Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi!

I am so grateful for all of the information posted. Since I learned about AP I have setup a demo/learning system with a 10 gallon tank about 50L of Hydroton. I started with 2 cups of urine and have let water pump over the hydroton for about 10 days.

A few days ago I added plants (cucumber, spinach, eggplant, tomato, basil), as I read that should be done pretty soon. I was careful to rinse them out softly and gently extract the roots. Tonight when I looked at the roots, the spinach was rotten, and the other plants roots looked ok.

My grow bed is only 2 inches deep and keeps about 1 inch of water always. I think I might be suffocating the roots and need to add more hydroton for 2 inches of dry above 1 inch of wet. I'm using some upside down shelving units for the grow beds.

I took the water into the pet shop and they said it was good to put fish in.

Overnight and 10 little dead goldfish later, I bought a water test kit and noticed that my PH is 7.6 and ammonia was 8ppm. Temperature as 58 degrees on the tank when I woke up. I live in a very hot area (Phoenix, AZ USA), and am concerned mostly with temperature management than anything else. I don't want to add a heater because of electricity costs, but can add bubbles/black plastic/misters/foil, etc as needed for passive heat/cooling. The tank sits in the shade too, and the plants get about 3 hours of sunlight.

There is a 4 inch air stone and an air pump designed for a 10 gallon tank.

I know this system wont' produce much, and it was designed for learning (I have an IBC cut, and 8 barrels too waiting for me to learn more). I plan on using the IBC and a fiberglass jacuzzi (300 gallons for the jacuzzi) for fish tanks and then building shelves out of the barrels once I understand more how this works. I'm not there yet, but just wanted to explain the purpose and vision.

My questions/hurdles so far are:

1. My pump works great when I take the hose off and put it back on. However, after some restarts it seems to not pump water up anymore. I'm pumping it at almost the max head height as listed on the pump.

2. I added a second shelf unit today (7 total beds on 2 shelves) to use the rest of the Hydroton, and didn't wash my hands for quite some time as I cleaned up the tools. When I reconnected the tubing my hand was deep in the fish tank. Now, my hands hurt, like I've been working with concrete (the lye). Am I just sensitive or did the 7.6 PH kill the fish?

3. Do I need to empty all of the water and actually buy the pond starter from a pet store? I've already spent so much and it was just to learn... I'm trying to avoid buying solutions unless I need them.

4. What is the best way to clean out the barrels? They had flavor syrup in them and I want to make sure I don't harm the fish or my family. Should I get a pressure washer or can I just hose them down a few times and let the sun hit them?

5. is my 1 inch of water, 1 inch of dry hydroton grow bed too shallow for herbs and plants I mentioned above?

6. Some of my leaves are yellow, especially where they touched the wet hydroton. Should I be adding anything? I read about seasol, but canot find it in the USA.

7. How do I prevent the root rot?

8. When can I add worms? or would they just die in these shallow grow beds?

I have compiled a ton of other notes, if anyone is interested - I plan on sharing this with others nearby that are interested but my 1 page quick notes has turned into 15 pages of stuff about AP.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XeA ... r88FU/edit

Thank you in advance!

Welcome DC!

Sounds to me like the urine and ammonia from it killed the fish. Search for fishless cycling, you can get the bacteria population going with ammonia additions like from urine, before adding the fish. Also you could probably get enough bacteria going by squeezing out someone's established aquarium biofilter into your system. Two inches deep is way too shallow for anything but sprouts.

What pump are you using, and can you post pictures?

Also Seasol is called Maxicrop here, I got a jug from Amazon. But you shouldn't need much for such a small system.

Hi. Thank you for the advice and feedback. Here are the answers to the questions you asked:

Pump:
http://www.harborfreight.com/200-gph-mi ... 68372.html

Setup:
http://gardenpool.org/aquaponics/shelfponics (except I built mine)

Any ideas for the other questions?

Nope... and don't bother with the "pond starter".... the urine has converted to lots of ammonia... (it has a lag time of about 2-3 days).... and the bacteria will arrive and do their job naturally....

If you can get some water, or filter squeezings from an aquarium.... it will help populate the baterial colony and speed things up a bit...

Don't add any more "pee"... or fish...

Thank you RupertofOZ.

I need to do it this way it looks like:

http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_fishless.php

Hi there,

I dont know much about aquaponics, and am in the learning curve (quiete alot to learn actually), but i do know some about goldfish. Even if they are small/babies, 10 goldfish in a small 10 gallon tank is way too much, specially if it is not cycled. You wouldnt want 10 goldfish in a 10 gallon tank anyways, specially if they are the normal kind. Perhaps a few guppies would be better, or white mountain minnows if you dont care about heater and such. I would have mentioned that to help you keep 1 - 2 small goldfish in there (no more) now untill you upgrade, and if you cant wait for tank to be cycled, put some plants to give them a chance to stay alive, such as amazon frogbit (may get eaten) and hornwort (cheap and will help alot in the begining and doesnt require much light and is free floating, ie no substrate required, and you can throw it once you dont need it anymore).

Also, did you aclimitize the fish into the new tank, or just dump all of them in the new tank with the pet shop water?

In any case, go slow with the fish stocking and type you chose at first. About 6 White Mountain Minnows dont require heaters and are nice to watch, and dont produce too much waste in this early stage to worry about. You can always change fish later, if you feel they dont produce enough "poop" to say guppies or 1 goldfish, or add a few more White Mountain Minnows (say 4 - 5 more). Once it is cycled, you can get rid of some of aquarium plants if you want to and dont like the look (they do require a bit of light to survive).

Good luck

Thanks for the advice!

I ended up buying pond bacteria and a week later ammonia was at zero. It has 7 healthy fish in it now for a few weeks, and the plants are doing amazing. It's the first time I've been able to watch a tomato plant grow! It's like a freak of nature. I swear the cucumber and tomato plant are actually dancing as they move and grab each other so much.

So I took the things I learned from the 10gal system and setup a 300 gal system in a jacuzzi. 10 fish in it again, after a 3 day chlorine breather from the tap water. 4 of them died. Also, it has a ton of algae, and I think that might be contributing. There are no shelves yet, but I have 4 of them cut, and this or the next weekend I'll build out the racks. I ordered and have a pile of 3/4" gravel waiting to be put in the 55 gallon barrel shelves. The jacuzzi has 2 air stones and a pump that splashes water from a rock above. I also started it with the bacteria packets like the 10 gallon tank

Any ideas for the algae? I was thinking to get some black plastic containers (that float), and put them on top to block as much sunlight as possible. Any way to reverse the algae though? In the containers I would put the duckweed I have, which isn't growing so well in the jacuzzi (it dries up on the sides).

I already dug a 2' pit for the 2nd 275g tank to partially be buried to help regulate temperatures better (an IBC), but plan on doing that one quite a bit later. It's in the shade completely, and all of the shelves for both 300g and 275g systems (16 total planned of the half 55g barrels) will be in the sun.