Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

unfortunately the last fish died yesterday and now I am cycling with the dead fish for the ammonia. I still have no way of testing for ammonia so I wonder at which point I should take the dead fish out of the tank to not overload the system with too much ammonia. The water is quite warm, between 25c and 30c so I am thinking of leaving it 48 hours and then taking it out and hoping that it has had enough, then I will add my carp at some point and feed them only a little at first.

I will be getting a test kit soon. But if aquaponics is going to be able to be used in Iraq I will need to figure out simple ways of getting a system cycled without testing anything. Culturally pee ponics is not going to be a good idea and there are not any good sources of ammonia to cycle the system.

so. I wonder if having a single fish in a system and feeding it until it dies, then taking the dead fish out and leaving the system for one or two weeks without changing any of the water might be a decent way to cycle a system without a test kit. then slowly add fish to the desired level?

Any ideas are welcome.

I have some ideas
Stop feeding your fish for a week or so
Get an aerator, in your climate it should run 24/7. I have 6 airlines in my tanks. Plus a water drop
Cover your fish tank with shade cloth ASAP

With plenty of air into your tank a lot of toxins will be evaporated out of the water. .let your plants get moving a bit before adding more fish

Good luck and do not quit.

Ok, so i got some shade cloth up yesterday, not sure if it is shading enough, I got what I thought looked like 50% shade cloth, I was hoping to get green but Black is what they had so just went with that. It is covering the whole system so I hope it will help keep things a bit cooler, I will check the water temperature today and see what it is at.

I noticed the plants are beginning to take off, so I hope that means my system has cycled. I took out the dead fish that I was using for a source of ammonia two days ago and hope to get about 10 small common carp on Monday. I hope that 4 days with no ammonia source in the system will be enough to get the system down to a place where the carp will do fine.

If it indeed has cycled it should get rid of the ammonia in 24 hours but perhaps the extra time will be an extra safe guard. I probably will start feeding them slowly and increase it gradually and watch them carefully, I really don't want another set of dead fish.

Since this system is only going to run for about 2 more months I really would like to not have to buy an aerator, I will do that in Iraq but for now we will see if my venturi line will keep them alive if I under stock the system.

subscribed. good luck with it