Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

and phosphate was also 0

temp 75 degrees

You got a phosphate test?

Well I guess it is time to get those fish eating since you want some nitrates and phosphates to feed your plants. Just keep an eye on the ammonia at that pH and the nitrite (add some plain solar pool or water softener salt-which happens to usually be the cheapest in the white or blue bags depending on brand- to 1 ppt to keep any nitrite spikes from hurting wonderful big new fish.)

how often should i perform these tests?

im taking ph and ammo daily, should i also be checking the other ones daily or more often?

so i need water softener salt and also oyster shell grit.

the big fish are really cool but like we have discussed about catfish before. the bigger they are , they also bring more fear factor. i been up all night checking them and running system manually as i have not been able to get it to run on anything resembling automatic. but i checked ph about 2:30
and one of them smacked me on my paw when i was getting water sample in test tube. LOL i sure hope i can find it today dyaam im sure glad i not opt for some mudfish

and how do i calc ppt in a 1000 gallons of water? ill use 1000 to be safer dosing as its really 1350 g

what other chemicals do i need to collect now or asap TCL?

When I'm worried about water quality, I will usually test ammonia and nitrite daily since they are the ones that can hurt fish and since the pH tests are easy I usually do them too. Nitrate and Phosphate probably only need doing when you are trying to trouble shoot a plant problem or are just curious about the levels. If your pH starts going up instead of down, you might want to test pH early in the morning and again late afternoon to see if algae is causing it to bounce.

When I collect water samples, I usually use a plastic measuring cup to bring the sample to where I'm set up to run the tests and take notes. Then I use a turkey baster to fill the test tubes to the right level. This way I am never dipping my test tubes into my system water (risking dropping them or contaminating the system with residues of the test chemicals.)

Substances I like to have on had for the AP system
*Test kit

*Solar Salt (basically dehydrated sea water that is meant for use in pools or water softeners, no additives or pelletizing, usually the cheapest stuff in the 40 lb bag at the grocery store. Avoid the stuff that removes rust and such) They are large salt crystals so be sure to dissolve completely before dumping into a fish tank. Probably easier to simply put the salt in the sump tank provided there are no fish in it.
How much salt. Will have to go do a little math to figure it out, liters and grams are much easier to use for this.

*Shell Grit or some other buffer substance

*Potassium supplement (around here that would probably be maxicrop seaweed extract if you can find it, the seaweed extract will turn the system water to a tea color for a while but seems to help) Other options include using potassium bicarb which would also work as a buffer but probably need to be added in small amounts daily. Some people bury pealed bananas in the grow beds, not sure how well that actually works but I did it early on. I also have used murate of potash (potassium chloride) but that may cause a build up of chloride so I don't like using much of it or often. Other sources for potassium (that I don't really know best how to go about using) hard wood ashes and potassium sulfate.

*Iron supplement (chleated iron is best but sometimes hard to find around here so I have used liquid iron or Iron Sulfate, it's effects just don't last as long and it would probably be better to spray the plants with it than simply put it in the system.) If your water supply is heavy on the iron, you might not need to add this. This is one case where rusty drip spots under your faucets is a good sign. I don't seem to have much iron in my well water here.

One additive that is supposed to help with both potassium and iron is greensand. I have tried it but I can't really say how well it works, It takes a lot of it sprinkled and washed into the grow beds and it takes time to see the effects since it is a slow release type thing. Anyway a 30 or so lb bag of greensand isn't too costly if you can find it so it might be worth washing some off it down into your grow beds and see if your plants ever show signs of needing potassium or iron. I probably didn't use enough in my system and it hasn't had enough time to take effect yet.

Here is a link to a thread that talks about salt and has some figures for amounts
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3179&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

With salting you want to figure the total gallons of water in the system since the salt will dissolve through all the water and not just in the fish tank. I think we worked out that 15 lb in 600 gallons would get me close to 3 ppt so in your system, I would say if you wanted 3ppt, you could use about 30 lb. But that is only needed if you are worried about a disease or parasites. If you simply want to add some salt to reduce fish stress and combat any nitrite toxicity if you get a spike, then you can probably just add about 15-20 lb of salt to your system to get you between 1 and 2 ppt.

