Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Update:

Alright, been a while. So the system has been up and running since June. No major catastrophes. It's day 51 for the 10 tilapia and I'm happy to report that all are alive and well. I'm going to test the water in the breeding tank tonight to see if it's ready to move my breeders into. I've been working on a second system as well as a third mini system for the fingerling tank, so been busy. I will start a thread on the fingerling system shortly.

There have been some minor set backs with system 1 which I expected there would be. The flood valve pulley cable is too thin and gets pinched so the flapper never 100% reseals. I took a small section of air hose and split it down the middle and taped it to the cable to give it some more thickness. I also took a zip lock bag full of rocks and attached it to the valve to give it some more weight to reseal the flood drain completely. Problem solved.

There also has been some issues with the ph levels. I added some egg shells and sea shells to the grow beds which did buffer my ph to 6.4. It was hovering around 6 before I did this.

The #1 failure so far has to be that I suck at growing plants. It's been 3 months and nothing really has taken off. I know it's a young system but i expected some results. I had sprinkled lettuce in both beds as I read that was the easiest to grow and can take colder environments. Well they take off and grow about an inch and start to get spindly. I lowered the grow lights to 6 inches above them to see if that would help. No change. The tomato plants did grow 2 inches and started to turn purple. I recently germinated some zucchinis and added one to each grow bed. For two weeks the one did really well, a new leaf was growing every other day. However 3 of the leaves started to dry out but I can now see that some tiny leaves are still growing underneath them. I've been doing my research and read I might need some potassium. I ordered some potassium hydroxide which should be here this week.

This is the zucchini plant before the leaves started to wilt. I will get another image tonight of what it looks like now. The other plant is an apple tree that I planted just for kicks from a seed I got from a store bought apple. How cool.



Finally, last night I tested the water and I noticed the ammonia spiked significantly. The water wasn't as clear as it has been and I began to investigate. I noticed some gunk by one of the pvc tubes and thought it was a dead fish. panicked a little as this would explain the ammonia. Well it was just a bunch of fish food/poop that accumulated right by the bottom of these pvc pipes I use for fish hide outs. I took my water siphon and sucked up all that crap out there and all around the tank. This morning the tank water is much clearer. I'm guessing my venturi drain isn't really working as good as I thought but those hide out pvc tubes definitely don't help with keeping the tank clean. Without them the drain might be able to suck that stuff up but in the mean time, I don't mind cleaning out the tank every now and then. The fish always hang out in those tubes and a happy fish is healthy fish. I'll back off feeding the fish until the ammonia settles back to normal. Will re-test tonight and see if any of that made a difference.

What type of lighting? If it is florescent, you probably need the tubes to be no more than about 3" from the leaves.

Potassium Hydroxide can help with the potassium but it will also raise the pH so you need to be careful when you use it. It is basically old fashion potash lye!

You can also provide some potassium as well as other trace elements by adding a little bit of seaweed extract to the system. Perhaps a spoonfull per week.

@TCLynx, Yes the bulbs are fluorescent. They were advertised as hydroponic grow lights. T5 HO Grow Lights.

Funny, my package of potassium hydroxide arrived last night. I took a small pinch and put it in a spray bottle water solution and just sprayed the grow bed. I'll start small and see how the ph adjusts. I tested the ph this morning and it dropped to 6, well that's as far as my test kit goes to. I added seashells back into the grow beds to buffer the ph back up. I'll re-test tonight.

Yeah, I think I need to get seaweed extract next. I wanted my systems to work without any additional elements but I guess it's so young of a system that it needs more help.

Update:

Here are some updated pictures of my two zucchini plants.

This plant started out great, growing a new leaf every other day. After 2 weeks half the leaves started to dry out.



I then added this plant 2 weeks after the first and so far it's looking alright. Growing a little slower than the first.

i think it's getting too wet..
how high does your water level come up? it should be about an inch or two below the surface.. the top layer of the media should be dry

Last I measured it was between 1" and 2" from the top. I just planted 6 new tomato seedlings and I could see the water level was an inch away from the top. I recently just moved the drain to the center so water could seep down directly onto the roots of the plant. I'll move it back to where it was tonight. It was completely dry before I did this. I'm also going to try and lower the lights to within 3" of the leaves and see if that helps.

