Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

As much as I would have liked to post some pics first, its getting delayed(don't own a digital camera myself), so I will put them later.
I have a silly drawing though...

All this while I had only 3 goldfish. Only today I added 4 more.

With the three goldfish, growth was fine but not super fast. Mint good, tomato seedlings slow, chilly seedlings really really slow (almost a stall).
How many plants do you think seven 2-inch (without tail, maybe 1.5 inch) goldfish could support at a good plant growth rate?

Plants are mentioned in the diagram.

If you don't mind me asking, do talk about how much 7 such tiny goldfish could support in tomato and lettuce terms, each.
(I will equate the lettuce to any similar sized leafy plant like spinach. There are a probably a zillion types of leafy plants consumed in India (for their leaves).

it takes inbetween 60-100g fish food per square meter of plant growth.

mesure how much the fish consume and then work out how much you can grow with it.

great picture! covered all the basics

Is the aquarium air line linking the two tanks big enough to keep the levels even? Have you gone for pipe that small to stop the fish migrating between tanks?

Love the Picture

Would Have to be the smallest system award.

If you can test the water, add some more fish until you start to get readings.

Of course, it includes a toe, so it has to be.
Yes, the airline keeps water levels even. Slight fluctuations during each pump cycle, but it's quite fine. Have tested it for 2 months (I think).
I used a piece of hose once, but it was too unweildy, hard to handle, stiff, a bit too heavy for such a small system as this.

Occasionally, quite infrequently, I have to milk snots of algae out of the airlines (as they are transparent) to unblock them. I feed the green omega-3 goodness to the fish.

Thats the dry weight, consumed per day isn't it?

My growbed has a top surface area of 0.1 square metre so that would need 6 to 10g per day.
Great, my goldfish might do it! Will try to see how much they eat now (yesterday I added 4 more to get 7 goldfish).
Besides only a quarter of it is planted now, currently it would need only 1.5 to 2.5g dry food per day!

(It seems too good to be true, does it scale like this on to a small scale?)

Ah if only I had a test kit.
Right now I just take it really slow and if in doubt do water changes.
Since I have spent ages watching the fish, their behaviour is an invaluable aid.
As long as they have a feeding frenzy, swim around happy, don't come to the surface too much or rest on the bottom too much I am happy and continue doing what I had been doing.
The smells also help.
Fishy smell from fish = very bad. Ammonia. Nitrite to follow.

Indications from the plant side: I can guess nitrate deficiency (old leaves pale green/ yellow). That means up the feed (slowly). Even slow growth or stalling possibly means low nitrate.
Of course plants growth problems can be due to other causes like ph, etc, but I have no choice but to try things and do water changes and take it really slow.

The smell may work for goldfish gokul, dont try it with perch/trout/anything else. By the time it is smellable the fish will be dead.

You seem to be doing it all pretty well

Bad news, the pump is dead.

It's meant to be a fountain pump/coolant pump meant to be submersed under water.
Some bad pink sealing-thing oozed out a little, water got in.
Slowly the wire contact inside got electrolyzed and now it's not good.

I am hand watering every one/two hours now. Have to get another pump.
I have completely stopped any feeding (morning feed today was the last one).

The bad part is I am still a student, not employed and have to convince my parents to do this aargh. I can convince them but I feel guilty about making them pay.
I might get one by Monday night.

Good luck and keep up the good work. How's your toe by the way?

Thanks !

My toe is still working.

Good, now get the pump working, quickly.

Other things that can stall plants out include Iron deficiency (often shows up as yellowing of new growth but the veins of the leaves often stay green.) Potassium deficiency I don't know as well but it can include leaves going kinda papery white or brown dead spots on leaves.

Iron Deficiency can be caused by high pH even if there is plenty of iron available a high pH will make it difficult for the plants to get what they need, thus for my system I have to foliar feed my plants with an iron supplement to keep them healthy. I think for potassium, a pH that is really low is more likely to cause problems with potassium uptake.

I know if hydroponics or soil gardening, plants that have lots of lush leaf growth but lacking expected flowering/fruiting is often blamed on too much Nitrogen and/or too little Phosphorus. In Aquaponics we don't supplement directly with nitrate or phosphate since it is generally supplied by the fish food/fish waste.

YAY!
I'm totally tired out at the end of the day, but at 10:45pm things are finally back in order (got a new 15W pump.)

I'll let things go back to normal for a day and then think about resuming feeding.