New system started from a newbe

[Gabriele Barocci]

Hello guys,

first off all i don't have any practical experience in Aquaponics:

Before starting testing the water i run the system for tree days.

No fish in the tank (18G)

day 1 after the test i added some liquid ammonia 

day 2 after the test i added "Cycle" to start the cycle (added for three days)

what do you think?

thanks fo your help

Gabriele

[Gabriele Barocci]

day 15:

we have nitrites!

this is the chart:

question:

when the nitrites go up, ammonia should go down right?

thanks for your advice  and help

Gab

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

Right on schedule... even a bit early :) ... it will take a couple of days for ammonia to decend

[Gabriele Barocci]

thanks Jonathan

day 17:

update

nitrite are over scale

the ammonia doesn't look to go down a lot...

some water has evaporated,should i wait the cycle to start or i can add a gallon or two today?

thanks everybody for the help

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Very cool Gabe. This would be what people call your "nitrite spike" phase. Soon your nitrites should fall sharply, about the same time your ammonia does. Nitrates should appear. Then, cut your ammonia dosing in half. When you can dose 1ppm or 2ppm of ammonia, and within 24 hours be down to zero (and have no nitrites at that point) you'll be fully cycled. Then stop dosing ammonia for a day or two, then add fish. (don't wait too long to add the fish, or your bacteria might starve off a bit. If you can't get fish right away at that point, just keep feeding your bio-filter ammonia until a few days before your fish arrive).

Until then, you could even go and put the seedlings/plants you've prepared into the system if you haven't already.

[Gabriele Barocci]

thanks Vlad,

last time i added (dosed) ammonia was a week ago, 

should i add ammonia when it goes down ,(and wait for the nitrates) or i can just add fish instead?

i have already put seedling , they do not look so bad.

i'm going to add gold fish, from an aquarium store.

how many of them ( 2o 3 inches long) i need  for this system (20G of water circa and sq ft of DWC grow bed with 16 pots)

in your opinion

thanks

Gab

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Don't add the fish until your nitrites go down to zero (or your fish will in all likelihood die real fast) and you can dose ammonia to 1ppm and have that go down to zero in 24 hours. 

Wait for your nitrites and ammonia to go down first, before you dose again. Hopefully by this point nitrates should start to show up. Just continue to be patient :) You are on the right track.

You should put in only as many fish as your bio-filter can handle. Do you only have the DWC, or do you have a media bed as well?

Did you say one (1) square foot of DWC? What happened to the constant flood media bed?

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

They will stay high for a few days and then the Nitrospira will kick in and convert nitrites to nitrates. Wait for the nitrite to go to zero... your ammonia will hit zero first. Then dose to 1-2ppm ammonia, nitrite spike then zeros again. Keep doing that until nitrites are cleared with in 24 hours, then it is fishy time.

I have a 26 gallon tank with only 3 fancy goldfish 2-3 inches and the plants are doing fine. I'll add more if the nitrates go below 10ppm but you will see that you have tons of nitrates by the time your done cycling.

[Gabriele Barocci]

thanks Vlad, 

i decided to start a small system and see how it works, then if everything works well as i hope , i will build the bigger dwc with the media bed too. The light system expense is to high to be justified as an experiment. (I mean ,  that is what my wife said ........  ) , but i will open a new thread on it (not about my wife...about the light..), now the system is running under two 40 watt T12 i had at home.

now the grow bed is just 1,5 foot X 4 foot circa (6 square feet of DWC)

thanks for your help

Gab

Vlad Jovanovic said:

Don't add the fish until your nitrites go down to zero (or your fish will in all likelihood die real fast) and you can dose ammonia to 1ppm and have that go down to zero in 24 hours. 

Wait for your nitrites and ammonia to go down first, before you dose again. Hopefully by this point nitrates should start to show up. Just continue to be patient You are on the right track.

You should put in only as many fish as your bio-filter can handle. Do you only have the DWC, or do you have a media bed as well?

Did you say one (1) square foot of DWC? What happened to the constant flood media bed?

[Gabriele Barocci]

thanks for your help Jonathan

so i understand i have to wait the nitrite to go zero .

Gab

Jonathan Kadish said:

They will stay high for a few days and then the Nitrospira will kick in and convert nitrites to nitrates. Wait for the nitrite to go to zero... your ammonia will hit zero first. Then dose to 1-2ppm ammonia, nitrite spike then zeros again. Keep doing that until nitrites are cleared with in 24 hours, then it is fishy time.

I have a 26 gallon tank with only 3 fancy goldfish 2-3 inches and the plants are doing fine. I'll add more if the nitrates go below 10ppm but you will see that you have tons of nitrates by the time your done cycling.

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Right now your bio-filter is the surface of your tanks, DWC, pipes, the bottom of your raft, and the plant roots themselves. So don't overstock your system with fish! Normally you would want some type of solids filtration before a DWC (like a media bed), but since your system is so small hopefully you'll not have any problems as long as you don't put in too many fish.

Ideally (especially in your situation) you would want your nitrates as close to zero as you can get them as well. And don't harvest all your plants at once, because you may lose a bit of your bio-filtration capacity since you only have that one DWC. take out a few at a time and replace them. A very small system is a bit trickier than a larger one. Especially one without a dedicated bio-filter IMO.

Gabe, if your wife is hassling you about the budget, you can always "over-drive" those T-12's or T-8's (T-8's would be the way to go if you can, they are still really cheap). Over-driving fluorescent lights is called ODNO (OverDriveNormalOperation). It's a good way to get 'a lot' of light for cheap.

You can just Google "ODNO fluorescent lights", or I could send send you links on how to do it, or even explain it, if you need. . Its pretty easy to understand though. Though I know how language can be a barrier to understanding an otherwise simple concept, so feel free to ask if you need to.

[Gabriele Barocci]

Vlad,

i found a 4Xt5 fixture here in Canada for 170$ (4 bulbs includes) . this would be around 20000 lumen.

http://www.bulbscanada.com/index.php?route=product/product&path...

should be more than enough for that system, and eventually i can use it as supplementary light (with flowering bulbs) in the next big system.

what do you think?

thanks Gab

 

Vlad Jovanovic said:

Right now your bio-filter is the surface of your tanks, DWC, pipes, the bottom of your raft, and the plant roots themselves. So don't overstock your system with fish! Normally you would want some type of solids filtration before a DWC (like a media bed), but since your system is so small hopefully you'll not have any problems as long as you don't put in too many fish.

Ideally (especially in your situation) you would want your nitrates as close to zero as you can get them as well. And don't harvest all your plants at once, because you may lose a bit of your bio-filtration capacity since you only have that one DWC. take out a few at a time and replace them. A very small system is a bit trickier than a larger one. Especially one without a dedicated bio-filter IMO.

Gabe, if your wife is hassling you about the budget, you can always "over-drive" those T-12's or T-8's (T-8's would be the way to go if you can, they are still really cheap). Over-driving fluorescent lights is called ODNO (OverDriveNormalOperation). It's a good way to get 'a lot' of light for cheap.

You can just Google "ODNO fluorescent lights", or I could send send you links on how to do it, or even explain it, if you need. . Its pretty easy to understand though. Though I know how language can be a barrier to understanding an otherwise simple concept, so feel free to ask if you need to.

[Vlad Jovanovic]

I think that is a little expensive (relatively speaking, for what you get), but there is certainly nothing bad about that fixture...

I'm having really good results with these...http://aquaponicscommunity.com/group/artificiallighting/forum/topic...

They might be of some interest to you...