Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That is a very good point about the peppers and pregnant teenagers! As far as harvesting the fish, no there is not enough room. Which is fine because I just have little feeder gold fish in there and have no intention of harvesting fish this year.

think you may have to many fish?? your down to 36 fish right? 36 fish at 25litres of filtration each is 900 litres of wet gravel i may be wrong but dont think your setup has that does it? im new to this so may be wrong but hope it helps in either way


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I am on week 9 now. Still no substantial growth on plants. All but one of my fish have died. Just got my water tested today and nothing is looking good.

Results:
Ammonia - really high 2.0 or more (with only one tiny fish in the tank!)
Nitrites 0
Nitrates (maybe) 1.0, probably less
PH 6.0 or less

The algae growth has stopped since I covered the tank but it is not clearing up very much either. I don't know what i need to do to get my ammonia down?!?!?!?!

Should I add some more fresh water?
Do I need to get some more fish in the tank?
Should I clean out more of the algae? Is it taking up my nitrates?
Maybe look into some different fish? (not just little feeder gold fish?)

My other concern is maybe my pump times are not working to get the system established? I am running on for 30mins and drain for 1 hour.

Should I trying running it constantly flooded to try to get my bacteria established?


PLEASE HELP!!!!

Plants as of week 9

Is there some way to move this post to a different thread? Get it out of the "New member introduction" board?

I would start running constant flood for a little while. After you are cycled, the. You can go back to f&d if you choose to. Feeder goldfish are not meant to live long. Perhaps when the last one dies, you should switch to fishless cycling. Do you own a test kit yet?

It has been moved, and the name changed. If you would like a different name, let me know.

Thank you Ron! I did set it today to a constant flood.

No I do not have my own test kit yet, darn bills keep getting in the way! How would I do a fishless system? How do I create the ammonia in a fishless system?

I did not mean to say to run the system without fish, I said that when your last fish dies you could CYCLE without fish. That it is build your nitrifying colony. It is hard to know where you are in the cycle without a test kit. Now to cycle without fish, ammonia can be added any number of ways, such as detergent free ammonia purchased at a dollar store, fish emulsion, even humonia (aka aged urine.) The caveat to the humonia is the uric acid can be unpredictable in it's rate of conversion to ammonia.

Started my system basically new this year. Drained and cleaned everything after the winter season. Got it all up and running about 5 weeks ago. Need help with getting the nitrification cycle going. Please see my new link and give me some advice. Thank you

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