Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

But then aren't you blowing that way past the "recommended" ratios then?

Just make it the way you wanted Jack 300L gb and 600L ft, and put 10 silvers in it. They wont grow fast enough to give you any dramas but will cycle the system fine.
You will want to expand the system soon enough any way

Alrighty so it's time to give this thread some life. Since my last post I have done the following"
purchased a cheap $20 pump from ebay
build a frame for the GB and filled it with washed pea gravel
built an affnan siphon with a silencer/aerator
cycled the system with 5 goldfish and seedlings for 5 weeks

where I am at now:
a week ago I added 15 silver perch all around 150-200 and 5 yabbies which at the moment are co existing with the goldies until we can get my brothers AP system up and running
running the pump for 15 mins every hour which is literally enough to fill the GB to the point where the siphon dumps all the water
I am feeding with about 1TBS/day of sinking high protein 4mm pellets
my plants are looking like rubbish and I have planted some seeds and plan to buy some more seedlings tomorrow and taking out the old ones when the new ones begin to take off
bought myself a freshwater master testing kit today

pics and a water analysis to follow below...

Here are some pics of the setup

Fish and the GB

The plants that are soon to be replaced

Just did my first test and am surprised by the results however I did only start feeding the SP on Wed 9 Nov after receiving them on Sat 5 Nov
pH - 7.6
rates - 0
rites - 0
ammonia - 0 - 0.25

Hey Jack..

I'm not an expert but it sort of Looks Like you need to adjust the height of the water level in the growbed..

maybe a tad high..
maybe drop it about 1/2 to 1 inch..

I would also add more Plants to What you have..

Have you used any Seasol in the system...?

I'm Fish-less cycling my system and have been adding Seasol on a weekly basis and My plant's have taken off..

Good luck and maybe someone else will jump in..

Juergen

Good to see it up and running Jack.. How are the sides of the growbed holding up? Do you think you'll need to build some extra support?

Cheers EB. I have reinforced the frame since putting in the gravel as she started looking very unstable and I also jacked up the frame and placed a couple of stacks of bricks to help take the weight. I am going to build a metal frame which hangs over the FT at some point I think

Do you mind explaining the silencer/aerator. I ahve the afnan siphon already.