Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey All,

I am new to aquaponics, and just about to build my system.

I am building from a design I found on ibcofaquaponics.com using a 1,000L Tote tank (top is inverted to make grow bed).

Plan is to put the system together this weekend, fill the tank with water, and expanded clay in the grow bed. I'm going to start it with some aged pee (about 1 week old), and hopefully get some aquarium water from somewhere. Fish due to arrive (50 x Jade Perch 50mm) early december. I was going to put some seaweed extract in the water as well and put in plants while I wait for system to fully cycle.

Any tips from anybody? How much pee for this size system? Will I have my system cycled in time for the fish?

Any helping hints for a newbie would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers
James

Hi and welcome to the addiction.

Your system may not be fully cycled by the time your fish arrive but that shouldn't be much of a problem - just feed lightly until it is cycled.

If you are going to add Seasol only add a lid full for every 1000s litres otherwise your water will go very dark an you won't see your fish.

If you do not know the water you are getting do not bother ,you may only introduce disease to your new system. If you are using town water fill your tank and and let it air off for a few days to get rid of the chlorine.

I would cycle with out adding any water from some one elses system. Any problems just ask.

Welcome to the forum

My only concern is your proposed stocking level.

If your cutting the top off a tote and inverting it as done in the IBCofAP, you will have around 200L of filtration and around 700L of FT. This will safely support around 10 fish.

Our safe recommendations here is 25 fish (grown out to 500g) per 500L of grow bed. The humane minimum level of water per fish is about 10L.

Holy fish balls that is a lot of fish for that system. For my original system (Ibc with the lid flipped as a gb) I put 25 fish in and it couldn't handle it.

I would o an buy another IBC and make yourself some more gbs

Hi James and welcome!
I'm a novice myself, but 50 Jades in a single IBC system is a scenario I have experience with. See my post here from early this year when I lost all 50: viewtopic.php?f=29&t=11711
My advice is read lots and lots of this forum, and very little else on the net. The depth of experience here is awesome and people are generous with their assistance. The single biggest lesson I've learnt from AP is patience.
Cheers and good luck mate - you're off on a great adventure.

Wow, thanks for all the responses!

I will drop down to 25 fish. My plan was to take some fish out early, and gradually drop the numbers as they get bigger.

Can I start the system off with a higher concentration of seasol? I'm going to get plants in straight away, and I assume they will use up a lot of this up before the fish arrive?

As for cycling with urine? I've got some aging. How much should I put in the system - if any at all?

Thanks
James

Ok so
Seasol is fine to add, a capful every week or so will help the system along, I did it for about 9 weeks when I started an then very now and then will still add one

Wrt urea, add it until you get ammonia, say 5 ppt, maintain this until the nitrate starts tj show on tests, then let ammonia drop to 0. Then bring ammonia back up to 1, and wait until it drops to 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite. When the system will do this in 24 hr you are more or less cycled

Not all urine is the same, so there is no definitive answer: Use a test kit to determine the ammonia level in the sample, then you can compute how much you need to add to your quantity of water to achieve the required ammonia level in your system.

As your fish are arriving early December don't push it too much. You don't want to have a high ammonia reading followed by a nitrite spike when you have fish in there.

Thanks all,

I have followed your advice, and looking good so far.

Unfortunately pump didn't arrive for the weekend, but I've got all the hard work done...

Tank + grow bed in place, expanded clay in the grow bed and system tested with a garden hose.

pH = 7.0, Ammonia ~ 5ppm, Nitrite, Nitrate = 0ppm.

I'm away for the week, next weekend I'll get the pump hooked up and put some veggies in (I've grown tomatoes, eggplant, cucumber, capsicum and chilli from seed and I'll sprinkle some lettuce seeds in there.

Can anyone give me a rough idea to how much I can plant in my grow space (top off an IBC)? I have read that you can grow much denser than conventionally because they don't have to fight for nutrient.

I'll post a photo next weekend once it's all up and running!

Cheers
James

The plants don't have to compete for water or nutrient but you should thin the plants as they grow so that they don't stunt each other for light and air. Depending on the plants, you can eat the thinnings. Spacing for square foot gardening might be a place to start.

Any advice from people more experienced than me should be taken to over-ride my opinion, but:
I'd be slowing things down a little. Until you're pumping there's no conversion ammonia-nitrite-nitrate. So I would get the pump in first, get the cycling underway with your chosen ammonia source (you seem to have decided on pee), plant some stuff in the growbed if you want, and give it some time for the bacteria to establish before loading up with fish. Celebrate each step in the process as a success and don't rush to tip the fish in - I know it's agonisingly waiting to get the little swimmers in there.
Cheers mate, T

+1 to tallman's post.

Get your pump in and system cycling ASAP. Don't add any more ammonia till your current level gets as close as possible to 0.

Heading home tomorrow - pump should be there to get my system cycling...

I've put in an order for Jade Perch (reduced to 25 from 50 as per your advice), due to arrive early december.

Q1) If my system is still not cycling, and ammonia/nitrite levels are too high in the tank can I keep them going for a while in a kid's wading pool in the shed? (It's plenty dark in there).
Q2) I'm going away over xmas for 1 week. How will they hold up over this time? I can get a friend to go a couple of times, but I don't want to push it too far...

Cheers