Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

ya might want to think about adding more water and running constant flood for the winter to get more thermal mass and help stabilize the temp swings. Flood and drain media is actually a fairly efficient air to water heat exchanger which will tend to cause the water temp fluctuations to be more extreme during the extreme seasons.

Howdy to all your AP growers !
First time update for the new year
Winter was a bust... just to cold. We planted various winter crops in the ground as well as in AP and not much happened. The water temp being below 10 deg C pretty much limited when we can feed our fish so there was no extra food in tank for plants.. guess could have supplemented with liquid seaweed but we figured we jut shut her down for the winter keep the pump going for fish n such but basically forgot about it for 4 months....
Just started checking water today to get a idea of where we are at and everything is looking not to bad..
Water temps are slowly rising with each sunny day but still not able to feed. 9.8 deg c today..
With spring time just around the corner we are starting all our plants and work in the greenhouse will be happening in the next month to get it all straightened out for spring, summer plant load. Winter plants that are still in there are alive but roughly same size as when we originally planted haha.
Some projects for the sping
-water dispersal rings around other 3 beds
-garden ties around the dirt beds in greenhosue and raise the dirt up a bit and gravel in paths better
-floating raft system for lettues
-get ph meter calibrated
Anyways jsut though id give a bit of a update.. you will be hearing more from me when things really get gowing!
Have fun everyone!

UPDATE: Ok guys here we go!
So.. this year has started out with some trial and error but I think we are on the right track now! We started all our plants in AP from seed this year and did not buy one seedling. After one failed batch of seedling lettuces trying to start in rockwool cubes we got the second batch to work much better with a few minor changes in how we started them. Along with lettuce (many different variety) we started tomatoes, bell peppers, chili peppers, cukes, celery, watermelon and cantaloupe. We recently converted one grow-bed to a raft system for lettuce hence the reason why we started in rockwool cubes. All the seedlings went out to the greenhouse roughly mid April which was a bit to early as our nighttime temps were about 3 - 5 deg C but they were starting to look sad in the small starter pots and rather than let them die we took a chance and it somewhat paid off. Should not have stated them so early.
The cukes that we planted in the AP seemed to survive the cold temps thanks to tank temp being 10 deg C but the shock really had a big effect. The cukes we planted in the ground (inside greenhouse) at the same time all withered and died in the first week from the cold but the AP ones hung in there but looked very sad until the recent beautiful hot weather we have had for the last few weeks.
Before even getting the plants in the system we were pumping the food to our fish pretty hard. Once the tank temps hit a stable 10 deg C we fed and fed and fed and fed lol.. We fed till we had 50 - 100 PPM nitrates on standby in the tank before adding plants, might seem a bit extreme but memories of last year and plants starving for a month while tank cycled was always in the back of my head. My logic was... have lots of nutes in tank ready to go so plants get a fighting chance.
And that brings us to now.. plants are doing great! Our ever bearing strawberry's from last year are blooming and fruiting like crazy and its only mid may! We had some trouble with the toms and cukes tho.. Were yellow between the veins and showing sings of necrosis with inward leaf curl... after much deliberation and research as close as we could come to a diagnosis was lack of potassium. Turns out we were right lol. Recently added a shit pile of Potassium Bi Carb to straighten to PH out as we were getting pretty acidic along with some iron and magnesium sulphate for good measure and BAM 3 days later ... all signs of unhealthiness is gone. Im sure the week of blazing hot sun we have had has also helped.
The raft is working amazing.. totally blew away our expectation but it had its hang ups as well. We ended up painting the tank a dark blue to keep light out as a trial run with nothing in it revealed a algae issue when tank was a somewhat clear white. We had to put a skirt around the edges of the raft as well to cover up the cracks because algae still formed thick around the edges and would end up on the plant roots. Then I also changed the way the water flows in as we just had a pipe kinda flowing in at the bottom of the tank but there was not enough water turbulence too keep roots clean so I built a pipe setup (like they use in swirl filters) that makes the tank swirl a bit and reduced the outflows to small holes that puts out high pressure and seems to keep the tank much cleaner and nothing really settles. Last problem to over come with the raft setup is a solids filter as we are still getting some build up on the roots but I have a simple solution for that and when I get around to installing it I will post pics as I am sure nobody has though or used what I am going to use. Also took the two 12" air stones out of the fish tank and placed in under the raft system to ensure good oxygen levels.
Well I must apologize for the novel I am writing but so much has happened in the last little while and I like to keep any followers informed. I am sure there is more I am not telling you but now I'm tired and need sleep. Have some photos I took tonight that will be posted shortly. Thanks for hanging in there!
Happy Growing!

