Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Found a couple of places selling Nitrifying Bio-Culture , ouch on the price! $70 for 100ml that's one dosage fro a 1000L tank and they talk about topping up further.

From what I have read so far without an existing source of bacteria I would need to cycle the tank with a little Urea to get the system going is that right? A teasoon a day is an amount I seem to remember. I think that was a 4 week or so process. My question is would $70 worth of bacteria let me shorten the 4 weeks and/or go straight with a small stockign of fish similar to what Faye has suggested?

Cycling with or without fish is a little like a ford/holden debate, you will get different points of view and some of them very passionate. I would not buy bacteria, there's bound to be someone in your area that can help, or anyone with an aquarium can give you some gunk from their filter to get things going.

Without adding any "gunk" even with urea, you will have a long wait for it to cycle. Personally I go with the fish and some "gunk", so long as they are small and you keep the feeding to an absolute minimum you will not have problems.

I'd follow Fayes suggestion Bubba... she's a smart girl that one...

Edited : .... and that Joels a pretty smart cookie as well...

Hi Bubba

welcome to the madness and the forum

all you need is a friend with an aquaium. if you can get the filter washed out in a small amount of water, this has all the bacteria you require for a kickstart to your system

when i set my system up i found that it reduced the cycling time by a bit but you still need sometime for the system to cycle

good luck with your system

When we sell complete kits we supply bacteria (less than the figure you quoted) with the system, investigate first I suspect.
They may suggest other ways of cycling your system. Might be better to follow guidelines of the person supplying your system. As you may have noticed we all do things a little differently. We do it with fish cause its simple.
Looks like I'm fourth in line.

If you are in SA then Monya might be able to help out with silver perch and bacteria if you ask nicely.

I think most of the SA memebers would be happy to help out with kicking off another system. Where abouts in Adelaide are you?

yeah, we supply fish and bacteria with all our systems. The bacteria drastically reduces the cycling time.. if you have bought a system as a kit from someone, they should have all this info for you as part of the purchase. Without a kickstart of goodies, you are looking at about a 12 week cycle time now that the weather has cooled off. I would be happy to be proven wrong, and if we have this same weather for the next 6 weeks you would be sorted, but that's how long it took a system here at the farm to cycle last winter. Expect many water changes in that time if you add trout now, as it is unlikely anyone could resist feeding the little blighters. If you are just grabbing bits and bobs, and you want fish or bacteria, pm me.

I'm at Cheltenham Himzol.

I was planning to see the Fish Farm ppl about sourcing the Trout - Just made the connection that that is Monya

Re bits being supplied with the system I don't actually have one in place at the momentum - still sourcing the bits and bobs for what will probably be one for myself and one for my mum who has just retired. She is prob going to go with a 1 bed BYAP setup which I think in SA I see Monya about? I should prob just wait to receive bits but am too deep in the excitement of discovering AP.

For myself I'm looking at one of the Practical Aquaponics basic balcony kits as a starter (which met my partner Leisel's asthetic requirements) and then adding in some custom steel growbeds along the lines of the small one here:
.

I fell in love with the look of the round ones of Joel's system on the BYAP site. I think in a green they will look great on a nice red wood sleeper base.

Yep, see us for the BYAP stuff. We have all the bits in stock now , if you wanted it installed, could be done within a week to 10 days. Farm is open for visitors by appointment.
No comment on the oppositions stuff
Make sure the corro tanks are aquaplated, galv is bad. The zinc will leach out and kill your fish.
Unfortunately, trout is a banned word here as we don't have them on our species list, as such, we can't even hold any here. So Tooperang is your best bet, they are big, cheap and ready now.

You must be the only people that don't have trout Monya...

Why not... apprantly trout are a really, really fun and good fish for aquaponics...

you'll keep Kiwi.

You got it bad Bubba. You will have fun I can assure you, especially if you stock TROUT, they are terrific to feed.

Yep, if you already haven't done so then go see Monya at the fish farm and get things started while there is still some warmth in the air.. when it gets colder it will take just that bit longer to get the system cycled....I need to go see Stu in a couple of weeks time so am not going to mention the T_fish , but they are your best bet heading into the colder months..
BTW lunch at one of the wineries while your down that way wins you heaps of brownie points with the other half.

As for the tanks, I was looking at the morone ones to use as raised beds..

H.