Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A bit of an update. Moved the fish tank out of the direct sunlight and into the shed to get ready for summer. Have sunk a B tank (sump) into the gound as deep as I was prepared to dig and I am building a grow bed out of old floor boards. Planning to line it with pond liner. Will need to add another B tank in the shed and hook them together to give me enough water for the grow bed. The grow bed will sit over the sump, draining with loop siphon and pumped back to the fish tank with float pump.

The fish (8 Goldies and 30 SP) are doing well even with a few moves. They were flashing a little on the bottom and I added 2ppt of salt and they have been fine over the last month. The salt didn't help the strawberries and have now been affected by spider mite. Didn't want to spray them so it was time to pull them out. Lettuce has done well and have planted a tomato and capsicum plant. Changed the grow med about 5 wks ago from blue metal to clay balls and love it. The only problem was I had to cycle again.

The fish are eating well, especially now the weather is warming up. Had a Goldy floating today when I came home. Don't know why. Everything seems ok. Looks like it was becoming fish food as the eyes and most of the scales were gone.
I don't think it's anything to worry about as everything seems fine.
My water temp was a bit warm at 29 on the surface. Ammonia seems fine although I don't have a better tester.
Nitrite at 1ppm
Nitrate colour never seems to match but could be about 60ppm
PH a little higher, maybe up to 7.7
Should get a better test kit.
Two air stones in the tank.
Colours are a little lighter than what they appear in the pictures.

If anyone has any suggestions as to why the goldy died it would be grately appreciated.

Another pic

The system upgrade. Little by little.
Thanks to Monya, I have a nice new grow bed. Filed with clay balls and planted some seedlings a couple of weeks ago.
The bell siphon is doing well. Haven't got around to putting an air tube in the syphon yet, but this doesn't seem to affect it. Still activates and stops as would expect. Can anyone shed light on what advantages of the air hose. Will I get any problems if I don't put one in.

Plant growth has been excellent and and they are flying along.
Have lettuce, bok choy spring onion, chinese cabbage and a transplanted capsicum from the old system.

The 30 silvers and some goldies have had no problems. touch wood.
There is a bit of difference in growth rates for the silvers.
Looking to get about 30 trout for the second fish tank. Should be good over winter.
Will need to think about another grow bed soon I think as the fish grow out a bit more.

Does your tank get any swirl factor?

Yeah, Pump is too stong so divert at least 50%. Bottom pic shows pipe going to right with ball valve. Elbow on the end to provide nice swirl for 15 minutes each hour while pump is on. The other tank with lid on is the inlet for the return which causing swirl in that tank. Simple siphon moves water from one tank to the other.

Water looks green due to the colour of the tank, but water is clear due to the tanks being inside a shed.

Have four air stones in but turned them off for the pic...

Cheers... still no closer to the answer

Hi Gilly, cool pictures!
The air break tube will just make the stopping more reliable than without. If you aren't having any problems without an air hose then I'd just leave it be for now. If it develops difficulties stopping the siphon then try adding one.

Got my Refractometer (salt level tester) in the mail the other day. I have been salting at about 1ppt but wasn't sure how accurate I have been. After a calibration I tested the water and 5ppt was the result.

I think it was because I was salting 1ppt all top ups before adding the water.
I can only assume that the water has evaporated or been taken up by the plants but the salt level has stayed relatively stable. Therefore salting the top ups has only increased the amount of ppt.

Most of the plants have not appeared to have suffered. The parsley was slow to get going, coriander died and some new seedlings have taken a while to get going but all is fine.

Would 5ppt cause any problems to the silvers.

5 ppt wont heart the silvers just the strawberrys wont like it i would do water change back to 3 ppt and all should be ok

Need some help. My Ammonia levels wont go down.
AMMONIA is going up to about 1 to 1.5
I do some water changes and get it back to about .25 to .5 and it stays there for a few days before going back up.
I got carried away at the start of trout season and bought 80 trout but don't feel I have the water quantity and filtration to support them.
The trout are about 75 grams.
I have in a separate tank about 25 x 100 grams silvers and goldies.
I had about 400 litres in each of the B tanks and about 300 litres in the sump. Have just added another 400 litres in another B tank which stabilised AM for a week but now is going up again.
I have a 500 litre grow bed with Clay balls and NFT trays holes for 30 plants.
Water Temp is 14-15 deg
Nitrate – don't know need new test kit
Nitrite – 0
Salt – 3ppt
PH – was 6.5 but with water change it's up to 7.1
Good amount of air into the tanks.
Was feeding about 3% body weight twice a day but over the past weeks have dropped to 1% once a day or two.
Silver/goldies get very little. Some azola in the tank for them.
Have had two silver die over about a month. They looked good but floating upside down in tank. One of them had a bladder problem as could right it self. Apart from that no other issues.
I added a pump to the Trout tank to keep the tank clean and gather the crap and uneaten food. I clean that filter every couple of days to stop the excess waste breaking down. But still no good.

What do I need to do. Add a separate BIO filter or get rid of some of the fish. Can't afford another grow bed at this time. Any suggestions.

Sounds like you are overstocked for your amount of growbed (bio-filter).

Each 100 liters of grow bed can support about 3 kg of fish (that is intended grown out size.) Your one 500 liter grow bed could support perhaps 15 kg of fish if things are going well. I don't think I would want much more than 30 fish in such a system without adding more bio-filter. And if you have that much fish in such a system, as they get close to full grown, if anything goes wrong, there won't be much time to fix it before fish start dieing.

So, you need lots more bio-filter or way less fish or perhaps a bit of both.

Cheers thanks TCLynx as i thought.
What is an easy way of increasing bio.
If I get a barrel full of bio balls and run some water through it.
Is that an easy why to do it.
Sounds like I best get rid of some fish.

what if you pumped for 15 minutes and then drained for 15 minutes. That effectively would double you filtration. If your bed does not drain as fast as 15 minutes and you are using a bath plug overflow drain than drill a second hole or both bigger. Also are you still running at night or do you turn off your bed at night. For a seperate filter a blue barrel filled with the coarsest shell grit has proven successful for some people.
Good luck, Nick

Running the water for longer periods as long as the DO is high. The salt will counter the nitrite. For a short term fix you could also use zeolite. It takes a lot of ammonia out of the water(can get it at pool shops but have a search and read first). Know of anyone close that could take a few fish. Adding a biofilter will help but it takes time for the bacteria to catch up and with water changes it will slow things down.