start things anyway.

give the continuous flow gravel a bit of a poke and prod after you place it ontop of the new gravel bed..............losen up a bit of stuff and let it flow through.

VB, I paid $2.45 for one of those reducers 32 - 25mm at my local mitre 10 today. They see me so much (average 3 times a day on weekends, I'm not good at making lists and always forget stuff) that the guy has started giving me 10% discount. Love that!

What's your better and cheaper way VB?

Unfortunately my Mitre 10 does not have a big range of that stuff - though (after asking and being told nothing) I saw a box of pressure fittings on a bargain table - $1 each piece. Bought several things I thought could be handy - but not the coupling which I realised I needed when I got to B (pretty sure they didn't have one in the box, otherwise it would have clicked to me then).

The female thread in the pump needs a 32mm male to go into it. I have purchased a 32mm to 25mm black threaded reducer from the irrigation area of my Steve Jones hardware ($1.70). In my wisdom, I had bought 5 pressure couplings - 25mm female threaded to 25mm pressure pipe - from the mitre 10 bargain bin, not knowing I would need 1 for this part of the job.

A major benefit is that by using this threaded solution, it will not be glued and therefore can be reused when I change the layout - which is inevitable as I expand (or as I realise I have stuffed something up 3 minutes after I finish the plumbing).

vb have you thought about going for a drive down pickering st at enoggerra. If you are going to the b at stafford?? then it is on the way and there are a few plumbing sup0plie places that should be able to help you out. most likely worth a look or for next time there is a place on the web that sells this stuff so it would be worth a look. I know a specifric place but cannot remember at the moment so will have a look for you and post later.

this site should give you a rough idea of what to pay, or to buy. the prices seem cheap to me but have not looked around hugely.

www.wetearth.com.au

Nick - re: Pickering Street, I would have but all the trade places are closed on Sunday and that was the only time I had available. Once I know what I have needed - I will get stuff for my future beds from the trade supplies. One of the ones on Pickering is Tradelink.

Nick - re: that web site. The prices are great, but would only be worthwhile if purchasing lots as the freight cost to us (regardless of how much you purchase) would be $17.

yeah I know i that tought as well. but it could still be useful to see if you are getting ripped off at the B. I have plans to set up another system very soon as I am getting itch feet to produce more veges. Had a pasta on saturday night with the fresh herbs from my aero system and it was phenominal.

My test-kit came in the mail today. Luckily I am having day off so was able to do the tests.

Was particularly interested in finding out my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate readings as I have never been able to test these before. I was sure my system had cycled ages ago, but can't be sure without testing I guess (not strictly correct as my plant growth proved it as well).

See below picture of readings. Ammonia = 0, nitrite = 0, nitrate is bloody high, somewhere between 80 and 160. Need to get plants into the new big bed. In meantime have linked my 2 ponds together again, which required the addition of a good couple of hundred litres. This should dilute the nitrate enough to keep the fish happy long enough to get some plants into the grow-bed.

I have now chucked the little temporaty grow-bed, which is full of bacteria, on top of the new big bed. I am still going to use the little pond pump and as a temorary measure have only had to hook up a pipe from the drain back to the pond, because the water will flood the big bed through my existing pumbing into the small bed (ie the small bed runs continuous flow and empties directly into the big bed.

I am timing the flood cycle now. I flooded it earlier without timing the flood cycle - but I reckon it probably took clost to an hour. I did time the drain cycle and it took about 30 minutes. Therefore until I get the sump pump set up and float switch set correctly, I will probably run the pond pump on a timer - 60 minutes on and 30 minutes off (total cycle length 90 minutes. When the water gets to within a few centimeters of the top of the gravel, it overflows into the standpipe through a notch I cut out of it. Therefore the bed will not overflow on the flood cycle. Couple of pics below:

Thanks Mike. The slab is actually bigger than that, but is coverred in crap, as you can see from the below pictures. Besides which my wife would have my nuts if I tried to permanently take over this area. The intention is to build my full size system behind the shed, see picture. Hopefully 4 grow beds like the one shown and a 5000 litre tank. Add extra grow beds as I can manage/afford them. Hopefully the tank and some of the beds will be housed in a greenhouse.

The flood cycle turned out to be about 45 minutes. This means that the water will be at its peak height for about 15 minutes during this part of the cycle - until the timer switched the pump off. Is this going to be a problem - will the roots cope with this?