Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone,

I've read posts on this site for some time now and appreciate how much they've helped me.

started my system 10 weeks ago and have grown a bunch of lettuce and herbs but never any fish, which was the main reason for all this.

I started with a 100 (380L) gallon stock tank and two 55 (210L) gallon grow beds filled with gravel. I added some pond filter pads for extra bacteria grow space.

Simple flood and drain. Pumps about 540 Gph (2000L). 30 minutes on per hour.

Started cycling the tank with ammonia and added plants after 2 weeks. Tank cycled after 4 weeks, plants were growing under flourescent lights and I'm ready to add fish.

My cheap containers split open that same weekend and I replaced them with one 50 gal (190L) stock tank because of new space limitations. I didn't add ammonia for about 4 days after.

All the plants survived the transfer but I now have only half the growbed volume that I had before.

I added ammonia to 4 ppm and after a few days had these readings.

ammonia 2 ppm
nitrites 5 ppm
NItrates 40 ppm (these bacteria must have survived the crash better)
ph 6.8 (7.4 out of the tap) normal for it to fluctuate during cycling.
hadn't checked nitrates.

At this point I'm thinking it'll be ready shortly and I can finally put in fish. I added about 20 red wigglers to the growbed.

A few days later, I'd been adding ammonia to get it up to 3 or 4 ppm. So within 48 hours it would look like this.

ammonia 2 ppm
nitrites 0 ppm
ph 7.6
nitrates 80 to 100 ppm.

I stopped adding ammonia for a few days since it was taking so long to process and ammonia dropped to .5 ppm and everything else stayed the same. I was hoping it would drop to zero. It's taking much longer to process the ammonia even after a nitrite spike.

I started adding ammonia again. I've been upping the ammonia to 2-3 ppm thinking it just needs more bacteria but this has been going on for six weeks. Virtually no changes. I have a couple of pond filter pads in front of the pump to give the bacteria more space to grow so I don't think it's a lack of space for the bacteria.

I've tested water hardness and i have soft water. I understand the higher nitrates because of the small growbed and the limited number of plants but I have about twenty in the growbed and they should be eating at least some the those nitrates.

Anyone encounter a situation like this where your nitrite readings have been fine for weeks but your ammonia is not getting processed with the speed needed to raise fish and your plants are growing but not impacting your nitrates.

Could someone more savvy than I am give some ideas.

thank you.

You just don't have enough filtration to process the ammonia load you keep adding...

Stop adding ammonia.... let the value fall, even to 0.5... then add fish... they'll keep the ammonia going...

When you add fish only add a small load as its really your GB filtration that defines your carrying capacity not the volume of your FT.

Well planned and set up so far

When I fishless cycled, I usually only tried to add ammonia to between 1-2 ppm and that should be allowed to fall to 0 once it can be dosed up to 1 ppm and both ammonia and nitrite are down to 0 within 24 hours, you are fishlessly cycled. Of course with only 50 gallons of grow bed, you need to keep your fish load really small. For your first stocking of a new system, I would only recommend adding about 5-10 of any type of fish that might reach plate size in less than one year (unless you are talking about catfish which I don't think I would try to grow out in a 100 gallon tank though I do have some in a 100 gallon tank right now, though if you like eating your catfish really small, it might be ok in a 100 gallon tank.)

What type of fish are you planning?

Thanks to everyone for your replies. I decided to let the ammonia go down and put in the fish because my bacteria knocked down the ammonia from 3 ppm to .5 ppm overnight. Did a large water change and put in about half of what I would have liked to.

I put in 7 redbreasted sunfish of varying sizes, most 2-3 inches, that I caught in the creek behind my house. I'll harvest the large ones in a month or so and replace them with some young black crappie.

I already have the worm farm going and the feederfish breeding program is a little behind but we do have some fry.

I'd kill for a little more space for another growbed even if it's small but have other things going on.

IN the spring when things get pulled out of the garage I'll be able to put in another 54 Gal. growbed in time for the Crappie to get large.

thanks for the help.

Would love to see some pictures especially of the red breasted sun fish

I'm waiting for the flood of pictures that post will bring Gnash....

Redbreast sunfish
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Redbreast Sunfish

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Actinopterygii

Order: Perciformes

Family: Centrarchidae

Genus: Lepomis

Species: L. auritus

Binomial name
Lepomis auritus
(Linnaeus, 1758)

The redbreast sunfish (Lepomis auritus) is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family (family Centrarchidae) of order Perciformes. The type species of its genus, it is native to the river systems of eastern Canada and the United States.

The redbreast sunfish reaches a maximum recorded length of about 30 cm (12 in), with a maximum recorded weight of 790 g (1.7 lb).

The species prefers vegetated and rocky pools and lake margins for its habitat. Its diet can include insects, snails, and other small invertebrates.

A panfish popular with anglers, the redbreast sunfish is also kept as an aquarium fish by hobbyists.

Redbreast sunfish are usually caught with live bait such as nightcrawlers, crickets, grasshoppers, waxworms, or mealworms. They can also be caught using small lures or flies. Most anglers use light spinning tackle to catch redbreast sunfish.

As is typical for the sunfishes, the female redbreast sunfish lays her eggs (approximately 1000) in a substrate depression built by the male. The male guards the eggs and fry.

L. auritus has been transplanted to and become established in Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, sometimes with a harmful effect on native species.

The specific epithet, auritus, derives from the Latin auritus (big-eared).

Oh....who's a clever boy

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