Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Congrats bud...

Going to go check my levels now too

Thanks Charlie.. Will do.

Hows your system going bud? Get your nitrites down?

Going really well, I think it must be just about cycled.

Here's the results from 1 week ago .....
Ammonia = 0.25
Nitrite = 5.0+
Nitrate = 5.0

About 5 days ago both nitrites and nitrates started falling

Now here is the test from today

Ammonia= 0.25
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 0
PH = 7.2

Oops accidentally hit send...

I lost my first trout yesterday

He decided to go on a little excursion.... Up the SLO ...down the main line ....through the Uniseal into the 1 inch pipe .... Left at the tee ... Squeezed through the 25mm to 15 mm reducer .... Somehow got around a 15mm elbow ....& sadly ended his days at the very end of the growbed irragation pipe.....always the last place you look!!

Things are always in the last place you look, because you stop looking once you find it.

I've got a question about your SLO: do you have one of these on the top ?

Ha ha. I lost a few fish like that too (3 in total). My levels are a little different to yours: PH 7.4, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 5+ and Nitrates sitting around the 10-20 mark. Still have the heater in (ST and FT sitting around 20 DegC) so not sure if that is affecting my results. Nitrites have been 5+ for over a week now. How long did you have high Nitrites for before it dropped? Did you end up salting your system?

Nope...probably a good idea though.

I think he escaped through the bottom, where the SLO sits on the bottom of the tank.... There is a 10mm gap which he must have squeezed through. He was the runt & was about one third the size of the others... For a while there I thought maybe one had eaten him!

its better that she sees them as the TROUTS otherwise you may have trouble whenit comes to eating them.

Just checked past results & my nitrites sat at 5+ for a couple of weeks.

Yeah I salted after the advice I got on here about 3 weeks ago now.

Here is a photo of my results for comparison....surprised yours is taking so long, I really thought the heater would have accelerated your cycling (would of got a heater myself if I wasn't such a tight ass)

I was instructed to make an elbow at the botto of the SLO and run a piped horizontal piece along the bottom of the tank with holes/slits - this eliminates fish getting sucked up.

Hi Jayendra

Thanks for your input, I considered setting up my SLO like that, but I thought maybe the extra elbow may restrict the flow a little (friction) & also the pipe running out along the bottom of the tank may interrupt the circular flow I hoped to create by angling the inflow to the FT at 45 degrees along the IBC wall..... So far, apart from the unfortunate incident a couple of days ago it has been working quite well... All the fish waste & left over food is being sucked up by the SLO & the bottom of the tank remains clean.

However I have placed a spare 90mm Uniseal over the bottom of the SLO so I can adjust the outlet opening to a small degree.

I threw a stink pipe cap on mine (not sure what it is actually called - it is the cap put on sewer breather pipe) I lost a couple of fish while they were still small but they wont fit anymore so all is good.

I have cycled ... now to start planning the upgrades ;P