Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks Scotty,
I'm guessing that picture of the fire in our stove this morning, didn't make you feel a whole lot better?

Probably bugged CoachChris more than me, it's only in the 80's and almost never swelters here

This time of year in northern New Mexico it is a major challenge to dress properly, because of the temperature swings. We have to dress in more layers than a homeless person.

Do you. Have a Chinese greenhouse boss?

When ever I think I turned the corner, something like this happens:
PH - 7.7
KH-125- dosed with 4 more oz bicarb
Water temp- 86
Ammonia- 0
Nitrites- close to 1! WTH!!
No food again, and will monitor again. At this rate, I won't be harvesting tilapia until NEXT month.
Maybe, I should build a separate Koi system, and that way I can keep feeding my tilapia, which aren't bothered by nitrites up to 2, and I've had them in tanks at 4-5, and they still seemed fine.

Swede, what's a Chinese GH?
Boss, yes pictures of pot bellied stoves and fireplaces roaring only make thing worse.

Swedeaquaponics wrote: "Do you. Have a Chinese greenhouse boss?" Not sure what that is, but my design is based on
We have pretty solid limestone just inches below the surface, we weren't able to sink the whole greenhouse in the earth for the full stabilization effect of the Earth, nevertheless, we got it pretty deep, for instance the pond at its deepest is nearly six feet. I'm currently using flagstone to build walls on the three most exposed sides. After the retaining walls are set, I'll start back -filling the space between the greenhouse and the flagstone with dirt. One thought is next Spring I'll build media-bed tanks along the outside of the greenhouse, thus expanding our grow-bed volume dramatically. The sections of greenhouse which aren't buried, are frame, the top is three 14' long sheets of acrylic channel panels. So no, not Chinese. Interesting: I just found Mike Oehler's book in PDF:
http://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Ecological_Building/The_Earth_Sheltered_Solar_Greenhouse_Book.pdf
CoachChris wrote: "Nitrites- close to 1! WTH!!
No food again, and will monitor again. At this rate, I won't be harvesting tilapia until NEXT month.
Maybe, I should build a separate Koi system, and that way I can keep feeding my tilapia, which aren't bothered by nitrites up to 2, and I've had them in tanks at 4-5, and they still seemed fine." Sorry man, you can't catch a break. I too am looking at the feasibility of a separate Koi system. I want one side full glass, which complicates things, but my aquarium window in the trout pond works, so... bu seriously, my four Koi need out of that 55 gallon aquarium, ASAP. Perhaps a 300 gallon aquarium, plumbed as RAS?

Yeah, Boss!! You have built something way more sophisticated.. A Chinese greenhouse is just a passive Solar green house. Like this http://www.resilience.org/stories/2010- ... nese-style

Checked nitrites after work. Down to a little over .25. Fed a medium amount, appx 10 oz, dosed another 4 oz bicarb, and monitoring. After the second dose, KH is finally around 150...target rate. Hopefully, this will stay steady now with the dosing. I will need to dose more if I can keep nitrites low and be able to feed 3-4 x per day, instead of 1(or less).

Nitrites up to over .5- closer to 1. KH around 125, which should be OK. I turned air up in mbbr, but it seemed to actually make things worse. nitrites rose overnight, and PH coming out of mbbr was the same as going in.

I've read that the Nitrobator bacteria require a steady supply of ammonia to thrive. Is it possible that with the continued zero ammonia they could be "starving". I think I posed this question before, and I think someone responded "don't add ammonia". I'm grasping at straws now. It's been 5-6 weeks now, and still no better off then I was with my free bio-balls.

Seriously considering just doing a 10% daily water change, and seeing how that goes. At the rate I'm going, my tilapia won't be harvestable for months. I would have to factor in an additional 1 hour of well pump run into the equation, but I think that's only about $3.00 per month. Actually less, because the pressure tank wouldn't have it run the whole hour. I hate wasting the water, but also hate not having anything to show 6 months after completion.

I'll give it a few more days and see if it changes, and then will set up a 10% water change, and see what that does.
I know the guy I buy my fish(tilapia0 from has around 5 tons and he does about 1000 gallon a day.

"I hate wasting the water, but also hate not having anything to show 6 months after completion." quite the quandary. I like you prognosis of Ammonia starvation, but I've no knowledge to back that up. That constant water changing alternative would make one seriously consider every other alternative. FYI, I had a buddy who lived down in Sebastian Fla. who often had to deal with well water filtration because of polluted water. You've tested yours, or know what's in it, right?

Yes on the water source. Zero nitrites, zero ammonia.

Kind of late to consider another alternative. About 8K in. Could say, hell with it, and cut my losses, but I know it will work with water changes, and water for me is cheap. I just don't like wasting it. I used tens of millions over the years the nursery was in use, but that was a cost of doing business and you can't grow plants without water.

Just frustrated with the fact that I can't get the thing to cycle. Ryan says it will, just keep dosing with the bicarb and feeding lightly. Everything I've read sai 4-6 weeks from scratch. I've already been running for months, and had completely cycled with my old home made bioballs. I would think that the time would be shorter, since I have such an abundance of existing bio slime in filter, tanks, etc??? Apparently, I'm missing something?

Something else to pray about while in church today. With all that's going on in the world today, I somehow don't feel He's going to listen for "Please help my Nitrobater bacteria kick in."

Maybe, "Help me figure out what's going on, and come up with a plan." That's maybe better.

Prayers answered! Or at least, I think so.

Got back from church, where I saw one of my former players who I haven't seen in several years. She has a baby girl now, and is doing great. As I said earlier, I asked the man upstairs to help me with understanding what is going on with the RAS.

When we got back, I checked on the water again. A little lower nitrites, slowly going down when not feeding...pretty much status quo. The shade cloth filter/netting was due again, so I started cleaning it out. After removing all netting, and shade cloth, I was rinsing out the IBC and I noticed quite a bit of debris inside one of the inlet pipes on the bottom. Never done this before, but I opened the 1 knife valve going to the 1 RFF and "flushed" the pipe out. It worked well, and a good deal of crap came out. Figured I should probably repeat for the other 3 inlet pipes. When I got to the knife valve coming from the 3 large FT's, the water came out like a 3 HP sub pump. Incredible flow. In fact, I would guess 75% of the inflow is coming from the 1 pipe. I could see exactly where I needed to close knife valve to in order to reduce flow and increase retention time in the mbbr.

I also checked the nitrite in the mbbr after I had cleaned the filter and before turning pump back on and opening all valves. The nitrites were at ZERO! I haven't seen zero since I cycled with gold fish back in May. I filled everything back up, dosed with some more bicarb and it looks like all my drains are still working fine. Knock on wood, I think this may finally work. I should know in 3-4 hours. Next week, I promised to more generous in the collection plate. We're building a new children's wing, and need some more money to pay for the building. I guess, the good Lord has been testing my patience. I'm not sure I passed, but I did better then I would have in previous years.

Checked after an hour and all the big tanks were overflowing. Guess I will need to do a bit more tweaking. I closed the inlets on the tilapia tanks, and opened the knife valve a bit more. Hopefully, I can open the flow enough to keep water level correct and still increase retention time in the mbbr.

I'm hoping that even if the turn over in the tilapia tanks is a little less then once per hour, they will still be fine. I can take the additional flow and use it in the Koi tank.

Patience, you have been cycling for awhile but you have not had the alkalinity right and also not all the biomedia was added at the first day. It will cycle in time.. Like Ryan said, feed very little per day but keep it constant to allow biofilter to adapt. No need for more ammonia you are missing the nitrite to nitrate conversion.. It will happen..