Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks BF & C1.

I got very excited this morning! Again, at something most members here will find pretty trivial ... I had my first sighting of the (feeder) fishies since they went into the tank! (nearly 3 days ago) YAY!

The water is still a little muddy - visibility ~200mm with a water depth of ~400mm so I'd not been able to see if they were ok previously. They weren't floating on the top, so I took that as a Good Sign.

Anyway, all 8 of them popped up straight away when I threw in some veggie flakes this morning!

So that means the water quality must be relatively ok & they are surviving the F&D cycles ok. I haven't mentioned it yet, but the system has been running on a timer for several days now: ON for 3 minutes every hour between 7am & 7pm & then ON for 3 minutes at 1am. (14 cycles every 24 hours) The water doesn't appear to have cleared at all ... how long should that take?

Anyway, fishies are alive & I'm happy about that!!

You know what? I would cycle continuously until it clears. Then go back to the timers. Is that possible?

I am not really a timer fan. I know it works for most people but I am big on continuous operation.

Scottie,
I can't offer any wisdom on when your water will clear.
(I'm still building my first system)
However, I would like to congratulate you on getting your system up and running.
Looks great!
I guess getting "excited" is what it is all about

Thanks Fred ... I mean Scottt.

dthawk - Good suggestion. Need to do a bit of modification & then hopefully I can cycle longer.

Measured PH tonight - it is 7.8. I have a few hundred litres of rain water at a PH of 6.8. Am thinking of adding that.

Your PH will eventually drift down so don't get OCD over that. Get the water cycled and cleared up. Work on ONE thing at a time so you can know what caused what. And remember the "P" word!

Today my 90mm unleaded PVC pipe finally arrived. (My order sat in the computer for nearly 2 weeks 'til I rang up & they investigated! Then it had to be ordered from Brisbane.) I am using it for the outer standpipe. In the interim I had been using 100mm DWV pipe, so all I had to do was slip the new standpipe inside & pull the DWV pipe out.

Now I am able to cycle continuously (as dthawk suggested) except I am in Melbourne for the next week so I will keep using timers while I'm away - just to be safe.

Water quality:
ammonia=0.25 (too low? anyone?)
nitrite=0.5
nitrate=0

The "water spikes" look cool!

what size holes did you use in the outer pipe?

Thats a cool photo, maybe you should enter it in the photo comp.

Which one?



4mm holes. About 60 of them in each pipe. 4 pipes. That's 240 holes ... that's a lot of drilling.

Top photo looks great looking down the pipe.

TRAGEDY!!!

Went to feed my fishies this morning & one of them was dead! No idea why.

Hi Scottie, its all lookin good
If your ammonia and pH levels are ok that wouldn't be the cause of the death.
Sometimes fish just die (like everything else). I have had chooks just have heart attacks and die for no apparant reason.
The corpse looks pretty healthy (for a dead fish

If you have more deaths I'd start to worry.

Still a "young" system Scottie.... Do some tests and post the readings for us.

Hi Rupe,



I took readings yesterday. Can you decipher this plot?

Nitrite is looking really scarey there mate. Do a water change, stop feeding for a bit and monitor closely until your system has cycled properly.

How old is your system Scottie (sorry too lazy to look back).