Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey everyone,

Im back with another question, and want to say thank you to everyone who has provided information on my other threads it has helped me out a lot and is very much appreciated.

my question:

I cant get fish until April, I jumped the gun on some of my lettuces and I don't think they will make it in the rockwool pots until April. once my tank is cycled and showing 0 ammonia after adding, 24h later, can I keep adding that ammonia for bacteria to turn to nitrite, then nitrate to feed the plants until I get the fish in and they start creating it?

I would only do this if I'm reading levels of nitrate close to zero.

You can put plants in it now. And yes. You can cycle it with ammonia and keep feeding the bacteria with ammonia to make nitrates until you get fish. I am not sure how much ammonia fish make once cycles I just added enough ammonia to spike the ammonia to 2ppm daily. Ammonia should be gone with in 24hs.

Plants and bacteria did just fine for a month. Until I got the free time to go pick up fingerlings. Also the first time I never had an ammonia or nitrite spikes.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

Ammonia by itself will not supply all the trace minerals required for healthy plant growth.
Organic fish emulsion is a far far far better way to go. Adding something like Powerfeed with seasol is even better adding ammonia, minerals and plant tonic to your system.
This can be added directly into the water or sprayed onto the foliage.

Thanks again for the info guys. this forums has been super helpful. very much appreciated.