Another benefit about salt that many people forget, especially the dehydrated sea water, even though it is mostly sodium chloride, it also usually has lots of trace elements that can be good for the system. By the way, it is the chloride that helps protect the fish from the nitrite. I'm not sure exactly which elements really help with the healing wounds, improving slime coat, fighting disease, and osmotic pressure but adding some small amount of salt does help fish in many ways.

excellent help as always TCL. much thanks!

yes i bet it is ammonia spikes today at daylight it was:

ammo - .50
nitrite - .25
@ 72 degrees

im trying to get timer and all timed out
so i can cycle more. i cycled until 3am manually. hopefully this timer will handle both of these pumps (checking that now)

i put shade cloth back over FT and moved the main water pump lower so hopefully it will gather more sludge up

and gather up the chemicals and additives quickly. i stole lesia's extra turkey baster already



now to mount this intermatic timer and once again try to time the GB fill

i want to ask this now. i know we fill to 1 inch below medium for max fill but what is minimum fill depth, say for a 12" deep GB?

Johnny,

I usually fill to 1/2" to 2" below gravel surface and call it good, but strive for 1" once you are fairly stable.

My numbers show 8.4 lbs of salt for 1000 gallons is 1ppt. For 1300 gal that would be 11lbs. Catfish get unhappy with salt (might try to jump out), but quickly get used to it, even at 6ppt (in my tank...TCL differs...). Plants will be unhappy with more than 3ppt, so don't add more than 25lbs of salt to your system.

I'm surprised you have so much sediment. I second the opinion (TCL's?) that that might be part of the cause of your other fish's demise. I hope your pump sucks it up and the growbeds eat it soon. You may need to find the place the solids collect and put the pump there to remove them.

Good luck!

thank you brother, im making progress again

ill work on those fill ranges and strive for the 1" later , it s must i get this system cycling 24/7 not just when im able to stay awake.

crappy little pumps i have do not list their amps. lists hp but not amps draw grrr!

and of course customer service is closed

if i have 2 - 1/6hp pumps and the 2 outlet timer is rated for 1/3hp and 15 amps. i should be good or close to good yes?

i doubt a small pump could draw 7.5 amps at 1/6hp, well i hope not anyway

but my thought is this, im not cycling enough doing it manually and THAT is were im making the problems with water quality. so its right back to being my fault for killing them fish argh~!

shade cloth brought temp down 3 degrees so thats another good thing

lesia says she will take me to gainsville tomarrow and we will go to every pet store there and find best aerator we can get.

more air is good and surely needed besides just the splashing return from ST and the magdrive 600gph recirculater i have running

ill move main pump again in hopes of removing sludge.

not having a SLO is a bad deal and it all goes right back to not enough fall for gravity from FT to GB

this week im going to repipe it all again with 1.25" pipe so it will be ready when and if i ever get help to raise FT

Actually you Amp draw is there ,, just stated in horse-power

One horse-power is 746 watts ..... you crazy Americans us 110 Volts so each horse-power will draw approx = 7 Amps.

So use the calac. 7 amps per horsepower

Each of your 1/6 horsepower motors will draw about 1.2 amps = 2.4 Amps in total.

You say your timer is rated at 1/3rd a horsepower and 15 amps? It should be fine if rated 1/3rd a horsepower as that is your load.

The 15 amp rating is likely to be for normal ( read not motor) loads , such as lights. I won't get into sign-waves and crap you don't need to know about but basically a motor puts far more work-load on the switch than does lights etc.

thank you chappo , i understand now.

i got the timer mounted nicely but its the same deal as i have with my ham radio thats still not programmed. little digital numbers are not something i can very well.

so hopefully tomarrow i can get the neighbor over here to set it up

here is aerator im trying to find or something pretty close to this size. should be plenty for the FT
http://www.123ponds.com/04520.html

1000 gallon fish tank?
I've been told by aquarium people that you want 1 cubic foot per minute of air (at 2 psi, 1 psi to push air down under water and another psi to push it through the air stone) for each 400 gallons of fish tank That means you want 2.5 CFM (or 4 320 cubic inches a minute) of air for your 1000 gallon fish tank.

