Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,


5 week old system.
45 gallon FT.
Two 20 gallon grow beds.
About a dozen 2" goldfish.

This system consistently reads zeroes across the board for Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate, and the plants look a little sad. I've been supplementing with kelp extract. Is this a case where the goldfish just aren't producing enough nutrients for the plants I have?

Should I:

- Begin adding ammonia manually?
- Add fish?
- Do neither, and just keep supplementing with kelp extract?


Thanks in advance.

do you have any airstones in the ft?
what are you feeding the goldfish? flakes (generally) just have enough nutrients for the fish to survive, and keep the aquarium clean.. get a decent "aquaculture" food (pond fish food) and it will provide not only the fish with nutrients, but your plants as well..
other than that, be patient.. 20 goldfish are plenty, when they start growing you may have to remove a few

yes - have a couple of airstones going in the FT.

i'm feeding them pet store food. I try not to overfeed, but maybe i'll start giving them a little extra.

so in the meanwhile, should I keep supplementing with 2 capfuls of kelp extract a week? will that give the plants all the nutrients they need to thrive?

My system is very similar to yours. I have only 6 2-3" goldfish with about 40-45gallons of water in the FT and 2 25gallon grow beds. I only recently added the fish a few weeks ago. I have been adding about 1 cap full of Maxicrop with iron per week and have been feeding the fish 2-3 times a day with API pond pellets. The plants are doing very well. What is your systems PH?

hi,

PH reads about 7.3 or so.

Patients that is the magic ingredient now,on top of the good advice from Frenzy and Keith,don't panic into anything,nature will take it's course..

ok, i'll stay the course, but just out of curiosity...

these numbers would imply that the bacteria and plants are doing *too* good a job converting and assimilating the ammonia-nitrites-nitrates?

Hiya GB, just out of curiosity, what were your highest ammonia and nitrate readings?
And, of course, welcome to the forum.

And were you testing daily?? Maybe you missed the cycling through lack of testing??

hi,

no, I was not testing daily. it's entirely possible that I did miss the cycling phases. but the few times I did test, all three measurements were zero.

i'll test again tomorrow.

Test today shows zeroes across the board again. I'm going to bump up the food a bit and see what happens.

I have a couple of small pods of Water Hyacinth in there. I'm wondering if that is hogging up all the nutrients...

Very probably... rip it out...

bummer. the goldfish really seem to enjoy its company. provides them with shade and cover. oh well.