Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Derek,

As soon as I can get them. Most likely in a week or so just waiting for them to tell me payment details and timeframe.

Thats probably too soon for me. I am still in the building stage, so I'm about 4 weeks off.

cheers

When you are ready let me know I would be happy to sell you some.

Steve,

I did the test you suggested and I found out I was miss reading the tests.

I guess it is a good thing I did a couple of practice runs with the test kits before I got fish. There were no Nitrites as all was looking at the strip in poor light.

Getting 100 Jadies today. I have air pumping through the tank. This weekend I will have 400Lt of grow bed connected to the system.

Woohooo

yeh, bight colour bannaced light is a must i think.

post your readings before and about 8 to 12 hrs after putting the jades in. And resist the urge to feed them Its hard.

The jades are in and swimming around in a couple of schools.

The tests before the jades are:

PH 7.4
Ammonia 0
Nitrites between 0 and 0.25
Nitrates between 0 and 5

big red, are they they new seasons stock?

Did you pick the colour difference in them, they would have been a pinkish colour in the shipping container wait for them to chill out a bit and you will see them turn much darker.

Steve,

Not sure they said that they we left overs but there are a lot of little guys in there.

It is a little hard to tell about the colour as I didnt pay to much attention. I would say they look a little darker.

I noticed that after they got settled they were all one big school and were very active.

I love them already. 100 little fish look tiny in a 2700Ltr tank. I wonder if I will have any initialisation problems with so small a KG/Ltr ratio.

nah, if anything it will make is easier on you, by the time the ppm gets out of hand the bacteria will be on the go. Thats what i've found, the lowwer the kg/L the less of a "peak" you get

I thought so. I have also put in some bacteria kick starter so I am hoping that it will make the initialisation faster.

most people seem to do so, the jury is out on wether is makes any difference, but it makes us feel better

Bigred, you haven't posted any pics of your grow bed. You do have it set up and plumbed, yeh?

No that is the project for the weekend. I am going to use some blue drums.

Cool, just be aware that cycling will not commence until you have some growbed media and have water being pumped over it. The true nitrifying bacteria are non-motile and require a substrate to inhabit.

The bacteria make a difference Steve. you know me, document most things I can.

Bacteria will short cut the maturation of your bio-film by 2 months. It's 6 months normally to see the explosive growth, watch some of the systems inoculated hitting 4 months you'll see what I mean, Joel like growth.

Where's this bacteria reference you keep referring too I looked around in the wrong places obviously....

I've run bacteria in parameters that would make you freak.

With unmappable thousands upon thousands of strains I think bacteria have a far wider range of PH and temp than is talked about here.

But I'm being good, and learning, and asking scientists, before I go drop any bombshells.