Hi all, I'm new to aquaponics.

I am a chef and professional cooking instructor with no gardening knowledge. I have kept fish many many years ago. My girlfriend is a very knowledgeable organic gardner. Since I love to tinker and reseach, I thought aquaponics might be a great thing for the two of us (mostly me) as well as a great "green project" for my school.

I have set up 4 small systems in different locations.
2 @ home which I check on the weekend (fish are autofed),
1 @ my Girlfriends which I check regularly,
and a brand new 1 in my schools dining room which is identical to the one one set up at the GF to help promote sustainability with the students and the dining room guests. I'm in the process of preparing an info sheet to hand out to the curious.
If one in ten try this at home, well that would be great !

The 2 systems @ home; one (by far the best system I have made) consist of a 29 gallon fish tank (used-donated) powered by 24 - 15 - 3 + 6 (aprox. 12?) feeder goldfish and is about 2 months old. Small levels of Nitrate are being produced. A 2'x3'x7" (40 L) hydroton growbed sits above the aquarium. It floods and drains 5 times/day (pump on 3mins), the pump is on a timer and bell siphon drains the system in about 1.5 mins. Growing in it, from seed, are 6 tomato seedlings (doing ok) and basil (not doing ok) as well as a stevia cutting (not so good either) and a dying rosa bianca eggplant (doing well) from my GF's garden. This system at last test 5-10 ppm Nitrate, 0-0.25 ppm amonia and a Ph of 6.8 -7.2.

#2) I set up a 25L vase filled with water + 125ml urea, beneath a 10L clay pot with Hydroton powered by a airlift pump and aerator below (this one is only a week old). I'm interested in trying this one without fish (peeponics) and wondering how much pee per week should I be adding once the system has cycled to produce enough nitrates for say one large transplanted tomato plant (in the future).

The two other systems are pretty much identical. They consist of a small (7L & 9L respectively) perlite growbed above a new 5 gallon aquarium. Both are powered by an airlift pump and have aerators. Neither was cycled with old aquarium filter parts and neither are producing nitrates yet. The first one is 4 weeks old and had 3 x 3" fancy goldfish but 2 died in the first week probably due to me over feeding in the beginning-I thought this might jumpstart the production of beneficial bacteria in the bed =( The one in the dining room at school has no fish yet (only 4 days old) and a few Moroccaine Mint roots and shoots for green.

all of these systems are artificially illuminated (except the one @ school due to an exceptional south facing window)

The two biggest questions on my mind are;

1) how long should it take to cycle a brand new system, if I'm just waiting for the beneficial bacteria to find it's way to my grow bed (ie without using old filter parts to jump-start)? after 4 weeks, the mini system at m GF's shows 0 nitrates, somewhere around 6 ppm Amonia, and a Ph of 7.2

2) how much urea would be required weekly to power the 25L peeponics unit once beneficial bacteria are present.


Thanks


Eric