The potassium hydroxide I think you need to actually dissolve in the system water, not spray on the plants!

If the surface of your media gets wet (other than right at the inlet of course) from regular flood and drain activity, then you are flooding too high. In the picture the surface of the media looks awful wet though.

Florescent grow light tubes only provide good PAR (plant available radiation) for about the first 6 months of use and in general the light tube needs to be about 3 inches from the leaves of the plants.

I'm not sure what is causing those leaves to dry out and die?

Hmmm, I'll look the potassium hydroxide up again. I'm specifically remember someone saying to spray the leaves directly. I'll try and find that article.

Yeah, I took that picture after I sprayed the bed with the potassium hydroxide. On any normal day the top is bone dry and the hydroton starts to appear white.

I have the lights on 12 hours and off 12 hours. Since June 1st that would be 1224 hours of use so far. I do plan on switching them out every 6 months.

Thanks for the suggestions, much appreciated!

I've sprayed with potassium bi-carbonate before. But that was to combat mildew.

If you are trying to use the potassium hydroxide to keep the pH up, you need to apply it to the system water though. And it will also provide potassium for the plants. If you are spraying the plants with potassium hydroxide, you want to make sure you don't burn the plants with it but spraying the plants with it won't help with pH which you really want to keep above 6 unless you have a test kit that reads lower than 6.

Update:

Well yesterday was quite exciting. We had a pretty powerful storm roll through and we lost power. Perfect, I don't have a back up power system to keep things running so panic begins to set in. Thankfully the power came back on so the system was offline for only 5 hours. Thankful the fish made it but probably not to happy.

The system lost 15 to 20 gallons of water while the power was out. The reason for this is because the flood tank drain doesn't seal 100% so it eventually will empty out. The Sump Tank has a overflow pipe that goes into the floor drain so not too much of a mess. I replenished the water and the system is back up and running.

This experience forced me into coming up with a back up plan. I have an unused car battery in the garage. I bought a power inverter so I can get some AC power for my air and water pumps to keep them working. I'm going to skip setting up a redundant system as I can get home pretty quickly and set this up in no time.

So the ph was around 6 the last time I checked before losing power. The ph level is now around 7. The fish are definitely screaming at me for the crazy fluctuations in the system. I hope when I re-check the ph tonight it will be a little bit lower.

In other news, I went ahead and bought some maxi crop liquid seaweed. I'll give this a try instead of the potassium hydroxide. The second zuchinni plant is really looking good. The first one is still holding on and I can see some new growth.

A pH of 7 is not a bad thing. A pH of 6 is only safe if you have a test kit or meter that tells you exactly what your pH is even if it is below 6.

If you are suffering from lack of potassium and you pH is high enough that you doing want to be raising it, then the seaweed extract will be a good choice and it provides other trace elements too.

@TCLynx, I went ahead and got some seaweed extract. More specifically MaxiCrop Original which I think I've read others on here have used. I've been adding cap full once a week.

My plants really haven't shown any change, the tomato plants are turning purple and some zucchini leaves dry out and die. I thought I would have better plant results by now but the good thing is my fish are all alive and healthy. I'd rather have plant problems than fish. I've come to the realization that my T5 HO 4 bulb 4' light system are not enough. The seedlings pop up quickly but then become leggy. I've tried adjusting the placement of the lights but no change. I've gone ahead and made an investment in an LED light system that I hope will turn things around. It's a 6 Band 135w LED Grow Light and it arrives on Friday! It's advertised to cover 4 square feet of grow area which is about the size of one blue barrel grow beds. I'm going to experiment by placing it over just one grow bed and see what happens. If all goes well I'll get another one for the other grow bed.

The LED's are more energy efficient and have longer life spans. I wish I would have gone this route earlier before investing in T5.

I'm not sure that the LED's are going to give you better results than the Floro but it will cost you less in electricity.

You still need to get the LED's right close to the plants and I think most people who have success with LED also use some other HID lighting for at least a few hours a day. So for people I know who have reviewed LED for growing plants mostly say "they are getting close but not quite there yet."

Purple on the plants. Hum, do some research, that kinda sounds like it might be an issue with phosphorus.

