Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

stainless tubs for grow beds ,,YEP , imagine if they where 75cm wide and available in 4 or 6 metere lengths. Yep I have.

read in a thread that having a deep tank in my case 2000mm x 1200mm dia i have less surface area, so less fish to stock. Can anyone tell me how many fish i need to start the sump cycling with nitrates etc. I filled the sump with chlorinated water from the town supply so im not sure how long i have to wait for the chlorine to dissipate before i add fish. The plan is to use the sump as my ft pumping out to gb's then later on add a dedicated ft and drain back to grow beds and sump. I placed a big bunch of water cress in the sump today. Im off to town later to buy more plumbing fittings to try to get my autosyphons working correctly. I have heaps of 32mm poly 20mm poly and 15mm poly. Im not sure wich to use as the drain, the 32 seems to take a lot of water to kick off. The water temp in the sump is 21 deg cel the ambient temp is about 10 this morning. ap is so addictive such excitement and i dont have to leave home. Does anyone know the correct type of silicon to use on fish systems i read that some can be toxic.
cheers
pete

Pete,

I think the surface area thing is more related to the surface area of the grow beds not the fish tank.

I have 6 half blue drums (OBO has heaps vertically, so there is slightly less surface area. I also have a cut-off corro tank that is about 60cm deep, but it is doing very well growing HEAPS of big stuff that is spilling out all over (rosella hedges, ceylon spinach curtain, tomato vines) as well as smaller stuff that fits in between (garlic, chives, oregano, capsicums, shallots, eastern-bloc watercress)

Yeah since the water is sent to the growbeds and back so frequently, the surface area effectively, is more than just that of your fishtank (unlike in a pure aquaculture setup)
Use any pure silicone often called 100% silicone, meant for aquarium use and stuff.
The bad silicone for AP is the one meant for windows or whatever to which antibacterial or antifungal additives are with the silicone. We want the good bactera and fungi don't we?

+1

Chlorinated water would be unchlorinated water pretty quickly, coupla days should do it, 32mm for autosiphons may be a bit too much, my 19mm ones move a hell of a lot of water, if you want to use 32mm, you can put a length of 20mm inside it, this makes the siphon start easier

I think the above was in regards to the aquarium recvommendation,,,,it suggests a 2metre long ,50 cm wide and 50 cm WATER depth tank should hold the same number of fish as a 2metre long 50 cm wide 75 cm WATER depth tank.
The surface area from "top view " is used,,extra depth does not add extra carrying capacity.

I guess the extra depth in aquaponics would be an advantage ( basically an inbuilt sump) but I cannot see a 1 metre diameter 4 metre tall tank having anywhere near the "comfortable" fish holding capacity of 4 X 1 metre diameter 1 metre deep tanks.

Mind you,,,I did see pics of a guy growing 400 kilos of catfish in a 1,000 litre tank!!!!!!!!!
But that's just crazy,,,,the fish will damage each other.

im up and running i have 7 goldys 60mm long . I purchased a pondmate 18000p which pumps 18000 lts per hr at 1m head. I have it on for 15 mins every hour. though it only takes about three minutes to fill the 5 bath growbeds. The whole cycle is over in 7 mins. The timer i have only has increments of 15mins so thats why its running for 15mins. I have seeded one bed with a salad mix of lettuce radish mescala and any other packet of seeds that was open or unknown expiry date etc. I must not have washed my gravel bed sufficiently as the water is murky but clearing. The river gravel i have been sourcing is a 10 mill ag with a mix of rounded basalt and quartz and others very smooth. So far it has cost me $90 dollars to fill 5 baths and one stainless tub. I have watercress in my sump/ft and it has new roots emerging all over the stems. I chatted to a mate last night and he has given me a location where freshwater muscles are plentiful , so im off to source some for the sump. I would suppose that they secrete amonia the same as fish. I have used 32mm poly ag pipe for the main feed to the growbeds as that was the pipe i scavanged from the dump. I used a hole saw to drill 20mm holes for branches to each bed . I just screwed a 15mm male threaight into the 20mm hole (see pic) it dripped slightly under pressure but the drip was above the growbed so it doesnt mater. All the auto syphons are working splendidly, they are 25mm poly bluline (20mm inside dia) with a 50mm pvc outer pipe. One bath has a 32mm upstand with a 90mm syphon pipe and it drains in about 45 seconds.
I added slime and pond scum from an existing tank containing goldfish and it has been in the main sump for a week. The goldys seem to be feeding ok, i think i need more though if i want to maintain plant growth. My master test kit arrived this week and i took my first reading yesterday. amonia 1 no2 0 no3 5 and ph 7.5 h20 temp 17 cel
Question. how do i know when my system has cycled?

my pics didnt load ill try again

here is some pics of my system running

more pics
I know looks rough but this is a trial system on the way to the state of the art system in the not to distant future. I will go to a chift pist system once i source a cheap fish tank. I would like to get the system up and running soon so i will be prepared for spring growth. m thinking of stocking jades or sleepy cod as they are omnivorous and i can supplement their food with veg etc.

with the pump running the level in the sump only drops 250 mm before the first gb is draining. The total depth is 2 mts so the difference in water levels hopefully will not pose a problem for my fish. Im not sure wether to go dambusters and plant out the other growbeds or wait untill i take further readings. Im new to water analysis and am not sure what the optimum desireable readings are.

BF, I started planting a batch on a monthly basis and built up the GBs in this fashion, monitoring the nitrate level as I went.

Once the system is cycled it is only necessary to monitor pH, nitrates and water temp (well, that is all I do )

ph is best kept in the range 6.8 to 7.4 so balance between the fish and plant needs

Water temp depends on the type of fish, but really you need to know (and control) the high and the low temps, my water fluctuations is max 3c in winter

Nitrates - some fish are more tolerant, but it is less stressful to the fish if you can keep it below 100, says me battling to hold mine <300 and one lovely forumer recorded 1,000 when HSM set in

Not sure if you have a water test kit, but the drop ones are far more accurate then the strip testers

Master Test Kit

LKB i purchased a master test kit from age of aquarius. Im not sure how to tell when my system is cycled though. Im not sure that i dont need to put more fish in to raise the ammonia levels.

Hah!, just re-read your post so forget about the master kit

How the cycle thing happens:
Ammonia levels will slowly rise towards 5, but you don't really want them to go that high (try doing some water changes if it gets to 2 to keep the level down).

Good bacteria will start to grow in your GBs which will convert the ammonia to nitrites

Nitrite levels will start to rise also now

The good ammo bacteria will build to a stage where it can handle what is produced by the fish and there will be a sudden drop to zero, the time is dependent on the water temp

Nitrites will continue to rise for another couple of days and then it too will drop to zero (or there abouts)

The time for a complete cycle is dependent on the water temp, I think at 20c it is around 4 weeks - higher temp, quicker cycle

Nitrates may also be increasing, but this is also related to the plant uptake

When cycling, think of the "P" word and be patient, if you find things going a little bit off kilter then put a post, there will be someone to help

Plants - you can put some in and give a small dose of seasol to keep them going while the system cycles

Fish - I used 10 goldies initially and had no troubles in cycling my system - others have used the urination method (TCLynx has a whole thread on PeePonics)...this is another way of adding ammonia but do daily readings of the ammo to be on top of a sudden rise


Good Luck

my pump is on a timer set at 15 mins on 45 off for 24 hrs. Do i need it on so much or even on at night . i dont have airation yet but there is a hell of a lot of water movemnet during the pump cycle. Im feeding my fish some floating koi pellets a mate gave me.