Aquaponics in Sin City

[Elronmaynard]

I am pleased to finally start this thread. I hope this forum serves as an interactive blog to document and educate anyone interested.

A friend and I rented a 10ft uhaul truck to transport this IBC water tote aquaponics system from its former owners establishment.



It is pictured here, set up in my backyard, in Southeast Las Vegas.

The purchase proved to include everything I needed including about 25 five to six inch long gold fish. I transported the fish in a relatively small cooler full of their native water. They did not have much room to swim around but I did offer them some oxygen through an aquarium air pump.

After assembling the system to its pictured setup I began filling the middle sump tank with water from my rubbermaid garden hose and attached boogie brew chlorine filter. I began to pump the water from the sump into the grow bed. I wanted to make sure the plumbing and bell siphon had no flaws. They passed my testing and inspection, so I began to fill the fish tank.

After letting the water acclimate to air temperature overnight I decided to move the fish into their comfortable new 250 gallon home. I added some new found tank water into the cooler and waited one hour before I moved them over. I'm not sure if fish should be added to the system just yet but I feel I must get them more space quickly. Later I noticed they were closer to the surface. I threw in a small handful of koi food and watched them happily eat away. 9 hours later they still look happy.

Since this picture, I have plumbed the swirl filter into operation. It drains into the sump tank.

My water testing for today
PH = 7.6
Ammonia = 0 ppm
Nitrites = 2.0 ppm
Nitrates = 0

Considering how much tap water I added, I am very surprised to see such a high number of Nitrites in the system. The PH level seems to be pretty consistent with our tap water. A brief google search made me think 2.0 ppm nitrites shouldn't harm my goldfish but I will keep an eye on it.

[badflash]

I suspect your water has nitrites in it. Condition it before use. How are you cycling the system? You need beneficial bacteria to get it started. If you have an established healthy fresh water aquarium you can harvest this from the dirty filter. If you have a friend with healthy fish, you can do the same with his filter. With that much water you should be OK for a week or so before things get bad enough to effect your fish, but get some Seachem Prime or Amquel+ to handle nitrites and ammonia.

[Elronmaynard]

I pump water from the sump into the fish tank and growbed. The fishtank overflow pours into the swirl filter which drains into the sump tank.

My growbed seems to fill in about 11-12 minutes and the bell siphon will drain it in 3-4 minutes.

I estimate I have about 6lbs of goldfish and a 70 gallon growbed full of hydroton. Unfortunately, my growbed is only about 10 inches deep. I am hoping I will still be able to effectively grow some greens in it.

I made no change to my water. Here are todays results
PH = 7.6
Ammonia = 0 ppm
Nitrites = .25 ppm
Nitrates = 0

I ordered some Seachem Prime on amazon prime so it should be here in a day or two. But since my nitrite level dropped I'm not sure I need it any longer. I was under the impression that bringing a cooler full of there previous tank water would be enough to transfer the proper bacteria. Is this not always/ever the case?

I actually volunteer at a small organic farm, ran by Marilyn Yamamoto. She operates Cowboy Trail Farms a CSA. Marilyn has a deep water culture aquaponics system at Cowboy Trail. I am sure I could harvest some bacteria from her system.
Should I add anything else? Should I feed my fish normally now?

I appreciate the help.




You can see her setup in this youtube video. Skip to 16:54 to see aquaponics.
[youtube:2lwxqjv6]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT19Lb6vlsc[/youtube:2lwxqjv6]

[keith_r]

yeah.. don't use the seachem stuff.. (well.. i wouldn't)
just be patient and your system will cycle up.. most of the starter kits are bunk

[badflash]

Test your tap water for nitrites and chloramine. SeaChem fixes both. No downside. 've used it for yours. What you don't want is an additive that does too much.

[Elronmaynard]

Thanks for the responses guys!

A test of my tap water for Nitrites came up negative.
I don't currently have a chloramine test but if I choose to believe our published city water report it should be absent from the system.


Thursday I noticed a lot of a stringy foam substance on top of the water. I cleaned most of it off.
Ammonia, PH, and Nitrates stayed the same while my Nitrites have moved up into the 5ppm.
I used a 350 gallon dose of SeaChem.

Friday, no more foam and all my water testing came up the same. Worried about the still high Nitrite level.
Should I exchange water or go for another SeaChem dose?

I posted a video with a brief explanation of the system.
I am really enjoying my aquaponics hobby. Its been really fun having my own little biology experiment in the backyard.
[youtube:1djcjotq]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-Jrpf5zj0[/youtube:1djcjotq]

[badflash]

Still got fish in there? If so, maintain the seachem, no point otherwise. The key parameter to watch is ammonia.

Green stuff is good to a point as long as it doesn't clog up the works.

[Elronmaynard]

The fish are still doing well! We will see how the water testing goes this evening.

I am happy to see my sun calculator reports full sun where my current growbed is. Some early tree shade across the yard puts me a little below 6+ hours of sun in some gardening spots.

[Elronmaynard]

Nitrites lowered down to .5ppm

I have yet to figure out a cover for the sump and fish tank. I suspect this is speeding my algae growth. Nothing seems clogged but the tank is getting cloudy. I should have some API stress zyme coming tomorrow.

Still waiting for Nitrates to appear. Should I be trying to lower my PH level?

[badflash]

Nitrites are in the safe range, but they can swing quite a bit. What is your current pH?