Now that was assuming that the air pump is the only sources of aeration. Did you mention that you have a small pump running just for aeration of your fish tank? Put a little fountain fitting on it to splash the water or something and you might not really need the air pump and air stone. If you still want an air pump that could keep your size fish tank happy for a period of time without water flowing, Aquatic Eco Systems has them but you will likely spend over $200 for one that will do more than 2 CFM at 2 psi. I have one that does 1.5 CFM at 2 psi which is hooked to my battery backup.

what about oil-less type air compressors or some type of ac motor driven blower wheel?

AES sorta reminds me of the ex wife if it is available its always way way to high for me LOLZ

aquarium type air pumps are way to tiny , this i know. im wondering if i could adapt something else like an 110v squirrel cage blower like i have on my forge? time to look in gainger catalog or maybe even harbor freight (shudder)


or even a semi truck ac/heater blower motor and direct drive that dc with a solar panel during daylight hours?

there has to be something i can cobble together that will work until i might can afford a better air system.

Be careful of air compressors because of the oil, you know that one.

Ya know, Since it is outdoors-and only one tank, I really think something like this would probably do you just as well as an air pump for simple aeration in the one fish tank.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=47136


It will cost you less to buy and probably cost you less to run. You won't need air stones or piping for it and it can be visually/audibly pleasing to see/hear the water splashing.

this elderly magdrive 660gph is very similar to that. and has a nifty little fountain top thingie , in fact like 3 of 3 for different effects. i pulled all the filter medium out of its box and removed the top end also and it really makes some splashing but i just feel like i need more

im going to harbor freight this week. its 100 miles to either store so im trying to get a safe ride over , so ill check them out.

i have a pair of 1hp 220v motors and after looking in grainger catalog they have a large amount of air moving devices like enclosed blowers and such

getting something of the right size is the issue and yes i surely know to avoid all oil. even ones on my skin dont contact fish water if i can help it.

on my coal forge i have a smallish blower with a snout that feeds into forge and plugged into a sewing machine speed control. it works well , so if i can just find larger blower and fab a cover to attach hoses for air stones AND get proper cfm ill be good

im still all worried about my big fishes
last night i cycled every 2 hours which is not good but better than none.

i gotta get someone over here to program this timer i have. same as the icom ham radio, i cant program what i cant see in little digital numbers.

i knew this sight issue i have was gonna make this hard and i was very correct in that thought.

compressor noise and splashing of water is not an issue here. neighbors have 9 wolfy hybrids. nine! that tune up and howl all night long.
so i really dare them to say anything if i do get a compressor online.

a big sullair diesel compressor with no muffler would be peaceful tune compared to what i am subjected to every night

anyone have an extra tugboat air horn laying about they not need? LOL

all is going well from what i can tell

i got water softener salt thats was no problem but i could not find the other chems. i asked for maxicrop at several places and got no where though

BUT i am actually getting really good growth compared to what it was doing.
before they were just coming up and now they are growing. the herbs are doing super well in the shallow beds

like my fish farm friend says. one of these fish is more mass than all 30 i had before.

i do want to ask something this morning
do catfish feed up on top? i have not seen them eat and this sorta has me worried.

FT is clearing up again and the sludge issue is less since i moved main pump and put it up on shallow plastic crate (about 4")

these larger fish moving about has helped im thinking.

i could not get a ride to a real city so i ended up adding the only air pumps i could find here in deadwood. have 4 12" bars making bubbles . better than nothing and cool dave says that should be plenty of course he also says if they do roll up on top to cook them and come get some more LOL

shade cloth barrier i installed is also working really nicely as the FT stays between 70 and 75 now