Comment

Comment by John E Windsor on September 1, 2012 at 5:33pm

How do I get the tadpoles out of my DWC? They are eating the roots.

Comment by TCLynx on August 20, 2012 at 6:35pm

I fear that heating a hoop house type cold frame that has only one layer of plastic in the midwest is going to be a loosing battle.  Grow fish and plants that can handle cold in the winter and just heat it enough to keep the water from freezing.

Comment by Jim Hall on August 20, 2012 at 11:50am

Love the look!

Comment by John E Windsor on August 20, 2012 at 10:19am

That setup looks classie Dave.

Comment by Ken Elrich on August 20, 2012 at 9:45am

that looks great dave!

Comment by Dave Mannina on August 20, 2012 at 9:30am

Need to put a roof on for winter. I need ideas on what to use to heat it. the size of the building will be about 7'-6" x 20' and about 8' tall hoop roof with visqueenie/plastic covering.

Comment by TCLynx on August 14, 2012 at 9:14pm

Are all the tanks plastic?  Is all the plumbing plastic?  Is the pump fish safe?

Are the goldfish the cheapest feeder goldfish?

If you have a galvanized metal stock tank as a fish tank or grow bed, that could be a problem with zinc leaching into the water.

If you use copper or galvanized plumbing, that could be a problem with copper or zinc leaching into the water (I don't mean the water from your household plumbing but the stuff that the fish water is recirculating through.)

non fish safe pumps that can leak lubricant or have metals other than stainless steel in contact with the water can be a problem.

Or if they are just cheap feeder fish, well often those are the genetic rejects that are sold cheap to be food for predatory fish and not really expected to survive long anyway (though ya sometimes get lucky with the cheap goldfish) so you often shouldn't expect too much when you get the cheapest goldfish.

Comment by Lee Ferguson on August 14, 2012 at 7:41pm

I am using the API master test kit with long expiration dates however my storage box gets hot during the day, I have two 50 gal grow beds with expanded clay pellets with a lot of vegetation. Due to the high heat and dry weather in Montana I have to replace about 10% - 15% of my water every day, the water is city well water that has a ph of about 7.6+ . I have two air stones in the tank and the water temp runs 65 to 80

Comment by TCLynx on August 14, 2012 at 7:27am

Lee,

   You can often take a water sample in to a pet store or aquarium shop and have them test it for you so you can kinda double check your test chemicals that way.  Are you using the API master test kit?  Or are you using test strips?  The test strips are rarely very accurate and definitely have a short shelf life.

If you are adjusting you pH down all the time, that indicates to me that either your tap water is very hard or your system has media that is elevating the pH or you have an anaerobic pocket in the system that is elevating the pH.

What are you using to adjust the pH?

Adjusting pH using acid right in a system can be really hard on the fish and bacteria and pH bouncing could be the cause of your fish deaths.

And you tell us you started with 50 fish in a 100 gallon tank but you tell us nothing about your filtration or plant beds.  Filtration is actually the most important part of an aquaponics system.  How much filtration do you have?

Comment by Tony Gilliam on August 13, 2012 at 9:09pm

Lee Ferguson, It may be time to change out your test chemicals. The one question i always ask is, What has changed? Most of the time the answer is nothing has changed. Most people don't reallize that the one thing that has changed is the age of their test chemical. These chemicals do have a shelf life and it isn't very long. So change your chemicals regularly. This will give you a more accurate test. Also a 10% water change every week should help to get things straightend out. Hope this helps!

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 98
• 99
• 100
• 101
• 102
• …
• 145
• Next ›
• Page