Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The system has been running for 48 hours straight. Came home and found one grow bed is draining faster than the other. I checked this morning and the grow beds were 5in and 4in deep respectively. Then tonight I noticed the water levels were getting higher. They are now 6in and 5in deep. I'm not sure why one is always filling faster or draining slower but they both seem to be progressively getting worse.

Update: Finally located some pure ammonia so I can official begin fishless cycling.

I added a basic swirl filter in the middle of my sump tank. I added this to help collect the fish solids before the pump would break it up into finer material and make the tanks cloudy/dirty. I read a lot about CHOP2 and the different opinions about it. I really just like the barrelponics stand point with the flood tank controlling the flood cycling. I didn't want to mess around with bell siphons etc so this was the route I went. I understand I'm using the sump differently than most would but it still is serving its purpose of keeping constant water height in the fish tank.

The air stones, water heater, thermometer and some pvc tubes are now in tank and everything is humming perfectly.

I'm planning on adding some seeds after a week or two once I start to detect nitrite/nitrates and will continue to add the ammonia till the tilapia arrive.

I added some ammonia to the tank and wasn't able to detect any ammonia with my water test kit. That either means I added to much ammonia and the test can't handle it or the ammonia I got isn't the right kind. I'll keep on testing the water daily to track any changes if any, fingers crossed.

Update:

I started on the 3rd week of fish less cycling today. The ph has finally dropped from being around 8, to hovering around 7.4. I have high nitrates but still having traces of ammonia and nitrites. .25 and 2.0ppm respectively.

My plan is to get my tilapia this coming weekend. If the tank is still not ready, I will put them in a holding tank.

Some exciting news to report, on observing my grow beds after a weekend get away, I saw this...



I'm really excited at seeing some growth finally! I counted 5 other seedlings just like this starting to come through.

Looking good jeezy. Im going to give that guy a call this week to see about the tilapia, thanks for the help again.

@lax4ivan - My pleasure. I hope to get mine this weekend too. I would definitely call ahead and make sure he is going to be there. When I called last time he said he was closing the shop early that weekend which would have been a wasted trip for me. What part of PA are you coming from?

Update: Fish Have Arrived!!!

I picked up 10 Tilapia today and we all made it home safe and alive after 1.5 hour trip.

I guess this officially makes me part of the club. Pumped!

Update:

I tested the water today as it's the fish's first day at home. Here are the current levels.

Ph. 6.4 - Was testing using high ph for a few days, now realized it has continued to drop with the nitrification process. It started out at 8.4.

Ammonia - 0.25 or .50 - can't tell for sure
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 80-160 - can't tell for sure

Temp - 69F



The plants continue to be growing fine. Four more have popped up so up to 10.

Update:

Four days after fish arrived into their new home, my water levels are...



Everything has stayed the same except the ammonia has risen to I believe 1ppt. I expected a spike but now I'm worried about it. I know that 0 ammonia is the goal and I immediately stopped feeding them. Today is day 2 of the fast so I hope this makes a difference tonight when I get home.

My plan is to remove the 4 bigger fish (2" - 3") and put them in their own separate "holding" tank leaving the smaller (.5" - 1") fish in place. My thinking is my system (50 gallon tank) isn't ready to handle 10 tilapia so my biofilter isn't capable of processing the ammonia as quickly as it should. I only have 10 lettuce plants starting to sprout. I added a few more seedlings in hopes I can get more growth in the system to use the high nitrates I have.

At this point my main concern is the fish and keeping them healthy. I'm starting my 2nd 50 gallon system sooner than expected to try and get another healthy system in place to separate the fish and have a better stocking balance.

Am I over reacting about the ammonia or do I need to take immediate action?

I agree you have too many fish this early in the system life. I would have started with a dozen minnows 2-3 weeks before i got the tilapia.

you are not over reacting, ammonia will keep going up. you are right to slow or stop feeding. The fish can go a week without food and not be any worse for wear. 1ppm ammonia is above ideal but not going to kill your fish. I start worrying at 2 but have seen ~4 without deaths. Are you not going to have the same problem with ammonia in your separate holding tanks? You might as well just keep prepared water on hand and be ready to do daily water changes until the cycle is complete.




