Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice to see dueling barrel systems there Keith....

Barrel ponics are very good learning systems and I'm glad to see you have a better fish tank than a blue barrel on it's side

Also good to hear you are experiencing the HSM's before you get fish and you can sort out how to keep them from happening in the future when you do get fish.

Keep up the good work.

what a rough week.. been fighting with a server in california and hp support.. friday it was in the upper 70's, a front came through and the temp dropped 28 degrees (f) in about a half hour.. had a heck of storm come through, gusts up to 60mph.
i unplugged my pump friday night and saturday everything was ok, so i turned the pump back on.. had to clean out some bits that were gumming up the works, and ended up splling one of the overflow tanks on myself.. it was a bit chilly! got everything fine now, had a pretty hard hail saturday evening.. the system is running fine though.
hopefully i'll get the server in cali fixed today and be able to stop for a test kit on my way home from work tomorrow
i just hope i don't have to get back on the phone with hp support, they're in india and more than a little rough to deal with
hope all you mothers have a great day,
oh, and go cav's!

finally got that server fixed, did my first water test tonight;

ph = 7.6
amonia = .25
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=0

first time i did the ph it looked to be a little darker (API master test kit), so i checked with the high ph kit, and then double checked..
house ph is a bit lower @ 7.2

the system's been cycling for about a week and a half, except when i shut the pump off during the storm saturday. it's been chilly, warming up to 50f (10c) with rain on the good days.. supposed to start warming up though

i'm out of aged pee, starting another container, but don't think i should add anything right now (at least from what i've read)

i saw a couple of beans sprouting roots, so there's something goin on there, even with a lack of sun/warmth
oh, and i put a half dozen worms in each half barrel, i think 2 days after i started cycling water through the growbeds

Keith,

Glad to see your system is coming along. I can appreciate the squals - I was out camping last weekend in Findlay when the tornado warnings flared.

I have a similar setup, modified barrelponics. I'll have to post some pictures sometime.

Anyway, I found that based on my pump, the overflow tubes aren't big enough. Just be careful. Better safe than sorry.

I have the rocks in my grow beds about the same level as you. The other thing that I thought of was putting in 1-2" more to bring it up level. That way you can fill the grow beds to the top of were the gravel is now. The plants don't like to be wet all the time, so they are out of it, and you never have the topmost rocks getting wet. Does that makes sense?
Kristopher

yeah, i need to shorten up those overflow's.. but when we had the major rain, only one gave me a problem, had a couple handfulls of hydroton on the ground, other than that it held up well..
i was thinking about getting 1 more bag of hydroton to top off the growbeds, but i think for now i'll leave as is, i have river pebbles on the bottom half of each barrel, and 1 bag of the expanded clay - if you're ever near twinsburg, there's a place that sells it for 19.90 a bag (they get ya on shipping) but if you can pick up, thats half off from everywhere else i've seen
have you got fish, if so, what kind, where from etc?

I went the cheep route and got peagravel for my grow bed. I'm not sure if that was the best way. I think it took longer to cycle that way. Now it is working fine, though.

Thanks for the tip on the hydroton.

I am getting some redears (bluegill) from Don at ibnature.com - Check out the website if you have a chance. As his website mentions, he might not be the cheapest, but if I'm going to eat the fish, I don't know if I WANT the cheapest! I did check around and his price is comparable to others. I have a 55 gallon tank inside and a 55 gallon tank outside, so I'm probably going to get 40 or so redears - at $0.40/ea for 1-2", the fish are pretty cheap. I'm also going to just get from him the fish food as well. If you search for hatchery or pond suppliers you might find someone closer to you.

Originally I had my hopes set on Tilapia. TCLyx and I discussed it and it just doesn't make sense here in OH. The water needs to be ~70F for them, and it will only hit that for maybe a month here. Quite a bit different from the weather our brothers down under get!

I don't really like catfish (the flavor) but I think the main thing that turns me away is the fact that I need a hardy fish. I might try them in a bigger system sometime.

Another thing I learned is that the big systems can have a lot more "wiggle" room. It takes a lot more ammonia/nitrite to do damage to fish when you have a ton more water. My system, since it is small, seems pretty sensitive to water temps, etc.

My first year my plants had problems. The fish were fine and the water levels were great - nitrates in the 30s, others zero. But the plants just were not growing. I mistakenly diagnosed it as an iron deficiency, and so I added chealated iron. Didn't help. I now think it was a phosphorus or potassium issue - something more major than trace elements. My best bet is that the big systems don't have that problem since they are using commercial feed. Just something to keep an eye on your plants. Let me know if you find a source for trace elements too. I noticed IBNATURE sells some, $10/lb though. Maybe I'll get some just to try, since 1 lb will go a long way!

Let me know how things go for you.

Maxi crop can take care of the trace elements as well as potassium and you can even get the maxicrop with Iron if you need that. Often times a new system might not make the plants as happy as they will be in subsequent seasons.
High quality fish feed will also make a big difference, pond diet is probably not as complete since it assumes the fish are also going to be eating some natural food and getting some trace elements from that and the soil the pond is in.

Bigger systems do have an advantage in stability. Temperatures stay more stable and water quality usually doesn't go pear shaped quite as fast as it can in a little system.

I myself do like catfish (I've only ever eaten the Aquaponic variety) and I must say the flavor as far as I can tell is about the same as tilapia (also only aquaponic variety) but the texture is better.

However, I don't recommend catfish in small tanks, a 55 gallon fish tank with a catfish in it just doesn't seem right to me (might be fine for small fingerlings temporarily but not for grow out.) I think 200-300 gallons of fish tank is far more appropriate as a small catfish grow out system and even bigger is better. I count my 600-700 gallon fish tank big system as a good medium size backyard catfish system that can produce hundreds of pounds of fish per year.

Good Luck with the blue gill

TC, thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. I think it helps Keith as well. Is there a specific Maxi crop you recommend? I was just looking at a SEASOL alternative here in the US.

Thanks!

you want to look for the maxicrop seaweed with iron.. the other maxicrop (that the place had right by my office) is the fish emulsion, i read here that some people use this to start their system cycling..

i won't do catfish for the simple reason that my wife is alergic to them (i think it has something to do with an iodine allergy)

i'd really like to find yellow perch (my favorite fish to eat) for my system, but may end up with bluegill, there's a fishfarm close by but i haven't called them yet, when i do is when i'll probalby find out what i'll be getting..

we finally are getting some sun, so i'm hoping to see some action in my water tests soon..i ran out of aged humonia, and am not sure if i should dose again w/ fresh, i'll test water tonight and post results

feels like the first sunny day in forever, got into the 70's! supposed to be sunny this weekend, so thats a good thing, got home from work and there's sprouts!

more on that in next post, with pics, but here's tonights test;
ph = 7.6
Amonia = 1.0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 0


out of aged humonia, what i do have is only 4 or 5 days old, not sure if i should add any of that, or fresh, or just be patient.. i'm thinking the latter

just looked over the pic's of the sprouts, they're a bit to tiny for this camera, here's on the regular setting


high def setting;




i spotted at least 20 sprouts! and the green bean's are growin a root

Several of the fish people around here had yellow perch, so I'd bet you can find them around there. $1.25 or so for 3-5". Hope you can find them there.

I'd recommend just letting your system go a few days. That seems really strange to me that the ammonia level is non-zero but everything else is zero. I thought your system had already cycled? It looks like it hasn't yet.

The ammonia is 1 ppm, just leave it alone and let the bottled stuff keep aging.

Now there is a word I do not see all that often...I was born in Findlay.