Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks JD

Im trying to source some pure ammonia locally as I tested the water last night and apart from the Ph reading of 8.2,.. EVERYTHING is at 0.

Can get 20L of 25% Amm from the local landmark but completely unsure whether I could EVER get through that much... so I suppose my next question is... how much do I need?

The system is holding around 14,000L ATM so would adding 1L be too much to really spike the system?

I HAVE BSFL IN MY WORM FARM!!! Is this bad for the worms?

Also wondering if you can use fish food instead of ammonia to cycle the system? I have a heap of 7mm barra food, and wondering if I put some in a stocking in the fish tank whether that could provide an ammonia source as well as fertiliser for the plants in place of seasol?

As long as you aren't taking medicines... humonia will do the trick... or urea...

Urea just takes a little longer to convert to ammonia and show...

Damn right you can use fish feed to cycle your tank, I'd prefer using something a little more mild like feed a new system rather than straight ammonia. Probably even better if you crushed the feed, let it break down even quicker.

Congrats on the BSF.. I don;t know if they would hurt the worms, I guess they will compete for feed so they probably aren;t the best of friends..

Thanks Rupe - I think because of all the water in the system we just werent keeping up with the pee... not so we could get it to show anyway.

Is there anything in some types of Urea that is bad to use? Are they all the same? We have some here from China with no ingredient labelling so am a bit hesitant to use it.

PS: Money put into your account today for high-flow stem... thanks for that

Awesome EB - just what I wanted to hear Just went down and filled half a stocking which is now hanging in the sump tank so we will see what happens after a few days. What happens if I add too much? Wondering if its worth grinding up a kilo or so and dumping it in somewhere... probably the tops of the yabby 2 tiers would be best? Or maybe the FT but not sure if that will clog the pump or spider valve?

Would adding a couple of kilo's of Urea be too much as well / instead of? Need to get this thing happening... and would rather use what we have on hand than spend $80 on a 20L container of Ammonia that I wouldnt probably use all of anyway!

Thanks for the help.

Don;t forget now, you do have to try and have patience....

...I know EB...I know... (sigh)

Anyway so how long do you think it will take after putting I think about 3kg or so of food into the sump for me to know if thats enough or too much?

havent found any info on cycling using fish food... so any thoughts welcome

Why Why do people stuff around with fishless cycling all the systems i have helpd stsrt build the system get water cycling put in a few goldfish plant your plants dose with seasol and keep an eye on things

I hear ya Milne..

We recommend people start straight away with fingerlings and follow our golden rules for our AP systems which stresses very low feed levels to being with. A max of a teaspoon a day for 500L of growbed media, if the system goes green stop feeding.

Within no time the system is pumping along...

Yep, I tend to stock system straight away as well... feed very lightly... plant immediately... and monitor daily... stopping feed altogether if levels rise too sharply...

But that's also with a stocking density which is about a half of what has become the norm for most people... which these days is usually twice what was once recommended, with about half the filtration...

Boy havent things changed since we all started

Honestly Milne, I would love to do it that way... and we had always planned to. There are 3 main factors stopping us from being able to do it at this point:

1. We only have 1 x 2000L tank hooked up to the system. Because of the large volumes of water being pumped into each bank of growbeds there is such a fluctuation between the gravel beds compared to the 2 tiers that overflow straight back into the system. We have had massive problems with the 2000L tank either overflowing or running completely dry...

Added to that the spider valve is jamming at least twice a day meaning we seem to either have beds going dry, or the 2 tier tanks overflowing if we are unlucky... To be honest I am surprised the pump hasnt burnt out already. That is unfortunately due to our pump volume being bigger than the spider can handle... Rupe has organised a part for us that will fix the probs we are having with the spider tho, it should be here next week which is great.

2. The other is cost of fingerlings...ATM we are strapped for time, and the cash needed to put enough fingerlings in the system to get anything going PLUS all the piping that hasnt been put in yet.
18,000L is going to need more than a couple of hundred fingerlings to even show a trace of Ammonia isn't it? The ones that are available to us are tiny and $1.50 ea.

3. The last is our concerns about adding approx 6000L of contaminated river water to the system ATM. The water here is highly contaminated with E-coli from the high levels of sewerage, and could still be months before it clears. The magnesium levels are around 9 x higher than normal, requiring the plant growth to filter this out.


I suppose I would rather fishless cycle until all the bugs are ironed out... and believe me there are a lot of them - and because at the moment at least all we would lose when we have our HSM is 5 goldfish and about 70 small yabbies.

Thanks everyone for your help, it is all appreciated and I know I tend to get excited and sound like a twit, but I write what I am feeling at the time, and tend to want to sound you all out about an idea, even if it isnt viable.

BTW I weighted the fish food... its only about 2kgs not 3.... and the fish tank water smells slightly like fish now. Would it be worth testing the water tomorrow or just leave for a few days (weeks... months...)?

I know, I know,... patience... but I am such an impatient person EB!

... sorry, but that's a bit of a furphy... you're still going to eventually need the same number of fingerlings... and they wont be any cheaper than that... especially if they're bigger...

To be serious though... you might well be surprised what a number of small fingerlings can produce.. ammonia wise...

And stocking a new system with small fingerlings allows the system, and the bio-filtration, to "grow" with the feed rates and fish growth...

Mate... I havent heard the word 'furphy' in years!

I Realise that we WILL need to buy the fingerlings at some stage...and am not bucking at the price of them, just illustrating a point... and yes we are going to start with very low stocking density... but to be honest that was only a concern to add to the list of more pressing ones... because if we had the water available, and the other FTs plumbed up - which would be by now if we had the water available - it would all be a moot point anyway as we would definitely find the cash from somewhere to buy them dont worry about that.

We COULD put them into the 2 tier tanks but I would be concerned about airation and filtration issues as they werent really set-up thinking of fish, which is one of the reasons we werent going to use the IBCs for fingerlings only gravel or duckweed in the tops and yabbies in the bottoms. Also to get the GBs to fill its taking 20mins per bank with 5 mins off to let the FT fill enough for the next bank, so all up the GBs are off for 1 hour, 40mins before running again. I would like any thoughts on how you think they would go in them though.

Hubby writes:
The bigger it is - the longer it takes to get there, unless you have the $$$... we call them MIS in these here parts...

OK... I kind of envisaged your system as being more segmented... and that you'd be bringing it online in stages...