Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here is my litle test poligon I will give some rewiew and I would like if you can give me some respond and advice.


So, this is it:
-I put 22 small goldfish, in 180 litres of tap water that contain clorine but one hour before puting them in I put aquasefe product in water that "kill" clorine.Now when sun drinks water I go to river near bay and add that water in FT.
-When I setting this up I didn't know anything abaout fisless cycling so i put fish and vegies on the same day (first day as set up) so i aded bacteria in pills while fish was there.
-There is 45 litres GB, and 6000l/h pump, I have not any air pump.
-Water pump works during day 30/30 and during night 15/45 mins. Gb fils in abaout one minute and then empty by bell symphone in abaout 30 sec.
-I painted system in white because the vater temerature at the moment reaches 25+ C, and hot days is not come yet.And I covered water because it is geting green.
-I feed fish only with goldfish food (42 % protein).
-I'm planing to put worms from soil in my backyard in to gb.Is this ok?How many?
-Reading are: PH 7.8
Nitrites 0
Nitrates between 5-10
Ammonia 0
-The system is 20 days old and the wegies and the fish are doing good.

Am I missing anithing? Please advice...

I don't know that you can have too many worms, but they will also multiply if there's enough food so... just throw a few in. Is that GB on top of the barrel-thing the only GB (the other totes look to be soil)? If so, 22 gold fish is a LOT! They look fairly small, but overtime I would guess you're going to have too many nitrates. You could use the water to water soil plants or add more GBs. Looks good! I like the FT cover.

thanks for answer, yes it is only one GB on top of FT and the rest is soil. I'll watch for my nitrates and if they grow up I will do as you adviced.If I decide to add more GB's, what is number of litres that I should install? At this moment, situation is, as I wrote 180L FT/ 45L GB.

There are lots of discussions about ratios on the forum; do a search and you'll find more information than you can poke a stick at. The rules of thumb which are important here: You can never have too much filtration so install as many grow beds as can be serviced with your water supply, then stock accordingly. Depending on your GB media you might be able to have 240L of GB which might require 120L of water to flood, leaving 60L in the FT which might be enough for your pump and fish. You'll have to model your own system with your own data and requirements, do some more reading, draw your designs and do the maths to ensure you the system right from the start.

With that many fish in such a small quantity of water, I think you're going to need to get a lot more GB volume online very soon, or you're going to have perform water changes to avoid fish deaths.

I'd also consider downsizing the pump; you could turn your water over thirty times an hour! A smaller pump will save you energy costs and give you a fighting chance of rectifying a HSM before you pump the FT dry in 30 seconds!!

I was shocked today when I was mesuring ph after a couple of days, test shows 8.6.What is the best way to reduce it? Please explain it to me in simplest way because I was reding it in topic:"adjusting ph,best method" and I didn't get anything, reason: bad english knowledge, and text full of tehnical terms I dont understand .Please help.
And another question: How much and how often shuould I put sea salt in my system?

It's best not to go manually adjusting pH as this often leads to instability in systems. What is your GB media? What is the water temperature and ammonia reading?

If you feel that you MUST manually adjust pH, add (literally) a few drops of swimming pool hydrochloric acid, or phosphoric acid (sometimes sold as "pH Down") or another acid (in a pinch, you could use lemon juice or vinegar, but you would have to be desperate) to some top up water, then test to compute how much of the dilute solution you need to bring the pH down. Be very careful about how far and how fast you move the pH as this can place undue stress on your fish and kill them. Do not add acid directly to the FT.

As your system is only a couple of weeks old, I'd guess that it still is not fully cycled and that your system pH is yet to find its stable level.

Salt remains in a system until it used up by the fish and plants, which can be many months. You only NEED to add salt to combat nitrite shock if you have high nitrite levels, or to disinfect if your fish have disease; otherwise your system does not need salting (but salt can provide some trace elements for the plants). If you feel you must add salt; add 180 grams to your 180L to attain 1ppt which is a reasonable level to mitigate against nitrites, or add up to 540 grams to your 180L to attain 3ppt to disinfect your system.


Scott

get some limestone rocks or sea shells, maybe 3 kg and put into the fish tank. You will need to do the every year or so. This will buffer the system automatically for many months so ph will not be a problem
John Fenn

Can you tell me, this sea shells, is there some specific kind that I should put in or any wich is fro the sea?And does it have live organism inside or just shell?
Can I put this kind?:

Temp at this moment gets about 27C at high level, Ammonia is 0, and GB media is clay granules, on the packaging wrotes: PH controlato, "agri leca"

Look for white sea shells, often sold in pet food stores as shell grit (often for poultry). The white shells are basically calcium carbonate, which will dissolve in acidic conditions but will not dissolve in caustic conditions, hence their use as a pH buffer against sudden pH drops. Limestone is also primarily calcium carbonate, so can be used to do the same job.

As your pH is already on the caustic side of neutral i.e. pH>7, then adding shells/limestone is not really going to do anything for your system, it certainly wont bring your pH down, although calcium is an essential element for healthy plant growth so you cannot do any harm by adding a handful of shells to your system (some people bury it in the GB, some put it in a sock/stocking and hang it under the GB drain, I just throw it in the FT).


Scott

something isn't wright:
Soil tomato, that is planted one week after the one in AP:


And AP looks like this after almost month that is set up:


There was one big wind that was done some damage to the leaves, ph is still litle high, but it just doesn't getting off like it does on systems that I found on this forum. I'm worried.

sea shells/shell grit won't bring the ph down, shell grit is used to raise ph to about 7.4, where it will stop buffering..
the nitrification cycle will lower the ph over time.. in the meantime, look for maxicrop with iron - liquid seaweed with iron.. there's gotta be some hydroponic stores near you, just avoid the chemicals that they will recommend
get composting worms in the growbed. my first system seemed to struggle the first couple months, but after that, it did very well

That "Maxicrop" I dont think that I can find it in my town, can you explain it to me what is it? I need some iron that I can get in local stores.What will I look for? I don't have any hydroponic store near me.
I puted 10 earth worms in GB.
And one thing more, Am I cycled if my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are zero, I did some mistakes when I was starting up as I writen above, and acording to that Am I fine about cycle?

This si what I bouhht today:


On the manual it says that I need to make 0.1% solution and add it foliar, every 20 days in vegetation. It is 6% m/m Fe soluble in water. Can I use it in AP.

unfortunately i can't read the label, but you could probably use it cautiously as a foliar spray, just avoid any getting directly into your ft