Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Everyone

Had the book for a year and a half now and has taken just as long to set up. My biggest problem is the alge and then that the plants seem to be growing but very very slow.
Can anybody please send me in the right direction. Water has been in the system for 4.5 months with fish and plants, water ph and other levels are ok.

Really need some advice have pics on this site.
Aslo have around 300 fish in system with 125 redclaw.

Thanks Jacob

Hi Jacob, welcome to the forum..... bit more information would be helpful ... as would perhaps a couple of pictures....

Or alink to the "site" where they are

Firstly... is your fish tank exposed to sunlight for any significant period of the day??

How big is your tank... what volume??

You say your pH and other values are OK.... how long ago did you test them....

Perhaps do a test anyway and post them here for everyone to see.... along with the temperature of your fish tank.... might help people diagnose your problem....

Straight off the bat I'd say you need to deal with your algael bloom... it will suck oxygen from your water and swing your pH around ... a combination of both will ultimately have severe consequences for your fish.

Cover your tank ASAP and provide as much oxygenation as possible immediately..... either airlines/air stones.... aerator etc....

Increase your pumping frequency.... this should help reduce the water temperature and provide additional oxygenation....

Prepare for a water change at short nature if required... ie if you have too use "chlorinated" tap water.... get it ready and let it stand out in the sun..... if you have "chloromined" water... gets some ager/neutraliser...

Jacobs pictures are in his gallery He has posted about 8 pictures there.

Yes, some shade for the fish tanks would be a good start.

Hi Jacob. You have spent some good money and done a lot of work there. Was it cheaper to paint inside the fishtank with the black stuff, than to get the corro aqua plated?

David C in his system has an excellent/simple shadecloth fishtank cover. His tank is about the same size as ur gal one. Ellkaybee has one also in his system. You could even cover both tanks with a tarp until you get a more permanent solution.

Look fwd to hearing how the sleepies go, we dream about them down here but they are little more than curios. One of the local Tafes has a couple of tanks of them. They live ON the heaters and grow very slowly. Don't hit the food particularly hard either.

Could someone edit the spelling in the topic heading?

how do the plant roots look Jacob? any sign of root rot?

without the necessary oxygen delivery they will simply die off due to fungus. It looks like a couple of your pipes are flooded higher than the others any difference in the growth of the plants?

Cover as much of the open water from direct sunlight as possible to reduce the algae, adding air to the water in the pipes will be beneficial.

Good question Dan, just had a look at the gallery myself and it does appear that the pipes are flooded very high.... too high I suspect...

Initially I thought they may have been a continous flow type system... in which case I would have recommended airlines in each pipe to increase oxygenation...

However Yakini mentions that he has (or is) going away from his inital net pot design to a cut down pipe....

So Yak.... the questions are....

Are you pumping continuously to the pipes... or are they merely supplied by overflow from the gal tank???

Or are you pumping on a timer based arrangement... if so what are your flood and drain cycle times.

Looking at the plants and positioning of the outlets, I'm of the opinion that your plants are certainly suffering from too much/too high a "flood".

You might get away with it, if that's the intended design, by increasing the flow significantly and adding oxygenation to each pipe via an airline.

Basically, I don't think the plants oxygenating roots are uptaking enough oxygen due to them being submerged ... eventually I would think root rot will set in.

I would consider drilling new outlets lower on the pipe ends... perhaps retaining the existing outlets as overflows....

Of course this somewhat depends on the actual pump cycle and means.

Another question Zakini.... how is the flow to the pipes delivered.... merely by overflow from the tank???

Hi Everyone thanks for replying.
Ok here we go the tank is painted in a special paint to protect it from the fish, i could not find anyone to aquaplate it (also the tank came up at a bargin price).
The pipes only gets excess water when the gal tank over flows. Also the plant pipes do hold a bit of water, i didnt glue the ends at the blue tank because i didnt know what water level worked best. Ive now changed each end cap to hold less water and give the roots some air.

When the blue tank hits its full mark the sub-merged pump starts and goes untill it hits the low part of the blue tank. This then causes the gal tank to fill past the pipe openings and feeds back through the pipes untill the blue tank hits full again.

The fish seem to be going very well, at first i had the barra and the sleepy cod in the same tank (both the same size). Found that the sleepy cod were eating the barra, well trying to. A couple of cod had dead barra stuck in there mouths for several days. Once i moved them found that i stopped finding dead barra with bit marks.

The tanks are sitting in the sun for 3/4 of the day and will be getting some tarps tommorrow to cover both tanks up. With the sun on them for most of the day blue tank temps can reach 32 deg and the other gal 25 deg. When i seen the temp of the blue tank i put the half cover on the tank to cool it.

Will post pics of fish and redclaw on weekend.

Thanks for all the great advice.

how long should i leave the tarps on?

Oh and the plants roots look ok

the tarps, I suppose it party depends on the colour of the tarp. Blue ones seem to let more light through, so I would leave it on longer.

So 1 week or untill the alge seems to die off. Also what would be the best filter to use to help keep the water clear?

A swirling clarifier could give it good clean.
Have a look at UVI website. Or at the topic cloude water here.