Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Bought two 300 watt heaters and an air pump tonight. I hooked up both heaters and tried to batten down the insulation somewhat, the temp started at 59F/15C and is now 61F/16C after less than an hour. I'm hoping the insulation will help the heaters maintain. I also rinsed out the living room aquarium's biofilter in the sump, and took some gravel from it, and the floating Scotch Brite pad raft is now floating downstairs. From the cloudiness I think I got some good gunk transferred.

I measured parameters tonight, the nitrite reading has me baffled so I measured it twice.

pH: 7.2
Ammonia: 3.0 ppm
Nitrite: >10
Nitrate: 40
GH: 150
KH: 120
Temp: 59

I added some ammonia this afternoon, I don't know if the nitrite is from today or what.

dude' i'd be doing a 50% water change and adding a generous ppt of salt

thats nitrite is gonna kill them

and stop feeding for a few days

OK, that's easy because there aren't any fish in it.

I'm trying the fishless cycling method on this before getting the fish from Janet after it's cycled.

sorry dave, am once again not referring back to the previous psots in my haste to help!

Thats great then!

ammonia conversion is powering along, just need to wait for nitrite conversion bacs to kick in.

PH is good.

if you can rais temp to 77 odd then thats gonna speed it up, especially for nitrite bacs.

Yep, I have the heaters set to 81F/27C

17C right now, good night!

I like your thinking Dave, steady before the fish. It took a while for my nitrites to start dropping, about a week i reckon, so sit tight.

btw Dave, I get most of my equipment from a place in Lancaster--That Fish Place. http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/product ... oryKey=245

They have great discount prices, and ship fast. Or you can go over--make it a fun morning.

Dave, excuse me if I have forgotten but what type of plant lighting have you settled on?

Hey Janet:
The kid at PetCo in Hanover last night mentioned that very place. It sounds really cool and I'll have to check it out.

GF, I'm using the plant and aquarium fluorescents from Lowe's.

This morning, temp 74.8F/23C, ammonia 3, nitrite is well off the chart >>10, nitrate 80 (I guess I could hook up the lights now).

The next step is to make more batt insulation pillows and duct tape them to the fish tub. The sump also needs to have insulation under it, right now it is sitting on concrete blocks and that will be a strong heat sink straight into the floor.

OK true to my word I made more batt pillows and filled the space up with them, and then used blue board to enclose the shelves. The fish tub is now snug as a bug. Since the nitrates are non-zero I went ahead and tried hooking up one of the lights. I planted some marigold seeds and some lettuce for fun.

The nitrates measured 160 or 200 tonight, can't tell which from the color. Ammonia is still 3, temp is now a balmy 78F/25C.

Starting to look like the guts of a space ship there DD! Nice one. Geez, you need some pllants, don't worry about fish LOL

DD, I reckon you could just about grab a towel, some sun screen and a pair of sunnies and go and have a lay down for a while......

Does anyone else think it's weird that my nitrates have gone from 40 to 160 in one day?

Edit: Maybe these came from the squeezings from the living room aquarium?

Haha!

I always wanted an isolation tank ala Altered States - Maybe I should just dump a bunch of salt in it and set the heaters for 92F/33C?

I think your nitrates probably did come from the 'squeezings'. It's looking great! But where do the fish go? Underneath? Can you get to the tank well enough for care and feeding?