Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The ammonia is maintaining between 0 & 0.25 ppm while the low Ph reads 7.6, temp 15 C. Amb 25 C outside the tank in the shade.

In the mornings I prop open the the lid, get half a teaspoon of feed then lean over the edge of the tank and wait for them to get used to me being there. I drop a few grains in and slowly they come to the top half of the tank to collect and wait for more. They swirl duck and weave through each others wakes and sometimes come to get floating pellets from the surface.
When the pump is pushing refreshed water into the tank they're not so interested in food but seem to enjoy lying in the current. I was thinking of changing the direction of the outlet so I can feed and see them better when they do that.

Pete.

We had a heat wave come through today 36 C under the white shade cloth but only 17 C inside the top 100 mm of the FT. I installed a temporary shade cover over the tanks and dropped 6 - 550 gm ice blocks into FT1.

Took a bunch of photos at feeding time but these were the only one worth showing as they move to damn fast!

Pete.

That much ice wouldn't have a huge effect, maybe only 0.3C drop in 1000litres of water (off the top of my head, didn't calculate) but if the water only got to 17C, then you didn't really need it if you are around to keep an eye on things, as they are fine at that temperature. Best to save the ice, and maybe make more of it! for when the water gets to 23C or so.

The top 100mm of water in the FT should be at pretty much the same temp as the bottom, if it isn't then you probably need more water movement.

Yeah Gordon,

I kinda freaked out when I saw the outside temp and thought they might be cooking in there so I dumped what ice I had in the tank before I saw the temp. When I checked an hour later the temp had climbed to 18 C. I'm trying to make as many blocks as possible now, even pre-cooling water so it freezes quicker.
I was surprised it only got to 18 C as it was a stinking hot day.

Pete.

Today the FT1 temp climbed to 21.5 in 32 C in shade. I put a total of 21.6 lt of ice to maintain 20.5 C at two separate times this afternoon, the change arrived just before dark currently 22.6 C outside.

Ammonia is still in the yellow, I feed about a half a level teaspoon twice a day and check the ammonia in the mornings.

The green shade cloth over the front of the GB's seems to work well although I like to change it to lighter colour. I'm thinking about putting some over the scoria as well to reduce it's heat.

Most of the plants are doing well, a few looked like they were lagging behind so I mixed 20 ml of Power Feed into 9 lt of FT water and sprinkled over them two days ago - they seemed to have picked up a bit now. Snow peas are nearing the top of the canopy and flowering, Perpetual Spinach is starting to grow faster and mixed lettuce is doing fine. I've got 3 Tomatoes on the dwarf and many flowers on the Gross. The Black Russian is still recovering from the initial salting and strawberries developing on both plants.

I connected the float in the ST to the mains on the w/e and it works very well (thanks Gordon), one less thing I've got to be concerned about.

Pete.

be careful with power feed as you are adding nitrogen as urea which goes to ammonia.
you probably don't really want ammonia in your system.

try normal seasol which lower levels of nitrogen and no added urea.

Everything seems to be running smoothly in my first system, the fish are getting bigger the largest looks about 100 mm long and the smallest 60 mm. They're fed twice a day 3/4 of a tea spoon at a time sprinkled in and watched sink to the floor. In the mornings it's snapped up before it gets to the bottom and in the evenings they take about half then come back later for desert.

Most of the plants seem to be going through growth spurts or are recovering from set backs. The snow peas in B2 are the best performers producing shells up to 60 mm long already.

I've got a water melon seedling still in it's pot in B3 and another tomato seedling in B1 waiting for Sy 2 to become more accommodating.

Pete

Looking good!

here is an article I had found a while back that talks about DO requirements for different fish... it has a nice graphic for where trout are relative to other fish...

http://www.fondriest.com/environmental- ... -oxygen/#9

btw, glad to see you are hopefully past the fish deaths issue... I think you need to add some sort of filtration to the QT is probably the main issue. Even if you just add a bucket of gravel that the water flows through or even a HOB filter that way there is more surface area for bacteria to inhabit. I ran into issues in the beginning of my aquarium days because as you learn about bacteria I thought since bacteria live everywhere, on all surfaces of the tank including the glass walls that there would be enough bacteria that I could change out my substrate from a large smooth decorative stone to something more conducive to growing plants in the aquarium for a more natural look... I thought there was more surface area on the glass than there was on the large smooth decorative rocks, so figured there would be enough bacteria still... took all of the old gravel out and put all new substrate in and was not running any media in my filter for bacteria to colonize either, just had it empty running for water flow and came home one day to the cloudiest tank I had ever seen... HUGE bacteria bloom because the ammonia went from nothing to extremely high in a single day, and I only had about a dozen or so guppies in a 55 gallon tank.

It looks like your plants are doing well, congrats!

Thanks for the chart and history Rininger.

I've got three months or so until I get the next batch and I don't think I'll ever forget the painful lesson experienced.
There were so many things to watch out for at that time - anything unexpected could create a snowball effect of problems so I was on tender hooks.
Having had the issues you described as well as the many others I feel much more confident in establishing a new QT plan. Something one must experience, reading about it is just not the same and getting it right the first time can lead to disaster in the future I'm told.

Getting back to the chart - how can I measure DO or should I just have the aerator on maximum out put all the time?

Pete.

there are a number of electronic DO measuring units... I do not have any experience with them to know how well they work... I just added four large air stones to my trout tank and have the pump running full blast (the four stones are actually too large for the size of pump I have... but I'm also heading in to winter so not too concerned about DO because my water temps are only about 52F (11C) right now.. I'm planning to hopefully send my trout to freezer camp by the time my water hits 70F (21C), but I also started with a bit larger trout as my trout were 6-8inches (15-20cm)

Milwaukee do one that is about the cheapest scientific quality - but its not cheap (US$150 or so + P&H).
Search MW600 Dissolved Oxygen Meter.
Mostly have to buy from US as too expensive in Aust. (couple sell on eBay or else various online)

At an extreme if the fish were to start gasping for air at the surface wouldn't that mean that there wasn't enough air in the water? And if at the opposite they were happily swimming around near the base they'd have enough?

I noticed on the link you sent me there was another link at the bottom of the types of meters and indicators some of which were like litmus strips.

Pete.

I scored some white steel/polyurethane/steel interlocking insulation panels 120 mm thick, enough to make an enclosure around the FT & water storage tank. Might survive the summer yet.

Pete.