Well, the cold weather has finally arrived. I have been dreading this all summer. The temps in the basement have dropped from a cool 65 to 59 degrees. The fish tank water was averaging 68 degrees with one 300w heater but now has dropped to 63. I went ahead and ordered another 300w heater and a set of wave makers. I'm hoping the wave makers will distribute the water around the tank so the heaters work more efficiently.

In the mean time I have tried to insulate the basement as best as I can. I moved on to insulating the fish tanks with cardboard and foam board. I also have blankets covering the tank but all this effort is only helping 1 or 2 degrees. I have a third tank in the basement with zero insulation and heating. The temp is 52 degrees. So I know the heaters are at least still working but the cold is too much to keep up with.

The tilapia are still eagerly eating with no change in activity. The little ones huddle close to the heaters. I feel bad but the new heater arrives today so I'm hoping I can boost the temps for them.

The garden has failed miserably. The temps are just way to cold. I ordered some cold weather plants (lettuce, roman, swiss chard) and added them to the system this week. The nft system has a few sprouts coming through so I have some hope.

The breeding 20 gallon tank is up stairs in my office with water temps in the 70's. It has taken forever to cycle. I'm not sure if I may have overdosed the system with ammonia or if the rock substrate I got from petsmart is causing the issues. I have two air stones in the tank as well.

Update:

The new heater arrived. With dual heaters the water temperature is staying where I want it to be. The wave makers are making a huge difference. The first pair I bought was way to strong and the fish were acting weird. I bought a smaller one which has been working great. I placed the original/stronger one in the sump to help keep the solids suspended. I was having issues with the sump tank accumulating solids so they weren't getting up into the grow beds. After removing the pump screen and running the wave maker 24/7, the sump tank is now clean. I did come home one night to find the system had stopped because some solids had found their way into my soda bottle which is part of the pulley drain cycle system and clogging up the drain holes in the bottle cap. I added some mesh to the pvc pipe that drains into the soda bottle that is housed in the flood tank and that has solved that problem. After further inspection, I noticed the solids were again accumulating in the flood tank. So no solids were actually getting to the grow beds again. I added a power head into the bottom of the flood tank to keep the solids suspended and added an air line to the power head to feed some more oxygen into the water before it goes into the grow beds. So it has a dual purpose.

So this issue was a good sign that I now have solids getting into the grow beds. I believe the next step I will have to take is getting some composting worms into the beds to break down the solids further. I'm on the fence if I should add a small solids filter before the beds. I tried to add a small bio filter in the sump tank to help with the fish stocking density issues I was having. I recently removed it as it was becoming more of a solids filter and after taking it apart, it was pretty disgusting. With the type of system I built, I assumed the grow beds would act as the solids & mechanical filter.

I was having issues with my pvc tubes I was using as caves in the tank. Solids would start to build up all around them and I would have to constantly siphon them out of the tank to keep it clean. So I added a 3/4" pvc tube that runs along the top of the tank that I then used as an anchor to hang the pvc tubes off the bottom of the tank with fishing line. Now the wave makers are keeping the solids suspended which eventually find their way into the SLO and then into the sump. Haven't had to clean the tank of any excess solids buildup.

Since buying a LED grow light, I have been trying to test which lighting system would be best for me. I have a 4bulb T5 system on one grow bed, then the LED grow light for the other. The zucchini plant on the T5 bed is starting to do better while the one in the LED bed is struggling. I added some parsley and peppers to both beds and the parsley is doing better in the LED bed than in the T5. No signs of any peppers yet. I'm hoping that the adjustments I made will help the plants. I've been adding a cap full of maxicrop once a week to help the system. I know the system is only 4 months old so it's very immature but the nitrate levels have been consistently high and I'm worried that it will eventually come back and bite me and kill some fish.

Speaking of fish, I have moved 3 of the smallest fish into my second system. I'm planning on moving one more over to have a total of 6 fish in this system. Eventually I plan on taking 2 more out and into my breeding tank up stairs after that tank has finished cycling. In the end, I would like to have 4 tilapia in each 55 gallon system with 2 in the 30 gallon breeding tank up stairs. The next project will probably be learning how to determine the gender of my fish.

So far I have learned a ton about aquaponics so the money and time has been well worth it. I really have enjoyed having two systems that are completely different from one an other. They each have their distinct advantages and disadvantages. When I'm ready to go full scale I'm not sure which one I will chose but I'm thinking of a combination of both.