Jeff's first try at aquaponics

[Jeffrey Ihara]

Here's my intro and my rig. 

I'm a biology prof. in coastal southern California (south OC), and I've been kicking around a few designs for an outdoor system that will maximize yield and minimize footprint and cost. I settled on IBC totes for fish tank and sump, and plywood growbeds propped up on cinder blocks. The sump IBC is cut to fit between the two growbeds.

Right now it's circulating on a 264 gph pond pump powered by an extension cord, but I hope to get this off grid soon with a solar panel ($150 from Harbor Freight, but I still need to buy a deep cycle battery and an DC/AC inverter). 

I have the fish tank covered with a blue tarp for now, but the solar panels will become the tank's sunshade in the next couple of weeks.

Here is my log of chemistry. To my newbie eyes, things look pretty much okay, except for pH, which is too high. As you can see, I've been tweaking with sulfuric acid, but so far I haven't budged it much. I am also dosing with ammonia hydroxide when NH3 drops, and I figured this would be keeping the pH on the high side, but I figure I'll let the cycling complete (fishless) and then push the pH down to below 7. I'm presently on the nitrite spike, so I'm holding off NH3 doses until things lighten up there.

If anyone has any suggestions, please post!

Thanks.

[Russ Grant]

Hi Jeff - your new system looks great. You will probably want to consider either painting or covering your grow bed and your sump otherwise you are going to have a problem with algae. The algae will reduce oxygen levels and can cause circulation problems. Good luck.

[Jeffrey Ihara]

Russ, good call on covering the tanks. The fishtank is usually wrapped with a blue tarp, and I'll be getting on a more permanent solar shade soon. I already have some stringy green algae in the sump, which I need to cover. I'm still trying to figure out the plumbing arrangement on the sump, and I'm planning on putting some fish in there as well (I have 14 weather loaches that I think will love that tank and they'll also keep the mosquitoes eaten).

Good news: nitrites are down to 2 today, so I dosed with ammonia. I think I'm getting close! If I'm done cycling in less than a month that would be way cool. I cheated, though--my lab was giving away a large FW aquarium, and I grabbed the gravel and grungy filter out of it and used them to "seed" my system. pH is down to 8.0, but I still hit it with more sulfuric acid.

[Jeffrey Ihara]

Bought a used deep-cycle 12V battery yesterday from a golf cart shop. Starting on adding the solar panels tomorrow. I have a DC pump on order.  Chemistry-wise the ammonia is gone (I'm re-dosing every couple of days, but it just disappears to near nothing in a day), but nitrites are still high (eleven days of nitrite spike so far). Very glad to be fishless now. I think pH would be dropping except for my continual addition of ammonium hydroxide--I had a reading of 7.6 before my last dose.

I have 14 weather loaches ready to put into the sump tank once the nitrites have zeroed out. Right now they're living happily in a Rubbermaid tote with an aquarium filter and gravel. I have zeroes on ammonia and nitrites in the loach tank despite my feeding them pretty substantially. I used that filter and gravel to seed the AP system, but so far the Nitrobacter/Nitrospira are dragging their little tushes.

[Jeffrey Ihara]

Well, I was fishless until now. Lab assistant had nine crayfish she was going to throw away, so I took them for my sump. Nitrites still high, but if they survive, they'll have a nice place.  Then I noticed some mosquito larvae in the fish tank--okay, better throw a couple of Gambusia in. Then I was at the nursery and they had water hyacinth for 99¢ for a big handful--so they're in the sump with the crayfish.

Had just enough daylight to take the solar panels out of the box. Looks like I have to hook it up to the battery for at least three days before I can attach the pump--which is fine, since the pump is on its way here from China...

In the meantime I'm switching from sulfuric acid to hydrochloric acid for my pH adjustments, since I've read (here) that chloride ion helps when nitrite toxicity is a concern.

[Jeffrey Ihara]

Nitrites down today--from 5 yesterday to 0.5 this morning. This is 30 days, so I'm pretty happy with that result. Added loaches and gravel to sump tank. Now I've got to think about a trip down to Alpine to pick up some channel cat fingerlings for the main tank.

Got the photovoltaics up and running on Saturday, after which we've had two solid days of clouds. Still the battery has gone up from 12.7 V to 13.1 V. I'm guessing this is good and means that at least the PV panels are working.

[Jeffrey Ihara]

Ammonia, nitrites down to zero or nearly zero , but so are nitrates , time to stock with some animal life.

In the fish tank (as of yesterday) 12 fingerling (4") channel cat and 24 fathead minnows. I figure that once the minnows start to disappear then it's time for the cats to step up to real food--for now they'll get flake.

In the sump tank (as of a few days ago) 14 weather loaches, 9 crayfish, gravel, and a water hyacinth. Or now it's the remains of a water hyacinth, because someone (crayfish probably) has munched away at the cluster to the point where now there is less than half of what I started with.

Even so, I measured nitrates at zero this morning. I have a bottle of Maxicrop liquid seaweed, but I'm resisting because I love how the water is crystal clear right now. I'm pretty sure the Maxicrop will stain the water pretty significantly...

[nimrod bash]

hi jeffrey do not worry abut nitrate's the plant's can grow extremely well with low concentrations of nitrate's 

the nutrient's are there just not as NO3 ... 

focus on lowering the PH to around 6.5 first 

the lower the PH is the less efficient the nitrification process becomes

u need to establish bacterial colonies that tolerate low PH at first other wise

u will has colonies that cannot tolerate it and u might encounter NO2 problems

wen lowering PH ...

grate first system BTW (:

Jeffrey Ihara said:

Ammonia, nitrites down to zero or nearly zero , but so are nitrates , time to stock with some animal life.

In the fish tank (as of yesterday) 12 fingerling (4") channel cat and 24 fathead minnows. I figure that once the minnows start to disappear then it's time for the cats to step up to real food--for now they'll get flake.

In the sump tank (as of a few days ago) 14 weather loaches, 9 crayfish, gravel, and a water hyacinth. Or now it's the remains of a water hyacinth, because someone (crayfish probably) has munched away at the cluster to the point where now there is less than half of what I started with.

Even so, I measured nitrates at zero this morning. I have a bottle of Maxicrop liquid seaweed, but I'm resisting because I love how the water is crystal clear right now. I'm pretty sure the Maxicrop will stain the water pretty significantly...