One thing i forgot to mention. We planted toms in the ground at same time toms went into AP so we could do comparison of growth. Also recently split up celery half in AP half in dirt. And have a few test peppers in AP and rest in the ground. All plants/seedlings were started at same time so we can really get a good idea on how much faster things grow in AP vs Dirt. So far... Toms in AP are ahead by a mile! Thats a good sign. Peas were started right in the bed.

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Kicking along nicely Mordyr...

Did you ever get trout? Or did you shut it down again this winter? I'm in Victoria, just trying to figure out what I can grow, and when I should start.

Howdy all you AP'ers. Been a long time since i have posted and thought I would fill you in on last summers growing season and the new and improved spring reno's.

Unfortunately last growing season was a bust. Started with a bang and ended with tears... It is not all bad tho as I learned some very valuable lessons...not all was lost. On the plus side our tester barrel raft system worked fantastic. Awesome lettuce growth until it got to hot for lettuce. so awesome in fact that it changed our AP design forever. On the down note... I now realize what happens when you overstock and have no form of solids filter. Lets just say our grown beds got a little clogged and went anaerobic.

At the beginning of last year i decided I was going to get a jump start on the plants and feed my fish until i had a high lvl of nitrates. This was all fine and dandy I had high nitrates, plants were green and healthy but it came at a cost. To get all that good plant food more poop than i could imagine was generated.. I never noticed it as my pump was always on the bottom of the tank and did a pretty good job of keeping it clean and with no screen on the pump never had a filter to clean but all this poop was going somewhere. I had high hopes for all the worms i had introduced into the grown beds and had faith that they would clean up the waste and old plant matter... I was wrong... Half to 3/4 of the way threw the season... disaster starts taking place. Plants not doing so great. Tests indicate high lvls of nitrites (still under 1pp, but abnormal for our system in prior years). and ammonia even on light feed. PH was good, water smelled of decay. To late in the season to try to remedy as it is a shorter growing season where I live we had to just abandon ship.

Now.. when i first got my fish 3 years ago... they were all so small and tiny I never actually had a number of how many I had in my 1000 L system... Always guessed around 40ish Koi that is. (I know still to many but we had lots of filtering capacity and had not run into problems prior years). With some of the fish getting rather large last year started to notice the over crowding in the tank.. Fish were still happy but... im thinking with the average size getting larger i had too many fish. I was right and found out the hard way. Recent tank drain for renovation and fish count revealed the number closer to 60 -65 Koi largest being 6 inches and fat average 3 - 4 inches. Wow way more than i had thought and too many for my grow beds to handle.


So with last years failures behind us its full steam ahead but in a different direction. The floating raft worked so well last year that this year we modeled our Reno's around incorporating much more of that. Doing away with most of our gravel grow beds that have been the bane of our growth. Gravel first of all SUCKS to work with.. hard to dig in, heavy, when you pull the plants our the roots tear of and remain in the bed to rot unless thoroughly cleaned and we have grown tired of this routine. The new DWC beds are in place with only the remaining 120ish Liter IBC tote top renaming as the only grow bed at the moment. 2 30 liter bucket bio filters are in the works and should be up and function by the end of this week.. We are leaving the tote top running as a fiter to clean up the water after introducing a extra 900 liters of murky pond water into the DWC beds and is doing the job quite well on constant flood. Once we get the bio filters hooked up and running for a week or two the Tote top is coming out as well and being replaced by deeper half barrels filled with proper expanded clay. The tote top only being about 8 inches deep limits what we can use it for and decided the deeper half barrels would be a better choice that and the tote top is starting to become pretty deformed.

