Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So after not having much luck with a tiny system in the texas heat. I decided to super size it and see if that will keep the heat at bay. Only next summer will tell since its starting to cool down. The FT its a 275 GAL IBC at constant height with SLO and over flow drain going into a swirl filter, 2 beds (2 IBC halves) and a PVC NFT style run. Hopefully all this becomes apparent on the pics. I have had quite a few issues with leaks. For some reason I had 2 uniseals leak and had to replace them. Also a lot of PVC joints have been leaking and I have been gluing some of them. I think I got it to the point I can live with. I hate wasting water so Im sure it will be an every day thing. Anyways here are some pics of the system.

More pics...

Have not added any ammonia and here are my starting numbers:

PH: 8
Ammo: 0.5 ppm
Nitri: 1.0 ppm
Nitra: 0 ppm

Im thinking I need to buy some (muriatic?) acid to bring down the PH. Normally the water is in the 6-7 range. I believe the expanded shale I bought (half lava rock, half expanded shale) are making the water's ph to climb.

Also, seems the cycle is sort of starting, the ammonia has come from the water and the Nitrites are going up. I will hold up on adding more ammonia until the number goes below .5 ppm.

Thoughts? Am I going in the right direction here?

Pershing

In a climate like TX or Central FL I would say you want 300 gallons of fish tank water if possible and to minimize the amount of things like NFT if you want to keep system temps stable.

Also, do something to protect those red handles on the ball valves from the sun, the red handles are not as UV stable as the black handle ball valves and I've had red handles break off as they age in the sun.

Thx TCLynx, I want to insulate the entire run of pvc, did not think about the handle, but I guess I can run some duct tape over them to have them last a bit longer? I placed the tank that far on purpose. The tank sits in the shady area between houses to aid in the summer hot temps. I also have plans for a fan hitting the water surface during fhe worst months. I will also insulate the tank and beds. Hoping all those combine will get me there. I wish I could have burry the sump tank/drum but the logistics were outside of my comfort zone.

Pershing

to protect those handles is easy could even be a bit of tin foil or cloth tied on with string.

Insulating the PVC plumbing pipes can help but the key about NFT is you need to make sure the runs are relatively short but quite frankly, a thin film of water running under the plants in ambient temperature air is going to cause that water to shift in temperature much more than is generally a good thing in an extreme climate. Add to that the fact that for good NFT you really need to make sure the water is very well filtered before sending it to the NFT and it just doesn't seem worth the trouble for a backyard system out in the open to me.

Only thing that ever really grew well for me in the 4" pipe as nft sort of set up was Basil and only during the warm months.

Understood, I really call it NFT cause its the closest term to it. I have yet to decide how high or low to make the water running. I am swirl filtering before it gets to the sump, so hoping its filtered enough. Hopefully is seen on the pics, I just ran 8 feet or so of 3" pvc and that will be my test case. My purpose in mind was lettuce and anything else on the beds. Will play around with it, if is not worth the trouble I will try some kind of tower system to use the space in front of the table. At this point I want to play with it and see what happens.

Just keep in mind in your experiments that both towers and NFT will give you more temperature problems.
DWC or floating raft will put much more water in the system and help greatly with temperature stability.

wouldn't then the water collect the days heat? What is worst a temp change or high temps?

It kinda depends on the situation.

Extreme temp swings though are likely to be hard on the fish no matter what the temp range you are in. Even if the temperature swings are not wide enough to kill the fish outright, they can cause the fish not to eat well and therefore not provide much in the way of nutrients for your plants. Plants won't really appreciate the water getting too hot and too cool that fast either.

High temps are only likely to be a problem if you are talking about temps above what the fish can handle and you don't have adequate aeration to keep up with the greater oxygen demand plus the reduce oxygen holding capacity of the water at higher temps. The plants are likely to be even less appreciative of Hot water in the summer and that is likely to be when you have the greatest amount of nutrients you need to have used up by the plants.

Well the numbers look promising today except the PH which is at an all time high of 8.4. Ammo 0.25, Nitri at 2 and Nitra at 10 . So with that said I was going to try to add a little muriatic acid to help lower the ammo and a little ammonia to try and get it to .5 or should I let it be? Im assuming I can add 1 or 2 plants now?

Also, due to a leak I had to shutdown one of the beds and dry it out for a day. Would the colonies need to start over on that bed? How would that impact the overall cycle?

Pershing

Pershing

One thing I will tell you from my experience this summer. Algae builds quickly in our climate. You need to paint the outside of your IBC's or wrap them with something to provide shade. I tried to do one of my barrel halves as a floating raft but the algae bloom was overbearing. I ended up putting hydroton in that side as well. I am having 20 degree temperature swings in my tank and I think it is getting the best of my fish. I am going to be going much bigger with my tank over the winter, and will either dig it in, or build a sand box around it to help stabilize temps.

2 weeks in after first initial test, it has rained a lot and I filled the reservoir with rain water. The result was a lower PH from 8.4 to 7.2. Ammo stayed at around 0.25 Nitri at 3 and Nitra at 20. I have been holding the addition of any Ammo. Not sure where the ammo came from, maybe the tap seed water, but I have not added any yet. Should I add to increase up to .5 or should I let it do its thing?

Pershing

Provided there are NO fish in the system, I would dose ammonia again only when the Nitrite drops below 1 ppm.
If your tap water was originally treated with chloramine, then the original ammonia could have come from that.

Let the Nitrites fall to zero... then add fish...