Even some one who has been doing this for a couple years and knows that it takes 6 weeks to properly cycle up a new system, I must still remind myself that it requires patience (or patients as I'm often known to miss spell.)



So here I am getting all frustrated because my 300 gallon system isn't all cycled up and letting me feed up all the fingerlings really good. I'm railing at the test kit and blaming pH that the ammonia is still showing up I mean didn't it cycle faster back in the… Continue

Is it time to get your feet wet?



I'm not sure that I am the best one to talk about siphons. I've used them. I've made some bell siphons but never been as good with them. I've had many many loop siphons and they usually work quite well providing conditions are right. I have also built FLOUT's and they are great if the situation warrants.



So what would make some one mess with siphons? Isn't it easier to just run the pump on a timer and let all the beds… Continue

Let us do some research into this topic, ok, my good intentions on this topic were to go back and see if I could find the research I did on it two years ago when I decided that barrels would not be cost effective for my planned big system.



Needless to say, I haven't managed to do that. What I do remember from my research was that I could get more grow bed volume and spend less money by building wooden grow beds and lining them with pond liner. These figures were affected greatly by the… Continue

I've gotten myself a bag of higher protein feed for the fingerlings I've moved into the 300 gallon system. Dang, had to adjust the feeder down due to an ammonia spike from the only newly cycled system.

Higher protein feed does cost more but it can definitely make a difference in the growth of small fingerlings as well as increasing the nutrient levels in a system quite noticeably.