Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Everyone...
My wife and I live in Eleuthera, one of the out islands of the Bahamas. And yes the beaches and water are beautiful but the island is made of limestone and sand - nice for vacation but don't try growing anything! After failed attempts of building compose (without worms) and the lack of fresh water, we decided to try Aquaponics and have high hopes we can be successful and share our knowledge with the locals.
I built a small starter system by splitting a 55 gallon (blue) drum I found on the beach along with a 60 gallon water tank also found on the beach and using store bought granite for the beds. The system is two weeks old today and while we have starter plants growing nicely, we have yet to purchase fish. Have more questions than answers but hoping with time, it will work out.

Mike & Sally

Welcome to the forum mxsauer, question away.

Thank you for the welcome .. I guess my first question or my biggest concern is my pH - which is why I haven't introduced any fish to the system yet. I just can't get my pH under 9.0 unless I dump large amounts of lemon/lime (organic) juice into the mix and that only helps for 24hrs. My problem is with the granite I purchased in Nassau. It contains maybe 1/2 to 1% limestone. When I first filled the beds, I hand separated out 'a lot' of it and then again yesterday, made the decision to do it again so we dumped one of the beds onto a table and again hand picked through the 1/4" to 1/2" gravel in an attempt to remove the very small 'white' pieces. Today we do the other bed.

My question is - if I had not removed this excessive amount (can't get it all) of limestone out of the beds, would the introduction of the fish and the startup of the bacteria eventually override the effect of the limestone and bring the pH level into acceptable range by itself? Or will I be forced to continue the fight with the pH and eventually harm the fish with wide pH fluctuations?

As always, thank you for any experience you may have in this area..
Mike

found topic: 'pH 8.2 not going Down' .. following the discussion. Sounds like I'm not the only one fighting high pH.

Hi Mike (and Sally),

This is Adam from the Island School. Joined the forums recently and noticed your post. How is the system doing now? pH ever get sorted out? Did you end up making the switch to hydroton (expanded clay pellets)?