Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hey yall, Names Santi!

Ha, no i dont really talk like that. Got a new system up on 6/5/2012. my bro sent me a pic of a friend of his in hawaii and i was off the next day so i built one. anyways, i'll try and get some pics up. it's pretty small, about 20 gallons 6 small commet goldies and not enough gb space till tomorrow.

i got a master test kit today and these are my numbers

temp: 78F
ph:7.8
ammonia:2.0
nitrite:5.0
nitrate:10

Fish are lively.I see why they call them commets. Gold streaks everwhere. They are eating fine but i'm probably going to withold feeding tomorrow due to ammonia level and temp.

Really didnt expect to have any nitrate or nitrite yet. I did dig up some drainage rock that was in the yard and clean it up best i could but i wonder if they had some bacteria on it and that got it going a little faster. Also got rained on pretty good last couple of days.

3 small tomatoes and 3 peppers that werent doing anything in the dirt are all thats in the GB right now. They arent dead yet but the tomatoes have started going a little palish maybe turning yellow but are growing new roots already.

Probably going to set up 5 gallons for a water change tomorrow and only gonna pull 3 gallons, tank can hold more.

Thanks for listening. All critics welcome. Noob here.

Can't wait to see pics. I'm not too far up the road near Montgomery. I've got a few comets in my FT cycling it, guess I'll leave em in there and see if the bluegills coming soon will eat them.

You at Rucker?

sup will

ha your bluegills will be happy. but yeah i'm in ozark, right next to rucker. I was thinking about bluegills too but apperently there is a tilapia farm not too far from me in Enterprise http://www.aces.edu/timelyinfo/Fisherie ... labama.pdf Plus with water temps hovering around 80 during the day tilapia may work well for me If i can get ph to come down.

Hmmmmm didn't realize that there were that many tilapia hatcheries in Alabama. There's a place in Shelby county that's probably as close as the bluegill hatchery. Time to make a phone call in the morning.

awesome dude! how big is your FT? tell me bout your set up.

275g FT, it's an IBC. Here's a link to my system thread.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=12850

New numbaz

Temp 74f
Ph 7.8
Ammonia 1.0
Nitrite 5.0 hope this starts to come down soon
Nitrate 40 these are going up pretty quickly

Did a 5 gallon water change this morning but it had no affect on nitrites. But hopefully a little more time will change that.

My ph is higher than yours (8.2) and my plants and tilapia are thriving. Just had a batch of baby tilapia and they are growing fast. So I would not worry much about the Ph, right now.

Awesome! Thanks for the tidbit. I cant wait to setup for tilapia.

Good stuff AquaSant83! Welcome to the addiction.

addiction is an understatement lol.. this system is not even 2 weeks old and i'm looking for ways to expand. ibc's here i come!!

Also from Alabama here. I have bluegill in my tank also. Have been feeding them floating fish food from Wal-Mart, but recently started using mealworms. The fish love them. I plan to gradually move to feeding nothing but mealworms as soon as I can get my colony started well enough to sustain itself. What are you guys feeding you fish? How old are your systems? Look forward to hearing back from the locals in Alabama or anywhere.

you need to feed the fish more than just mealworms..
aquaculture fish food is not that expensive.. i just got a 5lb bag of game fish food at a feed mill for $3.00

your plants won't do very well either if you only use mealworms..

it's great to supplement the feed with natural food.. i grow lots of stuff to feed my fish,,, like scuds, glass
shrimp, daphnia, minnows, and crayfish..(and i have a good idea for a cricket farm)