Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

floridafishin

Now I see the light. Makes perfect sense -- and since my children's dogs keep destroying my raised lasagna garden plants ; they'd also probably destroy my plumbing. Not now they won't all too big to fit behind the GB's.

So I contacted the company that I had ordered goldfish from yesterday. Received an email back stating they were sorry but they no longer sold the goldfish via mail and that the website was supposed to already be shut down and that they'd delete all my personal and credit card info. So I headed to local bait store and purchased 3 bags of small goldfish and 10 small koi. The couple that owns the store are really nice. The wife raises koi and is very knowledgeable about fishies. I was talking to her about my aquaponics plan and she showed me her swirl filters that she had made for all of her tanks. She offered to help me with mine whenever I was ready. She said that they also raise red worms and in the future they'd be great for my GB's. So what started as a frustrating day turned into a very good networking day

One step closer

When hubby got home we went and bought our pond test kit -- so here's the results of our first reading at 9 pm tonight.

Sometimes my glasses fail me but to the best of my ability I believe

phosphate .5
PH 9.0
Nitrate 0 ppm
Ammonia 0-.25ppm

Ok so I was reading up on koi and goldfish. It says they need ph between 7 - 9. Mine is obviously 9. It says to add 1/4 cup of white vinegar for every 500 gallons of water and then retest after 12 hours. Since I just put the fish in should I wait (will the fish cause the ph to drop?)

Also I've read about filters (swirl, rff, etc...) I do not have one planned for my system do I need one and if so where should it go.

The prawn guy says one of his aquaponics customers raises his prawn in his filter and doesn't have to clean it. (Sounds great, less work for me, free food for the prawn, and delicious dinner for our family at harvest) Gotta love that.

Ok I really need to shut my brain off and go to bed -- watching grandson (1 1/2) tomorrow.

Just did a quick check on my fishies and found no floaties. Saw several different little schools of them swimming around and surfacing to eat the stuff off top. They looked happy too be in their huge new world--Going from a 100 gallon tank to 15,000 turned them into the explorers of the big green mess, lol.

It will be fun to watch this one develop. Some things to bear in mind with systems this large it takes a looong time to develop nutrient levels apropriate for growing plants, so dont get frustrated early on, it is normal. Just make sure you are using a feed designed for aquaculture, not ponds, as the stuff for ponds is designed to keep the nutrient levels low. As for supplemental filtration, your call. You have the space for it, but it will add another level of maintence. Dome people like the additional level of control it gives them. If you are going to do DWC, it is almost mandetory. Given the volume of water you have, you will want to keep all the nutrient you can get. Personally, I would just add more gravel growbeds if i am not getting the filtraton I need. Then you can also plant more plants.

Thanks Ronmaggi,

All about less work and producing more edibles. So I'll just keep adding on until I eventually run out of places to put them. One day I may just have to create a dome over the whole back yard (guess its good its not so big) and feed all the neighbors.

shelly,

who is your prawn guy? is it texas aquaculture out in weatherford or do you know a local guy? I thought those prawns got very large and we cannibalistic. I coudnt imagine growing them in a small filter (the swirl filters are 55 gallon barrels no?)

i dont think a few prawns would be able to keep up with the junk in the filter for my 900 gallon garage system. But i guess if you stayed light fish load like a lot of aquaponic systems, maybe.

for you, i'd follow ron's advice for now. You are new and learning and there's no need to add a bunch of moving parts. I think over time as you learn more about the hobby you will probably eventually add filtration for a lot of reasons but you can certainly do without for a couple of years or longer with a lot of flexibility and without any problems.

bcotton,

Yes, Craig from aquaculture. They do get big. I've been researching them and yes they do get aggressive if they do not have enough room. Through researching I learned that if they are in moving water they are forced to swim instead of fight. Also I've watched youtube videos and such; where people install netting of different layers for them to crawl around on. My original plan was to put them into the large IBC's outside the pool with the netting layers. Then Craig mentioned that one of his customers grows them in their filter and the prawn eat all the debris so they do not have to clean it. I'm sure that in a 55 gallon barrel filter you wouldn't put a lot of them in there. From what I've read they grow to 8-10 to a lb. within 6-8 months. And I love me some butterflied fried shrimp with cocktail sauce.

Noticed that you quoted a level of nitrate but your picture showed a nitrite test.

Also, don't add vinegar. It will break down so it won't last and isn't good for fish.

I don't have a lot of experience but I've seen people use one or more of hydrochloric phosphoric or sulphuric acid.

I've seen food grade phosphoric acid on amazon.

API ph up appears to be dilute sulfuric

Hydrochloric (muriatic) is also commonly available as a pool chemical.

Scott_dc

Thanks for the advice will definitely not add vinegar. I'm not sure I actually need to add anything just yet. I haven't got anything plumbed or gravel. I was just adding the cheap goldfish (the koi--the kids wanted them) to get something going with the water without adding any chemicals. So far those little guys are doing a great job as housekeepers. I want to try to keep the pond as natural as possible. I've been researching submerged pond plants that oxygenate and some for shade on top the water.

bcotton

I am going with yours and Ronmaggi's opinion and not adding a filter. I am planning on adding more GB's in the future anyways. I just wasn't sure if I needed one and thought that if I did I'd grow some more food in it; lol.

yah, i just buy a gallon of muratic acid at home depot/lowes for about $5... you can buy the hydroponic stuff, phosphoric acid (ph down) which is probably better but it's also overpriced at ~$30 a gallon

i wont go on my ph diatribe about how a high ph is ok.. it can be if you understand what it means to the system.. lower ph is definately better, just bring it down SLOW

Shelly,

I just remembered that you said you have built raised gardens and wicking beds before. If you are used to wicking/earthen beads. And you like them. You can use them with AP also. You could also use the waste from your swirl or RFF to feed the raised beds you already have. Here is a link to help explain how if you choose to go this way with some of your garden.

http://www.earthanedge.com/earthan-beds ... -together/

Definitely like them floridafishine. Last year my tomato plants went crazy. Only had to water like 5 times last year and it was hot and droughty here. Harvested tomatoes through October (my beds were in the sun all day). When we cleaned out the beds at the end of October one tomato plant (w/o tomatoes) weighed approx. 100 lbs. My husband couldn't believe it. I had previously tried containers because the ground is too hard to dig. (no luck) But I was bound and determined I was going to have a garden. Researching I found info about the wicking beds and lasagna gardening and combined the two techniques = awesome. The only problem was I didn't expect such growth and 4 tomato plants took over the whole garden --so nothing else grew but we had an excess abundance of tomatoes. Oh I take that back the corn did grow but I didn't know when to pick it and I only ended up harvesting 5 edible ears; but I'm not a quitter and eventually I will learn how to grow everything I want. Thanks for the link -- yep I'll definitely be doing a combination of AP GB's. I can totally grasp how to plumb the wicking beds for AP. Basically your FT water would enter the wicking bed in the pipe where you'd normally add water and where the overflow of water exits the wicking bed it would be taken to the sump tank instead of on the ground or whatever, right?