Saving Nutrient rich Water for next season.

[Alpha Aqua]

Hey all,

I understand it takes a few weeks for the Nutrients & bacterias to establish.

So I'm wondering if saving the water in barrels for winter and thawing it out in the spring, that way i can save precious time and get an early start next year.

anyone tried this before?

[Ryan Chatterson]

Bacteria will die out if it freezes so probably not the best option. You could make a tank for some biomedia, keep it heated and dose ammonia through the winter to keep it alive but I don't know how much trouble that would be for you...

[TCLynx]

I would recommend the keep a micro (aquarium/bus tub) type system going with either aquarium fish or some other ammonia source indoors to grow some herbs and salad during winter and then use that media deep in the grow beds of the main system to jump start the bio-filter again in the spring.

And if the system isn't totally sterilized before winter, I expect there will be some bio activity that will start back up with it as you crank up the system in the spring.  If you can get it flowing early when it's still cold, the bacteria will be slow but most everything is slow when it's still that cold so a slow start up might not be that big a problem, just don't expect to suddenly heat the water up and through a full load of big fish in and expect the bio-filter to be caught up like that.

[Alpha Aqua]

@TCLynx thats kinda what i was thinking.  I'm planning on letting the system cycle for a couple of weeks before planting anything,

Thank you for your input.

TCLynx said:

I would recommend the keep a micro (aquarium/bus tub) type system going with either aquarium fish or some other ammonia source indoors to grow some herbs and salad during winter and then use that media deep in the grow beds of the main system to jump start the bio-filter again in the spring.

And if the system isn't totally sterilized before winter, I expect there will be some bio activity that will start back up with it as you crank up the system in the spring.  If you can get it flowing early when it's still cold, the bacteria will be slow but most everything is slow when it's still that cold so a slow start up might not be that big a problem, just don't expect to suddenly heat the water up and through a full load of big fish in and expect the bio-filter to be caught up like that.