Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Oh my god, it works! I don't know what to do . (I'll check on it in a few hours)

My pump and siphon are both oversized. I have a 2 min flood and a 1 min drain. So I'm getting 20 cycles per hour.

Next step is to get some water from fish ponds for my micro-friendlies.

Of course they work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's a great deal tamo! I had just bought a 240GPH from Lowe's before I read your post, it was $35. I don't need 400 GPH so I kept the smaller one but the pond liner would be great to have around.

yep, I was pretty excited. Regular price was $99. At some point I guess I'll have to make a bigger tank just so I can use the liner .

Anyhoo, test kit is on order. I'm going to be getting some water from my friend's condo complex koi AP pond (though I don't think they call it that).

I've added some Hummonia (new term!) to the system already. Should I put in plant seeds, or wait until bacteria have been established?

Tamo,
Plant some, but don't go overboard yet. When you get nitrates, you will need to have something to remove them. Seedlings and small plants seem to work for me.

Tony

Cool. I planted some basil since I read somewhere that it is fairly forgiving of wide conditions.

Basil is a good choice, it loves AP and takes over the system

Will have to buy some pasta for all the pesto...

Can't you grow pasta in a BYAP system??

Well, I'd need a stone mill...

Checked on the system tonight to turn off the lights, and found a dead mouse in the fish(less) tank. I guess it wanted to drink some, fell in, and drowned. It was... surprising

Test kit should be here in a day or two. Then the measurements shall commence!

Ahh, what a shame you didn't have any monsterous fish in there... I'd love to see a barra eat a mouse.

test arrived.

Looks to me like:

pH 6.5
NH4 8 (or higher?)
NO2 1.5
NO3 80

But, I'm not very good with the color perception, so if those look wrong please let me know.

With all that nitrate, I had hoped to see something from the basil seeds. Haven't seen them since I put them in though.

Good thing there aren't fish in the system. That much ammonia is pretty lethal. Don't add any more sources of ammonia, and wait at least a week to add fish. Re-test before you do. If you can do a water change, that would help get levels down faster.

You could go ahead and put in some plants.