Some other changes include moving the pump off the bottom onto a block and reinstalling the stock filter. I would rather use some form of water vac to clean bottom of tank than to pump all that solid waste into my new biofliters so moving it off the bottom and cleaning the pump filter more often seems like a good trade off.
Also took my air stones out of the tank and put the air pump lines directly into DWC feed line winch now aerate the length of my beds. We picked out 25 of the nicest colored and smaller Koi and took the remaining 35 to a friends house who has a large beautiful pond but no fish.. Im sure they we be much happier in that big pond and well cared for.. All tho i am going to miss Bruno, our largest Koi. I checked and compared PH of his pond to our system... all looked good and in they went. going to miss em.

Well that is all i can think about for now.. I have a few pics of recent reno's and will have more once the bio filters are complete and up and running sooooo ahve a look and tell me what you think.

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Great update Mordyr... and some valuable lessons there for others...

Hello again to all you aquaponics nuts. Been a long time since last update thought I would check in and see how things are going for everyone else for the start of the growing season (well at least here) and bring you news of the heartbreaks and triumphs of this year. Where to start....

The beginning of this growing season will forever be known as the Great Fish loss of 2013. Our first experience in dealing with the loss of our allies and finned cohorts put us on a down note right from the get get go. The shock of moving/sorting koi and totally obliterating all bio filtration due to renovations proved to be to much for the scaly gill breathers. After sorting threw nearly 60 3 - 6 inch fish and keeping the 26 best colors and giving away remaining fish it started to happen. You would think finally getting their habitat mostly back to normal and up and running with new water they would be happy. Think again... It started with one... then a few more... we tested for water parameters all seemed good... Then a few more... Panic sets in.. We set up a hospital tank and put remaining fish into tank with a decent salinity level and brought the heat up.. Unfortunately no matter what we did... We lost them one by one.... With the death of the last fish we hung our heads and ran the flag at half mast... We are fish murderers. My mom nearly in tears,my ego crushed and my father getting annoyed hes helping/paying for this; we almost gave up. There is no coming back from this right? WRONG!

With the mourning period over and well needed break one thing still remained, the fact that the greenhouse was built around this system and cannot easily be removed. So with renewed vigor it was full steam ahead.. first things first get those bio filters cycled!. Ran ammonia at 4pp for a few weeks and bam.. starting to see some heavy nitrates. Boy with all this plant food in here plants should grow great right? WRONG! I dont know what was going on but all water tests said plants should grow good.. Our starters were not terrible.. im sure they could be better but still... why no growth.. Its about this time i noticed the thick black mat of slim that replaced the healthy bio film on the side of the tank. Hmm algae issues.. Turned the 2 media beds from constant flood to flood drain... that outa add some oxygen, added a bag of oyster shells with air pump bubbling right below it.. 2 - 3 weeks later things coming to life waters stabilizing minus the fact that running this without fish and adding pure ammonia at a reduced dose creates so much acids that its hard to keep ph up.
Its around this time that the black mat of algae just kinda pealed off and died leaving our tank pristine white and the plants just took off like a rocket. Currently running a ph of about 5.7 - 6.5 ish since we don't have any fish and man.. plants are loving it. Been using potassium bi carb, Lime, and ph up alternating to try to maintain some PH stability seems to be working for now although just ran out of potassium bi carb.. Plans to get new fish are in the works but running this just on ammonia is actually pretty simple and working for now.. may just do this for entire year till we figure out what kind of fish to raise and see new summer time water temps with double the volume of water.

Anyways this is getting a little long winded so ill let the pics do the rest of the talking.. Hope to hear from a few of ya some comments would be great. I hope our highs and lows with persuade people to not give up... Anyways Have a good one and keep growin!