Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My first attempt at aquaponics. It is in my basement with zero natural light so I probably won't do any fruiting plants, just leafy greens and herbs.

3' x 4' x 12" GB with bell siphon that takes 25 gallons to fill before the bell siphon starts to drain it back into the FT.

CHIFT - 20 gallons

30 Gallon Sump that the FT overflows into.

Salted to 1 ppt after eliminating the chlorine. Its been cycling for 2 weeks. I started with 20 feeder fish. 10 of which died in the first week. I added 3- wild caught blue gill who have eaten all but the 2 largest feeder fish. My last water reading was pH: 7.8, Ammonia: 1 ppm, Nitrite 0.5 ppm, Nitrate: 0.0 ppm.

I added some store bought cut onions and some very nubile seedlings from thinning out the propagation tray and they are surviving so far.

The current lights are t12 shop lights with plant bulbs and I am waiting on the Sunleaves Pioneer VIII - 8 bulb fluorescent to be delivered.

So far this is a very cool project.

I've never done anything like this and would appreciate any feedback or advice.

I am hearing that my fish tank may be too small. If I intend only to harvest produce and not fish, do you think this size tank will support leafy plants in that size grow bed?

Thanks,

Jake

It does not really take many fish to support an ap system.

great setup..
and bluegill are slow growers, perfect to have a few in a small system ...
even ornamentals would work..just make sure you use a good quality fish food

2 weeks cycling with fish. One week with plants in the growbed. No plants have died yet.
The blue gill have been in since Monday and snacked on feeder fish so they have not started to eat the cichlid pellets yet. I guess they will when the get hungry enough.

pH: 7.8
Ammonia: 1.0 ppm
Nitrite: 0.0 ppm
Nitrate: between 0 and 5 ppm

Looking good. It usually takes a week for wild caught BG to start eating pellets. The bigger ones are the most hesitant.

go easy on the feed when you have those ammonia readings (or nitrite readings)

Question: I have digital pump timer for the flood and drain. I thought digital would give the greatest flexibility for when its on and when it's off. But the timer only allows 7 programmable cycles. It's getting flooded every 3 hours. It takes 10 minutes to fill and about 30 minutes to fully drain. Is this sufficient? Or is 2.5 hours to long to be "dry"?

What pump timers are you all using to get 15/45 cycles?

Further updates: I added a SLO to the FT and its clear my water was not getting mixed properly before.
New water readings:
pH: 6.0
Ammonia: 1ppm
Nitrite: 0.5ppm
Nitrate: between 5-10ppm

Anything alarming here?

Yes, very alarming... Not sure how to put this, best to just say it...
You have the AP bug.
Get well soon.

I use a cycle timer, like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Cap-ART-DNe-Adjus ... B00286QNDM

I added some maxicrop, and am learning I really need to check the forum before doing anything. I didn't measure it, just added a splash (probably about 2 tablespoons) and the water is pretty dark. It appears this is WAY to much. Is this going to hurt anything?

It is always way too dark... The fish don't mind.

lots of people aim to turn over the fish tank volume every hour, but it's just a good place to start. Lots of other people pump more water or less water.

What you are doing will probably be fine.

Dont you hate answers like that

The main thing is to pump enough water through enough grow bed media, so you keep your ammonia and nitrites at zero or really close to zero.

Most new systems suffer from too much fish. It's pretty hard to go wrong with too much grow bed. The more grow bed the better.

And this...

For some reason the universe has the following attribute... you can put some shell grit (crushed sea shells bought from where ever you might buy chicken food (it helps in the production of strong egg shells)) or eggshells into your growbed, and It will adjust your pH to around 7.3 or so, which is apparently good. Once the water is around a pH of 7, it will no loner be acidic enough to dissolve the shell grit, so it wont go any further.

Which is absurdly convenient.

If you put some shell grit, or some egg shells into a sock or stocking, and them drop that into you system, it will make you feel like you are in control of the process, and that you could remove it if need be.

But you wont need to

But that's what I'd do.

I just re-read this post, and it would probably be a good thing if someone would second this post so that it didn't seem like the rantings of an egg shell loving lunatic.

+ 1 to BullwinkleII being a lunatic. Er... I mean to the shell grit thing. His lunacy is about shell grit... No wait, I mean he is right about the shell grit having magical properties that can be explained away with science.

Reading today:
pH: 7.4
Ammonia: 0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0.5ppm
Nitrate: 10 ppm

The ammonia has been dropping either because the bluegill ran out of feeder fish to eat and are producing less waste or the system is establishing a bio-filter (or both).

On the plus side the bluegill did start eating the cichlid pellets last night so I am less concerned about them starving to death. It took about 10 days before they would eat it.



I added a 4" PVC DWC to utilize some parts from earlier screw ups. Now I guess I need more lights.

I assume I am at the nitrite spike in the cycle and my question is: How high is too high for nitrites and is there anything I need to do about it?

My ammonia level has been steady at 0.5 ppm- 1.0ppm but my nitrites have been a brilliant purple koolaid color for the last few days. Easily 5.0ppm (or higher) My nitrates are finally orange, now about 20 ppm.


Lettuce is growing.



Sunleaves Pioneer VIII, in the growbed with many seedlings.