Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello All...I am currently filling and draining my growbeds at 1 hr. intervals. The nitrites showed up this morning after one week since startup. Is this about the right flood and drain cycle, or should I change it plus or minus? Tank to grow bed are at 1/1 ratio (110 gallons) with 15 small goldfish. I'm sure this has been covered somewhere but I could not find it.

Thanx

thats sounds about right to start up the bacteria. but once you put plants in there it would be wise to get a timer just to make sure the plants aren’t getting to much water and get root-rot.



-df

How does your system work? Is it filling and then a slow drain and then refilling an hour later?

Never mind the question... just read your thread.

I am assuming that being flood and drain at 1 hour intervals, there is already a timer?

Thats ok timing, you can change it to suit the season, in summer I dont run a cycle during the day at all, and pump continuously overnight. Opposite in winter. Flood and drain autosiphons.

As long as the plants get a little bit of not so wet time, they handle it fine.

How does your system work? Is it filling and then a slow drain and then refilling an hour later?


Yep, slow fill and drain with timer. Does the system not need to cycle ever so often to add oxygen to the water for the fish? I do have a bubble wand installed in the tank BTW.

During your initial cycling period, you want to keep your water moving quite often, like you are. Once you get past the initial cycling and any spikes you get when you add a larger batch of fish, then you can reduce how often you flood your bed to suit the plants/season/ and fish. Since you have the coco peat in the grow bed, it will probably retain a lot more moisture than a strict gravel bed so you will be searching for the balance of moving the water enough to keep it clean/aerated versus letting it dry out enough for the plants to stay happy.

In some situations, you do need to run the pump often enough to keep the tank aerated but an air pump for the if is the other option. Only thing to note, if you are having really long periods of no water movement, you want an air pump to deliver about .25 CFM of air per 100 gallons of water at 2 psi. Or here is how the guy at Aquatic Eco Systems explained the rule of thumb to me. You want 1 CFM of air per 400 gallons, The air stone will need about 1 psi and for each 28" or depth you need 1 psi. So for most purposes in Aquaponics, you want an air pump that can deliver your needed volume of air at 2 psi (if your tank is shallower than that then a little less pressure may be needed.) I don't remember right off hand what your fish tank volume/size is.

It's about 130 gallons, but it's not filled to the very top so that the water has some drop to it before it hits the suface to create some distubance. Thanks TCL, that all answers a lot of my questions. Haven't lost a fish one yet (knock on wood). I'll have to do some math to see if the bubble wand I got is sufficent. Just one more thing...How long after the nitite readings start will I see some nitrate readings (ballpark)?

A week or so...

You can also use a water pump in place of an air pump for aeration.