Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It does take some time for a bio-filter to cycle up. Do a little reading in the top sections of the forum. Useful Info and Basic Info. Look for posts/articles explaining the Nitrogen cycle.

My first NFT was like that with three 4 inch pipes with into three tubes. Things went okay but I noticed when I seperated the channels and added one manifold feed for each tube, plants at the end of the tubes grew faster. The original length total was 30 ft. of channel. It seemed as though many of the nutrients were absourbed before it got to the end of the channel run. Seperated them to three individual runs of ten feet and things id much better. Can't explain it scientifically but it worked well. Good luck. Beware this is addictive!

Nice start michael, love the look of those pintados, try and get a master test kit so you can check your Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates as well as pH, will come handy when you get bigger also, definitely need some grow medium like Gravel, Blue Metal or clay balls for example as this encourages the all important bacteria growth and also filters out the crap, by the way a master test kit is around $AU40 or around $US33 can find them on Ebay, you shouldn't have to many water problems with that amount of fish, but worth testing things every now and then to make sure fish remain healthy, what do the Pintado's taste like they are an unusual looking fish, do they live in rivers

Thanks once again to all of you!!! Very much appreciated! I installed my biofilter last night, and this morning when I checked on my sistem, the water wasnt mercky!!! It also used to smell fishy, not anymore!!! I think its actually drinkable now! Plants are doing great as well. The name "pintado" means "colored/painted" in portuguese...they taste awsome!! They are 3 times the price of tilpia meat, and their natural habitat is in rivers and lakes. They will grow up to 4 feet if you let 'em! Heres a photo I pulled of the internet. Mind you, they get bigger! Hehehehe...yum!

The difference in plant growth in the long pipe probably didn't have as much to do with nutrients being used up as it probably had to do with the water nearing the end of the pipe being either warmed up or running out of dissolved Oxygen or both. Also the gunking up of roots in different parts of the pipe could affect the growth in different parts of the pipes.

Anyway, you still need more material for bio-filter than a coke bottle's worth. That coke bottle may help a lot, especially with the solids but you probably need a container about the size of your current fish tank filled with some sort of material and either flood and drain or just full with a lot of added bubbles from an air pump.

If you can do tests for
Ammonia
Nitrite
and
Nitrate
it will help us know when your system is properly cycled.

Thanks for the info michael they are a magnificent looking fish, sounds like you will need a bigger tank

Hi. One of the important considerations in bio-filtration is to provide as much surface area in the media used for the bacteria to live on. Thus, the finer the media, the more surface area hence more bacteria for better filtration. Of course, too fine a media would tend to clog up unless there is a clarifier before it. In my system, I use polyethylene nets (such as those used in fishing) packed into the filter box. Water from the fish tank is moved to a clarifier, then to the filter box, on to a sump, then to the plants from where the water goes back to the fish. All these are made possible with an airlift system and gravity. Hope this helps.