Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Good to see it all coming together Stevo... And hey now your a member of the exclusive "I've hand washed well over a ton of gravel" club...

Is there a T-shirt as a gravel washing prize
Everything is up and running, the flood/drain cycles have been working just fine. I don't know anyone with a fish tank, so I got a bottle of bacteria starter from the pet shop and dumped it in all the beds. I also planted some plants, broc, caul,beans,toms,cuc, and peppers. The temp in the GH is getting hot (even with the vents open)and I will need to install an exhaust fan as some of the plants aren't happy in the afternoon heat. I put some fish in, 12 (4") minnows from the baitshop down the street and 30 (2") feeder goldfish. The minnows aren't doing so well, I've lost more than half of them in less than 24 hours. The goldfish are doing just fine (no floaters) I think the goldies are responsible for a few minnow deaths, I have seen them running in gangs chasing the minnows and biting the base of the tails to the point of drawing blood! These are some crazy goldies. I've put some filter material at the drains and the water is clearing up.

I tested the water (temp is 69)and everything is zero but the ph is 8.2! do I need to lower this right away or will it lower as the bacteria gets going?

My wife(Chris) made a little video to send out to some relatives.
Greenhouse movie

-Stevo

IMHO, let it sit, wait for the ph to slowly drift down over time.

I think you will need a shade cover over the gh at least until september.

Hi Stevo,
I really like the video clip, very interesting and informative.
The greenhouse seems to have plenty of roof vents, does it have some low level vents too?
I don`t think the plants will mind the high temperatures too much as long as the humidity is high enough and there is sufficient ventilation to replace the co2.
When the plants get bigger it will become less of an issue as the huge amount of leaf area adds natural evaporative cooling to the greenhouse.
Full greenhouses are usually a lot cooler than empty ones and by the looks of it..yours will soon be bulging at the seams

thanks for the clip stevo- good to have a record

I'm glad you guy's like the video, it was Chris's(my wife) idea.

Thanks monya, will do.

As far as shade cloth goes how do I determine the amount of shade I need? there are different densities.

The 4 roof vents seem to help, but I haven't installed the lower vents yet. I ordered (2)17" round ones with the GH but my bed placement is limiting where I can put them and how low. I may have to get some rectangular vents.
The beans and cuc's are the ones that don't like the heat, the others are fine so far.

3 more dead fish (2) minnows and (1)goldie that wasn't very active from the start. I have tested the water a few times now and all the levels are still the same even though the GH smells like a pond. At least the water is clear now. I now expect to lose the remaining baitfish over the next week, I don't think they were strong to begin with.

Is there a list of things that I should have on hand to remedy future potential problems, like sea salt and such?


-Stevo

It would be good to have sea salt handy, enough to go to ppt if need be. Can't remember what kind of fish you are going to use but Tilapia will take a lot of salt and benefit from it as well. Not sure of other fish.

For the present, don't do anything more until your water has cycled. This is the worst part of the whole project, the "P" word. Once the water has cycled, you can begin adjusting PH and adding and treating fish. You will be amazed at how once it has cycled, most things seem to work themselves out on their own.

Great video Stevo.... Wow, three days cleaning gravel, you've definately qualified as a gravel washer..

What's the "P" word?
Patience? (waiting for bacteria to grow is boring)

I am just looking into what kind of fish I want to keep. Chris is getting excited about this and she wants some koi. I said we should wait till the cycle gets built up then add some fish, so she went to the pet shop and got 2 cheap small ones. one died already (it wouldn't eat and always hung around the bottom) the other one is doing very well eating good and pushing around the goldies. The goldfish are kinda cool, they started to get into a daily feeding ritual now (human=food provider)

I want some type of "food" fish, maybe yellow perch, bluegill, or catfish. I just don't know what I can culture with Koi. It also has to be an easy keeper so a noob like me doesn't end up with lotsa dead fish as a result of my learning curve.

5 days and the ammonia is just starting to show up in tests, its not 0 but not yet at .25 on the card I'm a bit colorblind so reading some tests that show in shades of green require Chris's help.

It's raining today! that will mean a full rainwater tank I will have enough to do a 50% change when the time comes

-Stevo

Yes Artisitic, that whole initial cycling thing is a pain in the ar$e. You've done the hard yards, got it set up, then it's twiddle thumb time just when you want to crank it up.
Keep reading, take a few cold showers and hang in there. Not long now.
How big is your water tank and what sort of roof area do u have connected to it? Oh and what time is it over there? 3:10am here, can't sleep.

It's almost 2PM now, TT.

AM, go with the Tilapia if you can. They are tough little fish! If you go with Yellow Perch, make sure they are "feed trained". And before committing to any food fish, try to find some at the grocery and fix some for dinner. I was going to grow catfish until I tasted it. Ick. Not for me, thanks.

The tank is 150gal rubbermaid stock tank I stole from one of our empty horse paddocks and stuck it under a downspout, the roof area is about 10'x12'. I'm trying to find some blue barrels so I can collect from the GH roof and garage roof instead (much more surface area). Chris will want her tank back soon, some nonsense about the horses needing water to drink

The time now is 1:50pm, just finished lunch, Taco Bell...yum!


-Stevo

2pm there, 4am here = 14 hour differential. My pump outside has just kicked in and it has a maximum of 14 settings, so i should remember the time diff now, just thru that coincidence.
Gunna try and get some more sleep, b4 heading to a couple of auctions today. 2 local hydro gardeners are retiring and "everything must go." Could be a lotta fun/trouble for a budding AP enthusiast! Now where did i put that cheque book?

Janet,
Will tilapia work with koi?
My concern was the temp. as it stands my tank is around the mid 60's when it is warm and sunny it rises to low 70's easily, the growbeds are acting like a heat sink, but come winter I don't want to have to get crazy power bills trying to keep the tank warm. What is their temp range?


-Stevo


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