Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Sweet setup!

Taz this looks great to me too

let us know how you get along with some plants when you put them in place and watch them grow with your fish

Hi, thanks for the replies. The system is still cycling. I got a test kit Friday so finally tested. Ammo a bit high? A bit to much pee So I changed out about half the water. Can someone give me a run down on how these conditions are affecting my cycling? How hight or low should the Ammonia get. I'll be testing again tonight and post the results then.

Cheers Taz.

Tested last night and still Ammo really high, even after water change, pee must contain a lot of Ammonia!?.

Have I got this around the right way. I should sould see the Nitrites rise then fall, then the Nitrates rise, then the Ammonia fall to zero. Then it is cycled? So all this time my Ammo has been high has had a negative effect on the cycling?

I made another water chage last night and will test again tonight. Taz

oh yeah almost forgot, it got down to -1 here last night!!
Not sure what it was in the shed. What temp will my bacteria die off?
Starting to second guess my outdoor GB indoor FT system. Might put it all in he shed and replace the iron with laser light.

hows the system going taz, anything growing yet

Tea20, yeah I have put some parsly in one of the NFT pots up top and in the long GDs I've transplanted a chilly or capsicum not real sure (got it from my wife's great Aunty Hazel, who turns 80 today btw, she's throwing a party at their local Bowls club ). Hazel's my goto person for advice on what to put in & when. So last w'end she popped over with a heap of stuff. Got a Violet in there too. Nothing to interesting yet as I was just curious to see how they would go. Taking the kids down the pet store in a minute to get a couple of Goldies to throw in.

Had my 1st HSM the other morning, found water all over the bench top around the FT. Couldn't see any visible leaks or other wet spots to point to where it had come from, the sump level wasn't visible down at all. Hasn't happened again since so not to fussed.

Will post some pics later when the fish are in

Taz... cycling phases are...

Ammonia spikes.... followed by Nitrite spikes...

Ammonia falls (rapidly)... nitrates may begin to appear (slightly)....

Nitrite falls (rapidly).... nitrates rise significantly...

Thanks Rupe, just put the goldies in so will keep a close eye on it. How long after putting them in should they settle and start eat?

goldies are pretty tough... I started to feed them in small amounts even though they didn't eat much to begin with. but on the third feeding, they ate and the fourth they were gobbling. So you kinda have to just repeat the process each day in small amounts until they are eating properly.

With goldfish you only put in enough feed for them to eat for 5-10 mins. Do it in small amounts to get an idea of how much you need to feed them. You will be able to tell when they stop feeding and are just swimming around lazily.
Some people feed them once a day. but it doesn't really matter if you feed them 2 times or you miss a day or two because goldfish can last quite well.

If you were using different fish, they will have a different story!

Thanks Jens, my goldies seem happy. They're darting around all over the place, always at the bottom of the tank. On the second day I had them I put some food in and one came up to the surface and had a nibble but since then when I put food in they stay at the bottom, mustn't be to hungry. I've put a cover around the tank to keep the light out beacause I was getting a lot algae on the sides of the tank. After a week it's nearly all gone, would the goldies have eaten some of it?

I've finally had a drop in the Nitrites. Will keep an eye on the Nitrates now, if they spike will this hurt the fish. I've got a couple of small plants in the GB's sowill they use them up?

Everything else going good. Will be planting out the NFT pots this weekend and some more in the GB tubes so will post some more pics then.

Might also have a play with an idea for a sequencer for my SLO outlet from the 'T' I use (my little system doesn't really need it but I think it might work on larger systems). Got a simple idea that I'lll put foward on the "Holy Grail" thread for review. Taz

Ammonia and Nitrates are poisonous if they go high on the chemical tests. I've also recently been told that Nitrates wont hurt even in high doses... so the real threat is only Ammonia. and algae.

Mee toooo! been thinking about that for ages now!! but I'm going with the flout and cuebox idea for now I can always replace that with the sequencer.... just a thought...

same, thought about the flout and cuebox too but not sure how it would handle all the solids passing through it?

I have 2 sump tanks... one at the bottom (buried in the ground) and one at the top which I call the header tank, all the fishtank water goes into the buried sump first and a pump sends the water to the header tank. the flouts and cuebox will be in the header tank so I hope by the time the water gets into the header tank, there wont be very much "solids" messing it up. Anyway that's just my system.

Not sure I understand. This sounds like all the FT water (+ solids) will be pumped into the cuebox from the buried sump? At what point does it pass through you GB's?