Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Same here Rupe.

But when youve never done it before, sometimes whats on paper that should work in theory, doesnt always in practice... and there were a few things that we had no idea how they would work (or even whether they would) until they were going... but its been fun finding out!

Apart from the pump size being too big to sequence the spider properly, everything was almost running OK until we put the last bank of gravel beds on-line. This has put everything out of whack as there are 2 banks of GBs running back to back taking a lot of water out of the system which is why the FT is running dry.

The reason why I wanted to have a go at cycling with the fish food is that we have about 20 bags of 7mm sitting in the shed. Dad and Hubby were looking at it the other day and commenting on the fact it would be fantastic fertiliser (as you know) so it made us wonder how long the plants could be grown from just having the fish food in the system - as well as the added bonus of cycling it as well!?! (I love a good experiment )

Dont get me wrong with my posts... there are no complaints... only things we discuss at night over a beer... we are really happy with how things are going so far and know we will get there in the end.

Just did a water test.

Na and Ni showing 0
Amm - .25
Ph - 7.9 (between 7.8 and 8 )

Not sure why Ph has dropped... is fish food acidic or could something else be going on?

The Ph had been consistently at 8.2 for well over a week.

Probably just the nitrification process kicking in... entirely normal...

This pH drop is good thing.

Awesome - thanks guys

Water tested this morning:

Ph - JUST under 8
Amm - between .25 and .5

creeping up slowly but looks like something is happening.

After last bank of GBs was filled with gravel 5 days ago, the water has been really cloudy.
We noticed today it had suddenly gone crystal clear... It cleared much quicker this time than the last 2 times, when the original beds were filled.

Todays tests showed
Ph - same - 7.9
Amm - .5
... so hopefully the ammonia is slowly going up... and not just my failing eyesight!

Tested water this arvo....

Ph - back up to 8.2
0 - 0 - 0

Checked stocking and there is a white film over it that is probably stopping fish food leaching into water.

Added about half a litre of seasol, 14 teaspoons of chelated iron (1 spoon for each 1000L), and about half a bag of salt to the system today.

Plant pics...

Our new addition

Put in a vaccume breaker today which works a treat ... so spider is indexing properly now with the added bonus of filling the GBs a little quicker as its not siphoning to all banks so much anymore!

Also threw in a couple of shots of our set-up for the latest duckweed tanks...

Thought Id better update here as Ive been chatting about it on the fishless cycling thread..

On 23/2 I added about 1/2 a container of Gogo Juice and about 2 cups of Charlie Carp to try and spike the Amm to 1 - 2 ppm as we hadnt been able to get it above .5 till that stage (keeping in mind we have around 14k worth of water in the system).

Check out the fishless cycling thread for a description of the Gogo Juice... I thought it looked alright as a Charlie Carp + Seasol mix + an acid to try and lower the Ph... and it claimed it was full of bacteria, so I felt it would be good if it worked - wouldnt really matter if it didnt.

Anyway, these are the readings from the last few days...

...........20/2..........24/2.........25/2...........26/2

Ph.........8.2............8.2...........8.1...............8
Amm.......0........... 0.25...........1...............0.25
Ni...........0............Trace..........2.............Off the chart - above 5
Na..........0..............5.............10...............80


By the looks of this, our system must have cycled already? The Amm seems to usually sit at between 0 and .25 anyway, but for it to only hit 1 and then get these big readings is pretty interesting!

Im wondering whether the Gogo Juice does actually spike the system, or we just have too much happening and not enough plants in to draw out the Na - although considering how quick it happened, It would help lowering it, but the readings still would have been high anyway?

ATM we have about 9 IBC beds full of duckweed, a heap of little seedlings and germinating seed, and 2 orange trees... we also have about 50 yabbies, 100 minows all very active and eating well (checked them all this morning), and 5 VERY fat fast growing goldfish (did read the other day that commercial food makes them obese so have put them back on goldfish feed).

Going to head to bunnings when we can to grab a HEAP of seedlings to throw in the rest of the GBs to balance the system now we actually have readings, and will look at adding fish once its all settled down and stable.

Not quite cycled yet, if you have such high levels of nitrites, you need to let your nitrobacter population build up to deal with that.

Yup, figured that the nitrobacter wasnt doing its job yet

But it looks like the nitrosomonas (or nitrospira? - cant remember ) that converts the ammonia is on its way yes?

So once the Amm and Ni go back to zero... and once I can spike the Amm to 1 - 2 ppm and both readings go back to zero in 24 hours... then the system is cycled?

Will do my next test soon so I can see what is happening - hopefully the Ni is dropping.

Yesterdays tests...

Ph - 8
Amm - 0
Ni - 2
Na - just below 80


Todays...

Ph - 8
Amm - 0
Ni - .25
Na - 40

Planted a heap of seedlings yesterday and today so hopefully the Na will drop a bit over the next week or so.

Congrats mate seems like its nearly cycled. Great looking system to boot@@@

We are getting ready to buy our fingerlings soon, and on another thread was discussing general stocking densities and nitrate readings. (Thanks for the info Rupe, and Skipd for letting me hijack )

We had originally decided on 3kg to 100L for the FTs because we also have the yabbies, and are working on a 2:1 ratio.

We have been wondering since setting it all up, based on the fact that we have so many yabby tanks that drain into the sump destined for the FTs... with no filtration in between... whether 3kg to 100L might be pushing it from the fishes point of view?

Should we start with less (ie: 1 or 2 kg to 100L) or do you think the setup of our system will help the fish cope with it? Thoughts most welcome.

PS: Amm and Ni back to 0... so system looks pretty close for the adding of fishies...in a few weeks ... (see - I CAN be patient)
Definitely dont want to get them until the system is working well and cycled, trying to minimise HSMs if we can!

Z-MAN!! thanks for that!
Have to say the cycling bit has been pretty exciting actually... expecially with the high readings we got ...BTW that was us for about 5 mins after seeing such pretty colours... (our mouths were a bit wider than that tho )