Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey Druuzy,

How are your striped bass doing? I'm thinking about trying them out instead of tilapia.

jdubbery,
I harvested my striped bass in early January. They were a great choice for my location. I lost a couple in the first few days, but were happy and healthy through their time in my system. Fun to feed! I started buying minnows by the pound for a party trick when friends were over. 50 HSBs could eat 5 dozen minnows in less than a minute. Little fighter jets. Grow quickly on high protein.

I didn't want to have to heat water for tilapia.

I have switched to koi. We plan to have a large koi pond with aquaponic filtration at some point in the next 2 yrs, so I figured I would go ahead and start getting some koi to a respectable size. I hadn't ever looked into adult koi- decided to start small.

Best,
Andrew

Some updated pictures.

More pictures!

Currently growing Siberian kale (pictured with bowl of greens) and some beautiful heirloom Tuscano blue kale. Ive had 2 tomatoes planted for about 3 weeks.. Spring is here, its about to get exciting! My system is about a month shy of 1 year old.

Our favorite produce was Israeli Old World Cantaloupe. White meat that was sweeter than watermelon!

I came across a 100 gallon fiberglass tank and turned it into a pressurized swirl filter. Works great at catching heavy solids.

Best,
Andrew

Very nice your plants look great.

Pictures from today.

A couple questions, if y'all don't mind.

1. After an catastrophic drain line obstruction, my fish (hybrid striped bass) were left in a few inches of water. I panicked, grabbed the water hose, and tried to de-chlorinate water too quickly. I shocked fish and they were starting to die.. So I grabbed a filet knife and started cleaning them, then froze them.. Are they good to eat, if they were shocked/killed by chlorinated water?

2. My pH is still 8.0 or a little higher, with my system being 2 weeks shy of a year old. Thoughts? My tomatoes haven't seemed to care, but I believe nutrient lockout is occurring.

Tomatoes seem happy, kale and greens seem happy.. Peppers (of all sorts- bells, jalapeño, ghost, banana, etc) arent happy.

Thoughts on either topic?

Best,
Andrew

By "ghost" peppers, are you talking about the Indian "naga/bhut jolokia" ? As in... 1,000,000+ on the Scoville scale?






Please tell me you found some seed around the Dallas area. I've got to travel to the States in a few months and I'm sure I'll be passing through Dallas to visit my office there. I almost always smuggle back seeds and things for the garden when I visit the US. Last night I stumbled across some of Dave's Gourmet Ghost Pepper / Naga Jolokia hot sauce in a bar. I lathered it on some fried yuca (manioc, cassava) and ate it while the barmaids gasped in horror. They said nobody had ever actually tried more than a finger-tip of this stuff before. It was freakin' HOT! But it was one of the best hot sauces I think I've ever tried. Turns out they make it down here in Costa Rica for export only, but the bartender told me he knows someone who works at the bottling plant and that sometimes a package breaks open and they can't ship it, so it trickles out to the local market. I'd like to grow my own. In India they rub these peppers on fences to ward off wild elephants. I think I could find a use or two for it around here, besides the obvious flavoring thing.

--
Sam

I'd eat them . It might have been the pH change not the chlorine, I'd still eat them . I won't eat fish if it's been too long between their death and their being stored or used or it looks like they were diseased.

Sam, it is the same pepper. I am a little north of dallas, but the baby plants were available at my local farm store. Im not sure about seed. They are EXTREMELY hot. You have to be careful handling them while cooking. I typically grow some sort of hot pepper for cooking/salsas, other than jalapenos because my girl friend is specifically allergic to jalapenos. I moved some peppers to soil since they're not happy in my AP system.

Thanks Scotty. They will be eaten

Anything thoughts on a system still being pH 8.2 at a year old?

Hello all,
System is now a year old. Still averaging right around a pH of 8.0.

Should I just keep at it, feeding fish, waiting for nitric acid to drop pH? Or should I regularly add acid with something like a chem feed pump setup?

Im getting impatient and wanting to add acid at regular intervals. If I do that, will it slow the consumption of buffers and ultimately delay the process even more?

You can do it either way. My system went for two years before the pH dropped - I was in the 7.8 to 8.2 range. If you decide to adjust the pH, I'd do it with Hydrochloric acid (aka Muriatic acid). The best way to do this is to adjust the top up water to pH 6.5 and then let it stand for at least a few hours up to 24 hours because the pH may drift. Adjust again as necessary until you get the pH stable and at roughly 6.5. Once you have this add the water slow enough that you aren't going to shock anything. Repeat each time you top up until the system water hits the pH you're aiming for (make it a very gradual change with no more than 0.4 pH units of change at any given time - the fish can take faster changes if you miss a bit but it's still stressful). Make certain follow the instructions when working with HCl.

Once nitrification is pushing the pH down you may have to watch out for pH swings caused by a lack of buffering capacity so it's a bit of a balancing act.

I really like your system. How exactly did you make the grow beds. I have always used the tops of my IBC totes, but I am about to receive a very large(over 2k gallon) tank, and I would like to not cut the top off and use it for a main FT. THis means I would have to build some grow beds. Yours look fantastic!

Grow beds were constructed with standard pressure treated lumber. One the first page of my build, you can see a pic with framing, that almost looks like studs or a deck frame.. I cut concrete board to fit on top of that. From there, I used Duraskrim liner material. I chose Duraskrim because it is food safe, organically certifiable, easy to use, durable, and affordable. I think I paid somewhere around $80 for my liner material for all 3 beds. I stapled liner in place with stainless staples, then trimmed it all out with 2"x6" "bed rails".


Scotty,
As always, thank you!! Will dosing acid help deplete buffers in my system?