Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Your Nitrate may never appear to go back up because the plants may use them as fast as they are produced. The Nitrites on the other hand will go down once you get enough bacteria to handle the current load. Shouldn't be too much longer for the Nitrites to drop (anywhere from tomorrow to several days out)

Cheers

Figured I should post some pics. My how these systems take on a life of their own.



Some strawberries.


Installing a new horizontal strawberry planter. Has 11 spots for 3" netpots. Half will be strawberries. Rest will be lettuce, watercress, broccoli. I need to glue it all together since if it fails it will drain my tank.

Broccoli, cauliflower, and one of the 2 remaining heads of lettuce. The other 4 died. Soon to be replaced.



Spinach is doing pretty well. Vines not so much.


Catfish in their temporary tank while I let the nitrites settle out.


On the left is the drain from the PVC planter, in the middle is the exit for the bell siphon and on the right is a spray bar with diverted water.


More veggies

The catfish pic that was supposed to be posted above.

It looks like Nitrates are starting to drop which is a positive. Water temp is staying low which is frustrating me. It would be nice to get it back close to 70, but that will have to wait until the temps decide it will happen.

Question on lack of ammonia. I have been ammonia free for a couple days and since there are no fish in the system right this minute, there is no additional ammonia going in. At what point do I need to worry about the lack of ammonia impacting the bacteria colony?

I've got no movement on the nitrites which is killing me. I added 30 gallons of water today with 15 gallons being pH reduced water and 15 being rain water. That drove the pH down for now, but did nothing to change the nitrites or nitrates. My total system is about 200 gallons I believe.

I'm guessing these lower temps are preventing the bacteria from really getting going. I can keep the fish out for another 4 days and then they have to go back in due to my work schedule. There is 0 ammonia in the system which concerns me because I don't want that bacteria to die off because of a lack of ammonia. The plants that survived transplanting look good while I have seen no sign of the seeds I have planted. Did some more seeding last night so I am hopeful we get some things going pretty soon.

Tonight's readings.

pH 7.8
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 10
Nitrates 10
Temp 64 F

The bacteria that process the ammonia will be OK. You're probably right about the temperature slowing things down but you're still in the range where they will take hold, just takes more time. Looks like your Nitrites have dropped since the last test you posted, be patient the system is getting there

Cheers

It looks like I may have gotten another drop in nitrites yesterday. Hopefully by tonight they are under 1 and we can get back to growing fish.

Nitrites are finally down to .5. With the drop of the nitrites the fish went back in. I will continue to do some water swaps for the next few days to see how the tank responds to ammonia sources. The nitrates are low as well, but I have plants growing so they may be using it up.

Excited that I may be through cycling, but we will have to see. Took almost a month to get to this point.

pH 8.2
Ammonia 0
Nitrites .5
Nitrates 5
Water temp 70 F

Water is kind of murky today. I switched from cf to flood and drain so perhaps it sucked some muck from the bed back into the water. I don't think adding the fish back in would create murky water in 12 hours. Or maybe they are kicking up some sediment that had settled out. We'll see what happens.

Lost my first fish. Found it yesterday while adding water to the system. Fish was on the bottom. No signs of issues other than pale pink gills. I'm guessing it was damage from the excessive nitrites a week ago. Hopefully it's the only one as my wife will be in charge of checking for dead fish for the next week and I don't want her to have to deal with it.

Spent all last week in Anchorage Alaska. If you ever have a chance to go to AK, go. It's really pretty. I am blessed to be able to go 6-8 times per year for my work.

Anyway, came back to all fish healthy and accounted for. The growth has been pretty good these past two weeks as our temps have risen and the cycling has completed. I'll post some pics up this week, but most of the plants, doubled in size in the last 2 weeks. Aspargus finally started to come up. Unfortunately, when I planted them I didn't know about 2 year and 1 year crowns. I got 1 year because I am getting asparagus ferns instead of edible. Haven't decided if I am going to leave them or pull them out. I'm open to suggestions. Broccoli crowns have been pretty small, more like florets, but they taste good anyway.

In the grow tube, all the strawberries have added several inches of roots as have the watercress. It's cool to be able to see the growth down there since the plants don't often show the growth right away. I do need to go catch a couple of crawfish to put in the tubes to keep the roots clean, etc.

Readings for today.

pH 7.8
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0

I would say my tank is fully cycled.

My only issue is food for the catfish. They won't eat the pellets. They suck them in and then spit them out. I ended up feeding them trout tonight as they will eat the trout. They aren't supposed to be picky, but they are at this point.

I did make a new bell for my siphon. I used the same dimensions, but enlarged the openings on the bottom and reduced the obstructions. The old one would break I a minute or two of gurgling. This one breaks after 15 seconds or so and it does it consistently.

You can see the pics above taken May 18th.

These were taken yesterday.





The new and old bells. The old one is on the right.



The root ball on the some of the horizontal PVC tubes I planted 2 weeks ago.
Watercress


Strawberry

The bioslime and some catfish hiding out.

try letting them go hungry for a few days... they'll take to the feed
and no, the fish won't starve, they'll be fine for a couple weeks with no food

After about 10 days I decided to try a different approach. Mixing pellets with trout so it is a little tastier. Hopefully I will be able to wean them off trout.