Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Getting ready to start the new system for this year. I have the tank cycling to get it going while I am working on other things. Of course, wife would like it moved closer to the house as she likes the water sounds. No big deal though as it is just water

I am going with a CHIFT PIST system in this case. 200 gallon fish tank, 150 gallon sump tank. 2 IBC tops as grow beds.

To start it up, I am going to put a small grow bed on top of the fish tank and put the mini greenhouse (5'x6') over the top. That way I can start cycling more quickly by bringing the temp up better as our nights are still in the upper 20's and low 30's. A cold spell isn't out of the question, but I want to see if I can swing it with the greenhouse and the larger thermal mass of the tank. I'll have the other beds plumbed and ready to rock as soon as I feel the temps are high enough. To cap the system off I will add in my horizontal grow tubes and probably double up on them.

Fish will be bullhead catfish and tilapia. Might even add some freshwater shrimp into the sump and grow tubes.

Wasn't planning on it, but added my first fish. Last year I used catfish caught locally to provide the fish power. I planned on doing the same this year. Yes, I know the risks of introducing wild fish into an aquaponics system.

Went fishing tonight and caught a small (18") channel cat that looked really clean and nice. Filled the cooler with river water and put it in there. 20 minutes to home and it's in the tank. I'm not sure how well it will work given the fact that at that size, they eat other fish. It might end up in the sump tank by itself or it might get eaten by us sooner than later.

That's gonna light a fire for me to get the rest of the system in place.

This is where the system is going to go. Previous owners let their cats crap in the sand and it is full of old cat poop. Therefore, our son can't play in it. If we owned this house, I would have all the sand removed and have all new sand brought in. But, not our house and I'm not going through that. So, the aquaponics system will go there instead. Originally, I was going to put the tank on the left, then the sump, then the 2 or 3 growbeds. But the ground slightly slopes from right to left so I was thinking the fish tank should be on the right. I'm trying to make everything flow as nicely as possible.



I will have to source at least one more grow bed as the top I cut off of one of the IBCs was too short. That was a rookie mistake last year. It did make for a bigger fish tank though. Most likely I will buy another IBC which will yield two additional grow beds. I was hoping to get further along so I could get the tank and one small growbed going in the greenhouse. I got hung up as I thought about if I want to paint the tank or clad it like I did last year.

There's the first fish.

Nice are area for AP just make sure you support your system on Pavers or it might sink a little?

Yep. I am going to smooth the sand, pack it down, put pavers and then put the stand (cinder blocks) to get the grow beds just high enough to make it all work. I'm burying the sump some simply so I can keep the grow beds from being too high

pH was way higher than I expected. Sitting at 8.2 this afternoon. Wasn't expecting that. Added some top up water treated down to a lower pH to starting bring it down. Ammonia was up to 2 parts this evening. I'm not feeding right now so I added some clean water and will keep an eye on it. If it is still high tomorrow night I will drain some water and add some clean to do a partial water change.

Last year I started the system with 8 smaller bullhead catfish and was able to manage it through cycling. The fish might just put off too much for me to manage it since the water temps will keep the bacteria growth slow at this point. If it won't work with this guy, I'll have a fish fry and use smaller fish for the cycling.

Here's what I am thinking of doing.

Not sure I follow the flows there SB. CHIFT PIST?

Yes chift pist.

Flows from the fish tank (green lines) to the rff. From rff it will flow to the two grow beds and 2 half barrels. I plan to run a 4" pipe down the center under the beds. The beds will dump into that main drain (red) and go to the sump. The sump will pump to the fish tank but will have a branch split off to feed a horizontal grow tube that will empty into the fish tank.

OK, so I got cocky. Last year went well, this year I jumped the gun by throwing that catfish in the system when it wasn't all together. It's looking pretty ragged. The pectoral fins have flesh peeling off which I'm guessing is fin rot. The pH is higher here than at our last place and I haven't been able to get it down yet. In short, I screwed up.

I'll be putting the full system together this coming week and will take a more measured approach. I'll rinse out the fish tank and I'll add a little bleach during the cleaning.

