Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All

Here's the beginnings of my new IBC system... Capacity of about 600L in the FT, 700 if i push it. Currently stocked with ~10 small silver perch. Painted the exterior of the IBC, however have since also set up some temporary shading around the outside of the tank to reduce light/heat affects even more. The growbed is sitting on two (overly high quality!) lumps of Jarrah, so it can sit back further allowing better access to the fishtank.

Currently just have some lettuce, chives and a singular tomato seedling in the growbed, hopefully enough to keep everything happy for a while once everything is cycled.

Starting PH of the system is 7.8 from the tap (south of the river - i saw some comments elsewhere that SoR tapwater was a lower PH, clearly not the case for me!). Obviously i'm going to have to be careful of ammonia levels with a PH that high, but i'm assuming that it will come down lower in the coming weeks, as long as it doesn't go too much higher in the meantime.

Have paid visits to both Cheidy's (twice, thanks to leaving some IBC pipe-work behind the first time!) and Greenfingers to pick up the Perch. Interested to hear people's opinions on whether i need to add some crushed limestone to the water for the Perch - i'm assuming that adding it now will only buffer the PH high, where i'm assuming i would prefer PH down around the 6.5-7 mark?

First time aquaponics user... But i grew up on a farm/vineyard in Tassie, so not at all unfamiliar with horticulture generally. That said, i've not grown much in the WA heat, so that's going to be new for me!

Any comments or suggestions welcome!

Cheers all,

Chig.

Hiya Chig, welcome to the forum.
Nice start, well done.
No need to add limestone until the pH starts to drop which could be a while yet, the gb needs to mature some yet.
High pH up here too, topping up the ft with tap water works as my buffer in summer.
How many fish do you have?

Thanks for the welcome Skeggley.

Currently have 10 fish in there (with the expectation i'll lose one or two along the way), roughly 50-80mm each i guess. Not started feeding them yet, just put into the tank today. May give them a small amount tomorrow, if the ammonia isn't high. How long will they last between feeds, if i need to keep the ammonia level down?

I'm not 100% confident in the growbed position, i'll admit - it gets 4-5 hours of afternoon sun only, but at my property there's no possibility of getting morning sun and afternoon shade - not easily, at least.

I can solve the GB problem..... just remove the jarrah beams and send them to me, you lucky bugga. Looks good, dont loose heart or enthusiasm when things dont go or grow at the speed you hope, expect, dream about.
You are replicating nature and it takes time....
my 2 bobs worth from experience.

Welcome chiggy, fish can go a few weeks without feed so don't stress. System looks good and as you have mentioned probably sunlight hours will be a problem but see how it goes.

Yeah, we'll have to see how it goes on the sunlight front. Gets a fair bit of indirect light, but may need to look into moving the system to a location that gets more morning and midday light in a while. Probably be okay for summer, winter may be another story though.

Good news this morning though, seeing some nitrites appear in the system now, so it's starting to cycle. Water temps are sitting between 16-20 degrees each day, varying by about 2 degrees from morning to evening.

Yea Ive seen a few systems suffer from lack of daylight hours. My first system was positioned incorrectly and only had filtered light for approx 5 hours/day and nothing grew well. I had to dismantle and set up in a different spot and it exploded with life.

Now that you see nitrites Id back off on the feed and if you haven't, it helps to raise salinity to .5-1ppt.

Yeah, no worries. Seeing .5ppm of nitrite this morning after no readings previously, so no feed going to the fish currently.

Best way to add the salt in? At 600l, i assume i'll need between 300 and 600 grams, according to your suggestion above - just add the salt straight in, or dissolve into some topup water first to assist in the distribution through the system?

Yea, 300g should be good. Pool salt, not table salt. I always just threw it in but you could dissolve it if you like.

Did another reading of nitrites this afternoon, just for curiosities sake...

Is it normal to see a swing from .5ppm back down to not even reading anything in an afternoon?

Ammonia seems up a little as well - from .5ppm this morning up to around 1ppm this afternoon.

Nothing exciting, but they seem happy enough at the moment (and apologies for the low quality video... don't exactly have what you would call NBN here... yet).

Ha, up in the suburban hills here we'll never see nbn.
Yep what Charles says, he's on the ball even if he doesn't have an AP set up anymore....
Nitrites? The nitrogen cycle does its own thing just to keep you on your toes, let the system do its thing. It's just finding its balance, patience is a well worn word here on the forum.
Get some more plants into the bed, plan your expansion and don't forget to get some salt for the fish.

Yeah, cheers for that. Picking up some pool salt today.

Had a small heart attack this morning, i didn't clear out one of my testtubes properly when doing a PH test, resulted in showing PH of 8.8+, off the scale. Second test in another tube showed 7.8, which is what i was expecting. Did a third to be sure, confirmed 7.8

Ammonia is up to 1.5-2.0 ppm though - not feeding.
Nitrates and nitrites = 0ppm

Salted with 500gr pool salt, fish still happily swimming around...

Ammonia seems to be spiking... up around 2-4ppm currently...

Worth doing a 1/3 water change, or just let it go and see if it corrects itself?


Fish still not being fed.