Aquaponic Gardening

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Hello every one! my wife and I are just going to start an AP system. We need lots of help but we will go little by little. I am from Ecuador and my wife is Filipina, and we are going to have a beautiful baby boy! Nowadays we are living in Ecuador.

We are learning about AP from scratches! I am an IT and my wife works for a school so you can see that we are newbies! 

 

My questions are these:

1.- I have the chance to get fishes from a river but I do not know what is the process to make the fishes get used to their new habitat. Do we have to put them in quarantine before we put in the tank?

2.- What instruments do I have to buy to keep track of the levels of ph, amonia, oxigen, etc?

3.- Can I use an external water pump and not immersion water pump?

4.- Is it ok if my fish pond is transparent?

5.- Is it ok to use rise husk as substrate?

 

 

Thank you for the answers! 

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Sorry I forgot question number 6 he he he:

Can I use ozonized water for my system?

as long as the ozone is released from the water before the fish/bio filters are exposed to it.

 

Fish from a river are probably ok when you add your first fish.  Once you have some fish doing well in the system, you will probably want to quarantine new fish before putting them into the established system.

 

External pumps are ok as long as they are fish safe and don't have any lubricants that could leak into the water.

 

A Freshwater aquarium master test kit that uses test tubes and dropper bottles are usually what we recommend for testing Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, and pH

 

Transparent fish pond is usually not recommended for aquaponics since it is likely to grow algae if exposed to light, can you protect the water from the sun?

 

Rice hulls for media, probably not.  Larger media is generally better and things that won't rot or affect your pH would be recommended.  Quartz type rock that won't affect pH is a good choice or some people have good luck with lava rock but it needs good washing.

Isn't ozone considered a pollutant? Instead of O3 I would stick to O2. Then again I don't know much about plants. (they might respond positively)   

down here at ground level ozone is a pollutant but it is often used in disinfection since it can rapidly oxidize things.  If you use ozonized water, I would make sure the ozone is outgased from the water before putting the water into the system, run it through a degassing tower or something.
Couldn't you use chlorine that way or use copper piping. (for fish that can stand it of course) if there is any

TCLynx said:
down here at ground level ozone is a pollutant but it is often used in disinfection since it can rapidly oxidize things.  If you use ozonized water, I would make sure the ozone is outgased from the water before putting the water into the system, run it through a degassing tower or something.

Chlorine can be outgassed and that is how most people deal with Chlorine (chloramine is a bit different though)

 

Copper piping is not a good idea though.  You can't outgas copper from water as at normal atmospheric conditions and Aquaponic water temperatures, copper is not a gas.  So, avoid using any copper in any recirculating part of a system.  Most of us do not worry about water taking a single trip through a copper or galvanized pipe on it's way from a water supply to the fish tank because it is just one trip and the water is usually not acidic at that time.  Once recirculating in an aquaponics system the water tends to become a bit more acidic and any material you recirculate it though has far more opportunity to leach into the water.

Right but, I think I asked a relatively dumb question because, copper kills bacteria and is different from presterilized water.    

TCLynx said:

Chlorine can be outgassed and that is how most people deal with Chlorine (chloramine is a bit different though)

 

Copper piping is not a good idea though.  You can't outgas copper from water as at normal atmospheric conditions and Aquaponic water temperatures, copper is not a gas.  So, avoid using any copper in any recirculating part of a system.  Most of us do not worry about water taking a single trip through a copper or galvanized pipe on it's way from a water supply to the fish tank because it is just one trip and the water is usually not acidic at that time.  Once recirculating in an aquaponics system the water tends to become a bit more acidic and any material you recirculate it though has far more opportunity to leach into the water.

One of the problems, I thing, of using O3 is that the bacteria will have problems to grow but it will sterilize the system. that why I was asking if I can use it for a start. Of course after that I will wait for the ozone to dissipate. I will definitely not use cooper here, I do not feel safe using cooper. 

Sounds good.  Just don't add any fish or ammonia source till the O3 has dissipated in the first place.

Paul Morales said:

One of the problems, I thing, of using O3 is that the bacteria will have problems to grow but it will sterilize the system. that why I was asking if I can use it for a start. Of course after that I will wait for the ozone to dissipate. I will definitely not use cooper here, I do not feel safe using cooper. 

Hi Paul,


Using ozonized water ensures clean water for startup, you can also use Hydrogen Peroxide with tap water and get the same results. H2O2 has the same oxidizing reaction as ozone and is very inexpensive.

Paul Morales said:

One of the problems, I thing, of using O3 is that the bacteria will have problems to grow but it will sterilize the system. that why I was asking if I can use it for a start. Of course after that I will wait for the ozone to dissipate. I will definitely not use cooper here, I do not feel safe using cooper. 

What is the source water that it needs sterilization?

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