Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

thanks Jaymie

Well have got a small bilge pump running between two styro boxes one filled with gravel and primed with system water Amm 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 20, ph 7.4. no plants , no fish and no crays will add small amount veg matter under gravel and monitor levels of nutrients and ph.

Hey Guys and gals

Further research about the germ of an idea behind this topic.

Looks like nitrifying bacterium are the slow coaches of the bacteria world a single bacterium will double(yes make two) every 24hrs.

In the same time a single heterotrophic bacterium(the ones that break down organic matter) can produce a population of...........

2,361,183,241,434,820,000,000 bacterium, main waste product?


Ammonia!!

I was going to" plant"some organic material in the biofilter gravel, but the heterotrophic bacteria will displace the nitrifying bacteria in the presence of organic material, so have set up a seperate "feeder" bioreactor with organic matter in it.

At the rate the little buggers breed should see some action with the test kit quite soon.

Very exciting.

very true Tim, i'm surprised the comparison hasn't come up before. Another different is that "our" nitrifing bacteria are pretty much non-motile (need to bind to a surface) where as the hetero bac. are motile.

rofl

so are we saying here that instead of fish we can set up a "compost heap" in our systems with water flowing though it and bacteria breaking it down to form ammonia which can then be used to fed the growbeds and our plants in turn.

This would be a very interesting turn in developments.
Also could it be assumed that the organic material would break down faster?

It seems thats the way it goes in nature nick, and the way we do it now is only a small cog in a much bigger machine. having said that wether we can easily or practically do it in our systems is another matter .

I dont think any of us want to get rid of the fish ect in our systems,and i think a system is better with more diverse imputs ahla Permaculture.

The implications as i see them are
1. less dependence on commercial feeds which in the long term are unsustainable and some times downright questionable.

2.Flexability- Imagine having double your grow bed size with the same number of fish you could harvest a large portion of it and not have to worry about nutrient spike because youd remove your organic supplement, or reduce it till your new crop was feeding well. conceavably if you had a crop that was starved for nutrient you could feed organic matter to you ammonia producing bacteria to take up the slack.

Or when you harvest your fish this would allow greater flexability in re stocking.

Its all just speculation as to wether its doable in AP but ive got a trial rig going at the moment, it sure would be neat if it worked!

Maybe when you harvest a bunch of fish, you soak a bag of compost to make compost tea to feed the plants.

Same thing Janet, what im guessing is that the BA method using the deep gravel beds is doing this to some degree anyway and this explains why BA systems dont seem to have any issues with growing flowering plants whereas commercial systems that filterout solids do. I wouldnt mind betting that if we could look closely at a BA AP bed that it would be stratified with nitrifying bacteria in the top layers of gravel, Hetrotrophic bacteria in aerobic mode just below and in the bottom most layer heterotrophic bacteria in Anerobic mode.

I love this stuff!!!

I seem to remember that Dr. Rakocy used a bag of manure that he dropped in for trace elements? Google's not cooperating atm, so I cant confirm that. He uses a biofilter which most here don't seem to be using (instead using the S&S method), but it's worth looking into.

From what ive been able to find out the main reason commercial systems filter out solids is that if the solids get into the biofilter then this creates the perfect environ for heterotrophic bacteria that then go on to displace the nitrifying bacteria which then greatly reduces the effectivness of the biofilter .

Remember that this is in intensivly stocked systems, not backyard systems that are much less intensivly stocked.

Ba systems have a biofilter its just intergrated into the grow bed.

Within a few mm's of bio-film hetero bacteria can live. They will also change their form and function according to what nutrient source is available. Some bacteria switch from aerobic to anaerobic quite readily in this manner, this helps buffer the system from pH spikes etc. I have a long rant on biofilm somewhere here on this site, go take a looksee methinks you'll enjoy.


Many here use supplements (nutrients) to help our systems start. This is organic matter, but broken down somewhat, and sold as fertiliser. Increasing and decreasing this supplement is in many regards, the same as is being suggested. I harvest, so I'd stop the supplement and let just the fish feed what remained....

One of the first things I called my version of AP is 'water based composting'.

Provided you keep the nitrifying bacteria in an aerobic environment they should be safe from heterotrophic bacteria, which will live on the fringe, where the bio-film is sufficient to block air.

You wont find hetero bacteria on the bottom of Joels beds, they're pristine.

Anyhoo, check the bio-film rant, you will enjoy it, then if you wish, we'll take it up from there.

Here

If I'm missing something obvious or way off beam feel free to tell me i'll pull my head in and do the learning.

You got the drop on me AA Ive just found my favorite thread Thanks.

Seems like it all comes down to having as complex a set of interactions as possible in your system.

This may be firing from the hip but in your opiion would a BA system well maintained mature before a commercial system which was anal about(no pun intended) about solid waste removal ,seems to me it would.



Its funny mention a compost heap on land an everbody will agree its about the best plant food you can get,talk about the processes under water and people have trouble getting their heads around it, we didnt discover AP it discovered us.

So where does this leave us, well id like to pursue the idea of a system producing its ammonia from bacterial sources not to do away with fish but to compliment the system.
Question which would be better plant material high in protien, cellulose or starches , seems to me that for every thing out there theres a bacterium to break it down but which will produce the most ammonium.

My interest in this is that the purchase $$ of the tank and air pump and therefore the fish (on top of the indoor aquarium with growbed setup purchases) is what is preventing me having a proper outdoor setup. If I can use compost or worm castings/tea for nutrients, there goes that holdup, and here come the veges we love so much.

Besides that, when we actually get fish, we're going to have to change our eating and cooking habits and learn how to cook and eat and enjoy fish!

.... and scaling.....and gutting....and all that good stuff too