Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

If you have floating food it may just slurp right down the top if the water rises that high, but other than that it should work well. Perhaps the pipes will be large enough for the full flow and not rise that high unless the bottom clogs...



Yum! Pickled trout!
Seriously, that is impressively acidic. Let us know how they do with the huge PH change...

Ok the plan: prepare 600 liter tank for the trout with its own filter and oxygen supply and get its Ph down to 6.5 and then dump the trout in there and slowly over 3 days up its Ph and then transfer the trout to the main tank. I have bought an aquarium pump and filter all-in-1 thing and will get the thing up and running now. The pet shop chap says the filter will cycle up very quickly.

I would probably just put them into the main tank with water equalizing over an hour, roughly, but your idea sounds safer. I used a bucket with a small hole drilled in the bottom. I drilled a 4mm hole, added the water & fish, placed a weight in the bucket to keep it upright, and floated it in the fishtank.

Temperatures do affect bacteria, especially the ones that convert nitrite to nitrate. I would suggest making sure the temporary tank be salted to somewhere between 1 and 3 ppt. Be sure it is plain salt (not table salt or iodized salt as the iodine will inhibit bio-filter bacteria and the anti-caking agents in table salt can be bad too.) I usually use the cheapest solar pool salt or solar water softener salt I can find and dissolve it completely before putting in the system.

Good luck with it.

I got the nitrite test kit and it is totally off the chart . I guess it must be spiking now. Should I carry on dosing it with ammonia? Ammo is now 0. I am definitely losing water. These brick reservoirs do leak a bit in the beginning but the holes get blocked with gunk in time. I have hooked up the auto top up and am just going to pretend it is not leaking.

No.... no more dosing....

And salt to 1-2ppt immediately if you have fish....

I don't believe he has fish yet.

And no you don't want to dose ammonia anymore since ammonia will inhibit the bacteria that converts nitrite to nitrate. Now you practice patients and don't add fish till the nitrite goes down. Salt can help with nitrite toxicity but you don't want to subject fish to that and the salt can only help to a point.

When your nitrite does drop, keep an eye on the pH as well cause you might see that drop a bit too which would be a good thing for you.

Yep if your tans are leaking a bit, that would also explain the pH being high because there is obviously contact between the cement and the water.

No Rupert. No fish yet and probably a good thing too. The pvc check valve is ready for collection, so soon I will be rid of that pesky brass one. I have also made up some slitted 40mm pipe water strainers for the slo and for the sump tank because the other ones are just too fine. I have also got the 600 liter tank installed and filled and the filter going as well as the air pump and air stones going in both tanks. There are hundreds of cabbage seedlings in the one gb and beetroots are starting to come up. I think the birds may have got most of the beetroot seeds. The lettuces are doing fine and swiss chard are also looking fine. I must take more pis of the plants to monitor growth.

Swiss chard / silverbeet are a bit of a staple in aquaponics. Beetroot do really well ain our systems as well... Glad you don;t have any fish in there Brian...

The cabbage seedling are going balistic! There are sooo many! I have never had such massive healthy looking seedlings in the dirt garden (where there would only be a small fraction left after the mice, birds etc take their share). I am conductig a series of races by planting seeds in the dirt garden and the ap at the same time. One thing must be said: I would much rather plant seeds in the ap system than in the dirt garden. It is just soo much easier. Just sprinkle them in the stones. Sadly though the crab in the sump died . Was probably nitrite poisoning... It is a very good thing I don't have any fish in yet. Good news on the pH which is now 8. Nitrite still very high but possibly on the chart now, but I must say it is hard to tell if it is one red or the other, but nonetheless very much on the high side. I have got the new non return valve assembly ready to install, a job for tomorrow morning. The people who got it for me got a glue in as apposed to the screw in one which I ordered and cost me an extra $8 in glue and fittings. It has now been a record 3 days of opperation without a glitch and swim Lets hope it stays that way. I have also gotten a shade over the Holding/pH adjusting/isolation sick bay tank which is filtering away. I need to actually dump some ammonia in there to get the filter jump started. It has a ceramics and sponge and activated carbon combination filter. I am also thinking it may not be a bad idea to incorporate a barrel filter with cut up pipe, shade cloth, sponge, ceramics and some activated carbon for good measure into the system. Can someone guide me to a good the best discussion on this. There is snow on the mountains today and the temps are now a rather chilly 10 degrees in the FT.

Here are some pics

This is the leo tool for doing wire clamps on pipe.

homemade strainers for the slo and sump intake from black pipe slotted on the offcut saw.


Nitrite

My nitrite is now down to 0.3, and nitrate is also very low 10 mg/l. Ammo 0. I have dosed the ammo back up to 2, and will see how the system handles it. I think I found the leak or at least one of them which was the dump pipe end coming from the pump which I had just folded over to block it, but it became evident from the grass and weeds doing exceptionally well at the end of the pipe due to the constant supply of nitrate rich water dripping out there that that was where it was leaking, so I have plugged that properly. The system is now running without any hitches.

Now the real fun begins!
Enjoy some cabbage sprouts. I love to snack on those little treats when thinning them out.
I've got radishes popping up, shocked me 'cause it was less than a day after I sprinkled them there.

Rick