As for the media, rinse with water, with a bleach solution or toss it. It's not much media as I hadn't filled the entire bed yet knowing I was going to move the system.

Still battling pH. Every time I think I am getting it, up it goes. It makes no sense to me since the scoria is the same as I used last year. I did battle pH issues early on, but nothing this high. Towards the late summer, the pH issues resolved so I assumed whatever in the scoria that was buffering it was the cause.

Today's reading had pH at 8.0, Ammonia at .25, nitrites at .5 and nitrates at 40. I am very surprised at the nitrates. I've only been running this tank for a few weeks and though our daytime temps are good, water temps are still in the 50's with cool nights. I am surprised to see that much in nitrates. I have nothing planted so I will have to get some stuff going. I don't believe it is fully cycled, but something is working.

I do need to make a decision. I got my sump set up with a greenhouse over it. I have clean water in it with no media and want to see if I can get a handle on the pH. My thought was to put the fish in here, transfer some of the media and then move my main growbed. The decision is, do I keep the cycle going in my sump and then just add in the main tank and other grow beds or do I move my main tank and just cycle it there. My overall plan is to run a basic IBC system until it is warm enough to plant in the other beds. Then I will add in the other beds and convert from the IBC to a CHIFT PIST. I have a small greenhouse which would fit over the main tank as well so I can do it either way.

Here's the sump. And yes, that is as far as I could sink it. 120 gallon sump tank. Maybe a little bigger. Using 4x6 support because it came out of the mistake pile at Home Depot. $4.


Concrete mixing tube with a hole and a uniseal for the seedling growbed.



Cut out this green grate and it slips over the standpipe. Helps to hold the media guard in place.


Drilled a few more holes to let water through. I am reusing a media guard that I did a crappy job on. I might change my mind if I have time to make a new media guard tomorrow. Still need to make a bell.



In the greenhouse.


The supervisor.

Two growbeds filled with mother earth hydroton. Seeded them out this weekend and added some strawberries. I have catfish in a salt tank right now for a week or so. Once they go through that, I will introduce them to this system. I also am rotating some scoria out of my other tank which is cycled.



Bed on the right is flood and drain. Runs a pretty quick cycle due to the smaller volume. I might slow the water down so it doesn't fill so quick. Bed on the left is constant flood.

Don't know if anybody is watching. Added a single trout which will be fine until later spring when the water temps rise too much. It seems to be calming down. It's really fast.

Also added 5 bullhead catfish after they spent a week in a salt tank. They seem to be acclimating really well.

Everything has stabilized in the big tank though the catfish in that tank has yet to eat. pH is a bit lower than I would like, but I am not looking to move it too quickly. I planted 3 plants to work on taking up some of the nitrates that are in that system. It cycled fast which is still confusing for me since our temps are not that high. I am not putting it under much load so that might be why all seems well.

The sump tank is being cycled separately in the greenhouse. The ammonia is staying low (.25) and I have no nitrites yet. Nitrates are present though. I have given up on trying to figure out how nitrates are showing up in significant quantities. Seeds are starting to sprout which is good.

I need to start building the piping for the other growbeds, the solids filter, etc. I want to let spring go further before I connect everything together as I want to keep the greenhouse up as we can still get some cold weather.

Need to find fish food, but the organic fish food I used last year is not available yet. I need to find an alternate.

That's my update for now.

Your system is looking really good!

The catfish will start eating pretty soon. The bullhead will probably eat before the catfish, from what I've read they tolerate the cold water temps a bit better. When it's around the 55 to 65 mark the catfish aren't likely to come to the surface so sinking chow or worms are a better bet than anything that floats. Might need to leave them alone, they're kind of skittish. Careful though of leaving any uneaten food in the tank to break down especially since your system is in it's early stages.

Skrettings has a facility in Salt Lake City if you ever get down there. I've picked some of their trout chow there before but if you don't want 50 lb bags you can find fish food on the internet.

http://www.skretting.us/Internet/SkrettingUSA/webinternet.nsf/wprId/95141815900C834188257C06007DD385!OpenDocument