If you have a buddy with a cycled system or aquarium you should ask if you can barrow some of their substrate.. I am a home brewer so i get a cheap grain bag from a homebrew store and dangle it from the side under an air stone. It helps your system digest the existing ammonia will seed your grow beds with the good bacteria and speed up the process.




Ammonia is only the first step. After ammonia peaks and starts going back down the nitrites will start building up and do the same thing and take roughly the same length of time.



brian

I'm not to worried about feeding the larger tilapia, it's the smaller ones that worry me about not feeding for a longer period of time.

I have a separate 30 gallon tank with a filter attached to it. It's been running empty for a few weeks so I'm going to test the water tonight and if it looks good I'll make the move.

Thanks for the tip on the grain bag, I need to figure out what that is and where to get one. Sounds like it's what I need.

Figured the nitrites would peak again. I had the system cycled for a few weeks prior to fish but I guess the ammonia overload was just to much. Perhaps I should leave the larger fish in the tank and just move the smaller ones to the holding tank. I'd imagine a mature fish can take much more rookie mistakes.

As expected the nitrites have risen to .50. The 30 gallon holding tank has a regular fish filter running and has been on for the past 2 weeks. I took water readings from this tank and it showed the same .50 nitrite reading.

So neither tank is ideal. I didn't move any fish yet, I think I will wait another day or two and reassess.

If nothing improves, I'll move just the 4 larger tilapia into the 30 gallon holding tank.

When i said use something like a grain bag, I mean fill it with cycled substrate if you have any. The bag by itself wont help anything.

The regular fish filter needs to cycle too. It's purpose is the same as the grow bed. It's surface area for the bacteria to live but they arent established yet.

brian

Okay, I have a relative with a goldfish tank with some colored gravel at the bottom of their tank. I'll get some of that? How much do you think, a few handfuls?

I have jelly strainer bags at home, I could probably use those in place of the grain bags. I assume it would work just the same.

The ammonia in both tanks has dropped overnight, I'm going to attribute that to the stoppage of feeding. The nitrite is either .25 or .50, I can never tell I must be colorblind. I turned on the tank heaters in both tanks to raise the temperature to 25C. I read that the warmer the water the more active the biofilter so I hope that makes a difference.

I'm going to replace 5-10 gallons of water every other day and put that replaced water in my second system tank (50 gallon). I will throw together a basic grow bed and pump constant flood into it to start the biofilter in that system. I only have 1 bag of hydroton and my half barrel beds usually take 2 each so I'll be making another trip to the hydroponics store sometime soon.

Update:

First week with the fish and Zero casualties! The ammonia/nitrite did spike resulting in slowing down the rate of feedings. That really does work. I'm going to continue to test the levels everyday with such a high stocking capacity to make sure things are still going okay. I've decided to try feeding them 1 out of 3 days and see how that goes. The nitrite spike lasted 2 days and has been back to 0 every since.

I also added some onion mesh bags and mosquito netting into my swirl filter in hopes this will be a more efficient bio filter. I also threw some rocks and some scrap pvc pieces to add more surface area to the bottom of the bucket. I also have the tank heater running on the light timer 10+ hours (trying to save money) to help with the nitrification and make happy fish. I placed a jelly strainer bag full of substrate from a relatives fish tank above my air stones in hopes this will help with the ammonia. (@brian's idea above).

The lettuce continues to grow rapidly. I have 15-20 sprouts coming through. I just added two tomato plants last night.

I'm preparing to start the second system with strawberry towers but running into the same issues I had last time in regards to constant height in the fish tank. The glass fish tank does not have any bulkheads to allow for an overflow into a sump. I'll be doing some more research on strawberry towers and bio filters in next few days to see what my options are. If I could avoid using grow beds and create a bio filter, that would be my best option. I don't have any more hydroton money in my budget to create two new grow beds at the moment. I have 2 4" PVC tubes at 5' and a water jug I plan on transforming into a radial fill filter to serve as the bio filter with more onion bags/mosquito netting.

Update:

With the amount of fish I decided to bump up my time table for a second system. I started a separate thread to document its progress. http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=17559

The 30 gallon holding tank should be on the final stretches of it's cycling. The ammonia has dropped to 0 but the nitrites are holding really high. Waiting for the drop now.