Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello, I am in process of setting up my first system. Using an IBC with the top cutoff
to use as the growbed. Have got most of the work done but have a couple of questions.
I am going ebb and flow and am curious on hole size and spacing for my irrigration grid.
I was going to start system with no fish and a few plants to check out the system and
wondering how to start the bacteria in my grow bed. Thanks for all your replies.

Hi there Jgudde,
Welcome to the forum. What size are your growbeds? We start with fish from day 1. Not too many and not too much feeding. If you have an old pond you can scoop out the bottom sludge and pour into your growing media this helps establish the bacteria. Spacing is about 10-15cm and about 6-8mm holes. Are you metric?
I must say I am excited to see someone from Missouri as our son has just gone from Australia to Camp Lakewood, Missouri.
Good luck with setting up your system.
Faye

Nice to have you JGudde... pictures or plans help us all understand what you're doing and suggest modifications, tweaks etc...

The holes in the irrigation grid can/will block with bio-film over time... especially if they're too small... think from memory a lot of people are using 6mm....

Many are just using a straight flow outlet....

Starting the bacteria cycle without fish.... choices are any source of ammonia....

Some have used bottled ammonia.... must be pure though... not the "cloudy" ammonia...

Some use "hummonia".... and you can research the "Peeponics" thread by one of your compatriots - TCLynx

You can also use urea... typically in the form of "balls"....

There are some that have used dead prawns and fish... personally, I'm not so sure about this method though...

Seek and ye shall find JGudde.... if it aint on this forum... then it probably just means that someone hasn't done it yet ...... read on ....

I cut 13" off the top of the IBC and flipped it over for my first growbed. I will try pictures tomorrow. I am metrically challenged but do have an exchange program to help with conversion.

Hi there, welcome!

As for a grid, if you are doing ebb n flow (or Flood and drain) you don't need to bother with a grid. If flooding and draining, the water will get everywhere through the bed even if it just enters the bed at one corner (as many of mine do.) The grid will be just extra plumbing parts you don't need and as noted they can clog. You should have a ball valve at the inlet of each grow bed though and probably another T off with ball valve just above your fish tank to return any extra flow for additional aeration (this way you don't need to restrict the pump if it is powerful and you get extra circulation to boot.)

Yes, pictures and plans, we love em!!!

As for starting without fish, I highly recommend it. Unless you have a great source of sludge and pre-cycled gravel, fishless cycling is much less stress. You can use pure ammonia (make sure there are no other additives like detergent or anything.) Urea firtilizer has also been used but again make sure there are no sneaky additives in it that would be bad for you or the fish. I've heard of people simply using fish food or other rotting stuff but that could get stinky and perhaps foster bad bacteria as well as good. And of course my favorite, Hummonia *that's right* Pee, Urine, Liquid Gold, fee firtilizer Actually better than fee since many people pay to flush it away with nice clean drinking water to pollute more water!

If you are caught up by the yuck factor, remember that Aquaponics is all about eating food grown from fish poo. Here are a couple things to keep in mind, to fishless cycle even a 600 gallon system, I used less than one urinations worth per day. For a 50 gallon system, It probably could have been cycled on about 50-100 mil of urine per day. If worried about pathogens that could be in urine (like e. coli) you can age the urine in a small sealed bottle for a couple weeks, this gives the urea time to change to Ammonia which kills e. coli. Aging it has the added effect that you can take readings relatively quickly after dosing the system where as fresh urine or urea take time to change into Ammonia and get the cycling started. Be ware that time delay if using fresh urine or urea as it is easy to think you need to dose more when really you need to wait.

I have now gotten a taste of getting lots of fish into a non-cycled system, don't do it if you are at all busy and/or your water supply isn't plentiful. (My quarantine system wasn't cycled yet when I got my tilapia. So I am now having to restrain my self from feeding as much as they want. I'm having to do water changes and worry about the high temps, ammonia, pH and Nitrite. Sigh.) I definitely like fishless cycling and urine is better than free.

The only time I ever noticed an odor from using urine was as I measured out a dose for the system. If you notice a bad urine odor from a system at any other time, you are probably dosing Waaaaayyyy too much.

Side note, if you have a system empty of fish for any period of time but you don't want the bacteria to all die off, you need to provide a source of ammonia there too. Feeding the system Hummonia can also keep your plants alive while you don't have fish.

Good luck!

I'm kinda metrically challenged too.

Welcome JGudde!

Google can convert values for you, try typing in "6000 liters to cubic feet" into the search field and the results page will show the answer. It can do any kind of conversion including Fahrenheit to Celsius, horsepower to watts, etc..

I cycled in two weeks without fish using household ammonia, but it took about eight tries to find some without detergent in it. Shake the bottle and if it foams don't use it. The detergent would kill the fish.

Uploaded a handy conversion program.... viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3601

Used to be there but got lost with the forum problems....

Just unzip to the desk top... or if you want an installable/un-installable version ...

Download from here ... http://joshmadison.com/article/download ... or-windows

Welcome!
If you have a friend with an aquarium see if they will let you have the water from their next water change and/or some gravel. I squeezed out my aquarium sponge filter into aquarium water and added to our first 55 gal. system. It cycled (with 13 bluegill) in 3 weeks. At one month we've eaten lettuce and have blooms on the tomatoes.

What area of Missouri are you from? We lived in SE MO for 21 years. That's where we first heard about aquaponics in 1993.

Good luck!

West Central Missouri (South and East of Kansas City).

I am not too smart how do I post a picture?

When you are in the post reply screen, below the 'Submit' button, it has a box for 'Upload attachment'. Just hit browse to find the pic file on your computer, select and open. Then click on the 'Add the file' button and it uploads the pic. You can add comments if desired. I'm not used to posting to a forum and have had to ask or search for answers also.

Max file size is 250kb, and 800x600 picture resolution is reccomended.

urea seems to be a winner too.

as dave said, finding ammonia with out additives can be hard, i found some with no detergents, but looked up the msds and it had surfactants

Picture of system in progress.

Sweet - just put something over that fish tank to stop them jumping out