Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello. I'm new to the forum and have a few questions.

I have had koi ponds for years and have played a little with hydroponics over the past year. Last weekend, I put together a hundred gallon setup to try them both together. The liner I used is new pvc and the water was partly fresh and partly from an established pond. I tossed in some water hyacinth and perhaps 15 goldfish, all small.

My purpose is to get the tank established and find some tilapia fingerlings to try.

My beginning questions are:

How long do I let the tank establish itself before I try something like lettuce?

You speak of 'cycling' the tank before adding fish. What does that mean?

How many inches of fish are a good balance for a 100 gallon tank?

Is there any reason to add hydroponics fertilizer while the fish are increasing in number and size?

Can one mix goldfish and tilapia in a tank?

Am I correct in thinking that I do not need to add a filter as the plants will serve that purpose?

My pump is a 170 gph pump for the approximately 100 gallon tank. Is that sufficient? I also have a 1,000 gph pump but it makes the tank look like a washing machine mid cycle.

I thought that I understood from the postings that the ratio of grow beds to tank is 4:1. The diagrams I have viewed however show tanks that tend to be twice the size of the grow beds. Do I have the ratio reversed?

I read several white papers on polyculture farming that describe the use of ducks, pigs, etc. waste as part of the cycle that creates the fish food. I have a vermicultre box going. Is there any value to tossing a handfull of the worms, castings and semi composted gunk into the tank? I know the worms will feed the fish. Will the other elements help or hurt the tank biosystem?

I guess that's it for a start. Thanks for your responses.

rpondpa

Hi
I am new too
I have the some of the same questions too especially the one below this on a continuous flow system just before the grow beds and
also is there any continuous on analyzers for ph,,and other variables ( I use to work E&I more Instruments
with control systems for industrial standards)

Is there any reason to add hydroponics fertilizer while the fish are increasing in number and size?

I will be looking on
Thanks

Welcome to the world of aquaponics Rponda..... so many questions... that's cool

I'll try and answer what I can, someone else will jump in where I can't ... or will do the metric/imperial conversions before I do ....



You can plant out the growbeds immediately... but you may not get any significant growth until the system has cycled sufficiently to start providing the nitrates for the plant growth.... then it'll explode...



"Cycling" the tank describres the process of establishing the nitrifying bacterial processes to convert ammonia => nitrites => nitrates and returning the water back to the fish tank cleaned of solids and nutrients.

There are various methods of providing the ammonia to begin cycling, one of which is "seeding" with existing water from another system ... as you have done

I suggest you read through the sections and FAQ posts on the portal page.



At a rough calculation (need to check my conversions) I'd say aim for 10 - 15 fish at edible plate size...



Absolutely none... and doing so will probably kill your fish... AP is essentially totally organic.



I believe so



Correct.... although if you are running hydroponic channels/nft or drippers then you will probably need to setup a filter before the hydro channels to remove the majority of the solids.... otherwise they will cling to the root ball and/or drippers



Will depend somewhat on how often you can turn over your tank volume.... that depends on the capacity of your growbeds and pump cycles....

More elaboration will follow from others I'm sure.



No you have the ratio in the correct order, but it is in fact 2:1 not 4:1



There are numerous discussions and threads on the forum about polyculture and coexistant systems and inputs....

Worms I'd put straight into your growbeds.... vegetative scraps, well Talapia will dispose of most of them...

Just be aware that fish are extremely sensitive to their environment.... in general avoid adding anything to your system that ultimately will find it's way to the fish tank.... unless you know it's safe...

Other than the addition of some safe trace elements and some organic pest controls you don't have any need to add anything to an AP system

Hi Rpondpa! It's good to see another Pennsylvanian.

I had goldfish in with my tilapia for several months. No problems, but I will note that at the time, the goldfish were larger than the tilapia. With a higher stocking density, I think you could mix them successfully indefinitely as long as the goldfish were not fancy sorts. When breeding, tilapia can get pretty hostile. If you have a breeding pair, I wouldn't put anything else with them. In fact, after the female is holding eggs, get the male out of there, too.

Get yourself a water test kit so that you can keep an eye on water quality. Since you will be running higher stocking levels than in your koi pond, things can quickly get out of hand.

For fishload, base it on either the volume of your growbeds or fishtank, whichever is the limiting factor in the 2:1 ratio. My system is about 1:1, so I am constrained by the growbeds. My system has 3 50gal growbeds, and one 150gal fishtank. I've come to the conclusion that 30 eating-sized fish is about right for my stocking level. By eating-sized, I mean 3/4 to 1 pound.

I'll point out that you're only a 3 hour drive from me. If you have trouble getting a small number of tilapia fingerlings (you almost certainly will), I can probably assist given a month fair warning.