Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

On the tap water pH test, did you test the water right after drawing it from the tap or did you let it sit for a day or two?
I'm gonna guess that the tap water test was right from the tap. If you let it outgas or bubble it for a while, it will test to a pH of 8.

The trick with tap water is that it often has some CO2 dissolved in it which is a mild acid. If you let the CO2 outgas, you will get a truer pH reading. I struggled with this back in my Hydroponics days. I could not figure out why my tap water which tested at about 7.2 mixed with the hydroponics nutrient would always go to a higher pH over a few days. It was because the tap water was harder than I knew. If I had bubbled the water before testing it, I would have known the pH was actually 8.

Anyway, as you cycle up the gravel to handle more ammonia/nitrite, your system pH will come down so be ready with that shell grit.

yep right out of the tap and also out of the well both were the same reading on PH

ill let it sit next time before i test. im off to get me some bream in the morning. hopefully some catfish also.

but on a down side im having a really tough time in timing the GB's, too much pump on FT side and not enough on ST? and still its not enough pump at FT side to flood all beds all at once.

i have yet to figure it all out as i should be able to eventually regulate each valve and get somewhat close GB filling rates. but its wacky as about the time i think i have it getting closer the flow seems to change and goes to another run of GB. very confusing to an already well warped melon

i do know i need a larger return pump from ST.

and im thinking ill try to plumb some sort of large manifold to feed from the FT pump to the 3 runs of beds. now that i have glued most of it all together to hold the larger FT pump its the perfect time to cut it all apart again.

and for darn sure get a switch inside GH so i can shut off main FT pump before it blows glued pvc apart too.

i have pretty good start of seeds that have came up but its been heap big work and as it stands there is no way i dare try to add any timers to automate pumping.

right now its a flustercluck with nice plant growth

but im a learning i guess

Eventually you might figure out a way to use float switches to control things I think. Trick is finding float switches that can handle you pumps while being food safe (ya don't really want to use mercury switches in a food system.)

Sounds like you have progress since you have plants.

progress having plants thats for sure. im curious to see how the herbs do in the shallow beds.


i went and got another pump just like the larger one i have on FT.

it all went wrong went i could not use mr. gravity effectively.

who else has a 2 pump system i can view their thread and maybe find my way out of this
darkness i have wondered into?

Faye's had three when built, but I never heard of any real issues... http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... &sk=t&sd=a

i mean GB's are getting flooded and the drains work fine. and i actually gotz growth.(that makes this swine happy) i just gotta get it all timed and hopefully hooked up to timers.

thats not even really a problem as im always stuck here. i might as well be flooding GB's LOL

its the first try and im lucky to have it no matter how well it functions or does'nt i guess

even like it is , its still better than soil garden (to me anyway)

how many fish do you think i should add to a 1000 gallon FT with 12 GB to start with?

Do you know about how many gallons worth of grow bed you have?

Knowing how much fish you should get depends more on the amount of filtration (growbed) you have rather than how much fish tank you have (so long as you are not trying to put 10 lbs of fish in 10 gallons of water if you know what I mean.)

I think the rule of thumb comes out to something like 5 or 6 lb of fish (grown out size) per 25 gallons of grow bed. However, you might be better off starting out with less since it is always better to work up slowly and add more later than to start out with more and have a major system crash that kills all the fish.

What kind of fish?

well the totes measure out to about 220 gallons total.

the 2 long shallow beds are 56 gallons each

332 gallons of GB

im probably going with catfish as they are least expensive and closest to me even if i am afraid of them

I'm afraid of them too, I only handle them with a net usually. Once they are clubbed, you can cut off the barbs to make cleaning them safer.

How many catfish to start with, I would say 30 or less but that is use harvesting 2 and 3 lb catfish. If you will eat them smaller, you could perhaps get more but you will need to be ready to do water changes and deal with the cycling up to a heavy load of fish and with-hold feeding while the spikes happen.

cool much thanks as always TCL

i think ill just start with 20-25 catfish. im sorta wanting to put something in the ST also but not sure what.

i really like them blue yabbies but ...

plus i was hoping to add bream but cannot find any close by unless they are wild caught and im not sure how they would do being put in small tank. and even thats out with the suwannee flooding at record levels

Start simple, once things are rolling along you can look into other options.

here is cool daves modest little webpage

http://www.davewalenaquafarming.com/

he has a really large quarry culture going on and its close to me. 60 plus acres is large to me for fish in this area. and he has always been pleasant to me and also recommends the catfish for my ap fish.

i need them soon as my plants are really comming up now. the herbs did nothing
i think the flow maybe washed all the seed out of the filler? i dunno maybe the cheapie seed packs were no good in the begining?

not sure but they did not sprout at all. the cukes and really looking good though. ill find whats best for me to grow as opposed to the shotgun planting method of any and everything i could stuff in a GB

note to self: dont buy cheapie questionable seeds from walmart hehehe

and im getting the dual pumps closer to being right. at least the ST to FT is.

the flooding cycle is still a chinese fire drill for most part though. but i now know how to fix it when i can get better beds and plumb them different

cant rush this stuff or get frustrated. its not bad for being cobbled together from mostly junk and scrap

darn sure better than not having any AP and im growing good groceries

And if you got it all right the first time, what would you do with yourself without any tinkering left to do?

Oh, and starting with smaller if is probably a good idea since they travel better. If you are going more that 20 minutes or so, you probably want them bagged with O2 or you will need a large tank on the vehicle with battery powered air bubblers for them. (I did transport 100 very small tilapia in an ice chest with a battery powered bubbler for two hours but I was probably pushing the limits if it were any other sort of fish.)

3-5 inch catfish fingerlings transport very easily bagged with O2 (I got 30 of them in a single bag and drove for an hour and they were fine.) The 5-7 inch or larger transport ok as long as they don't over fill the bags, the larger the fish, the less you want per bag.