Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've never seen Seasol here, but if we have it, maybe at a farm supply store or on the internet.

I initialized my 120gal system starting with 2 large goldfish and working my way up to 6 large goldfish. By large, I mean 4-6 inches, nose to base of tail, not end of tail. So I would start with no more than 1 large goldfish per 50gal of water. If you are working with small goldfish, I'd say 3 fish/50gal. Don't feed for the first couple days, then start feeding lightly and slowly ramp up.

Like it, like it alot. Another YP grower great! How did you find a source this time of year?
On the cycling, it would be better if you could get some bacteria from a healthy system to give you a jump start. Then add the feeders, the numbers I believe would depend on how many yellow perch your going to start with. You want the system cycled for the yellow perch load as the gold fish will disapear in a few days. Its some kind of natural selection thing. Yellow Perch + feeder Gold Fish = Yellow Perch. Be advised Yellow Perch have a very low tolerance for NH3 plan the move if your picking them up IMHO.
How big are the Yellow Perch? Feed trained? What are you going to feed them? Good idea on the bait fish as well as the plants. I experienced a Cucumber invasion last year and it is a pain in the neck for sure dodging vines and such.
Great work!

TNX Janet thats a good start. John, yep another YP producer call me crazy, been called worse. My wife raised YP in an aquaculture setting during her undergrad work @ Brockport on Lake Ontario NY. She said they will be tricky in an RAS environment but fun and interesting. I'm getting feed trained fingerlings from Ted at Coolwater Fish Farms, he's located in the Fingerlakes region of NY. Ted has been very helpful so far he has a number of different sizes and they are all certified free of VAS.
How many? I dunno maybe 80 - 100 in the 300 gal tank, 40 - 50 in the 150 gal. What do I feed them? definitely a varied diet, some live worms, bugs along with pellets what have you had success with? The only big thing I'm worried abt is summer water temps. You have some wicked hot temps mid summer how do your YP do in that enviroment? My greenhouse has some good ventilation and I have a shade tarp for it so that should help.

The second time today I have heard of Coolwater Fish Farms. Those numbers sound pretty safe. I have ran into the 90's with water temps and no deaths, your ventilation looks great so I doubt you'll get in that region anyway. I preseed with bacteria then added 20 feeder goldfish in a 300-350 gallon tank, when I added the perch system was essentialy cycled. That was 50 perch so maybe double your feeder load to 40. Either way your perch will enjoy the snack?
I have to cook my fish an egg aquagrower mix picky buggers. I spose I have prolonged the feed problem I had with feeding them worms and guppies but its so neat to watch them hit the bait!
Sounds like you have some great knowledge on your team I'm looking forward to hearing more as you progress.
When do you get the YP's, I'd emagine April or so?

seasol is a brand name so try asking/looking for seaweed concentrate

I can get seaweed fertilizer is that the same as seaweed concentrate?

Over your way... try looking for "Maxicrop".... I prefer Maxicrop over Seasol because it has a high "Potassium" content...

http://www.multicrop.com.au/MSDS/Maxicr ... c_MSDS.doc

Or try any "liquid" seaweed fertiliser/concentrate..... the fertiliser might be a "watered" down product.....

Or there's fish emulsions......

Try here.... http://www.planetnatural.com/site/maxic ... aweed.html ....

Or goggle "maxicrop liquid seaweed"

I have heard of Maxicorp. Their products are not sold locally, but many good hardware/ag stores have seaweed fertilizer in their natural/organic section. I just happen to have a gallon of it; for weightloss body wraps.. go figure..

is there something you're not telling us Dan?

LOL, just fighting the beer gut.. without exercise!

A few new pics, feeder goldfish come Tuesday. Leaf lettuce starting in pic # 1. Swiss Chard in pic # 2. Last frame is sump. More pics soon. Planting seeds in early February in New Hampshire rocks!

Quick update:
I seeded the beds with gunk from the aquarium. A week later I did a big H2O change and put that water in the grow beds.

150 3-4" goldfish arrived 2/15/08. I put 100 in the 300 gallon tank and 50 in the 150 gallon tank. Lost maybe 15 overall so far. The others are growing quickly.

NH4 peaked at 1.5 ppm about 2weeks in and has gone down to .25 -.5 ppm.

Nitrites are between .25 and .5 ppm.

Nitrates are between 2- 5 ppm.

pH is 7.2 in the large tank, and 7.8 in the small tank.
Fish are happy, most of the fatalities came from stress from the move I'd reckon. I slightly salted both tanks and it took care of any issue with the fish. So things look like they are cycling. How long will the elevated levels of Nitrites hang around?

All sounds and looks pretty good and well underway Dayflower

From what I've heard, the Nitrite spike is sometimes a little harder to get past in the cycling and more likely to come back if anything goes wrong with the system (like bacteria getting killed off by cold.) Did you see a nitrate spike and are the levels you noted down from that? What are your temps like?

Personally, I've not cycled with fish yet. I'm not sure on this but I would think you want to be seeing ammonia and nitrite below .25 once a system is "cycled" and if you are seeing more than that with no particular reason, then you may be either feeding or stocking beyond your grow bed capacity.

Sounds like you are still in the "cycling" phase and perhaps cool temps are slowing down the bacteria a bit.

TCLynx,
Thanks for the info. There has been no nitrate spike just a slow increase in levels. Temps did start out cold. H2O temps were in the 50'sF to begin. I couldn't get them any higher until I bought a couple of 800 watt heaters and now the temps in both tanks are 66-68F.