The addventure begins.

[Kent Evans]

My system of choice was two 50 gal. GBs and a 150 gal. FT. to get the system started. I am using the flood drain with bell siphons in the grow beds that exhaust in to the fish tank. The pump is a 1000 gph. feeding a 3/4 pvc. with plenty of excess flow for expansion and diverted back to the fish tank for extra oxygen. The grow beds are stuffed with red lava rock.   

The pump has been running non stop since 4/9/2013 and the nitrite test finely shows 0.25 ppm. After 11 days of nothing new to see but ammonia at 3.0 ppm. water temp. 75 deg. PH. 8.4. All others at 0.0. Add a teaspoon of liquid ammonia and try again tomorrow. Any suggestions would be helpful. 

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Nothing to do now but wait  ...and cycle up, bringing you bio-filter totally on-line and ready for fish, seems to usually take 6 to 8 weeks...or so...You could start sprouting some seedlings while you 'wait' for the next month or so...or grab a handful of media from an already established AP system...but really, just 'waiting' it out is all it takes. Curl up next to a good book on Integrated Pest Management, How plants use essential elements in soil-less culture, the Spanish Revolution...whatever. You've created the conditions for the bacteria to colonize all that BSA (biological surface area)...Now comes that part about "patience" where you do nothing...

[Kent Evans]

Thanks for the encouragement Vlad.

I am growing indoors in a large empty warehouse and I live in central Florida, go figure. For 9 months of the year the temp outside is 90 deg. F. plus and there are  endless types of fungus and insects to help with the harvest. I hope to have a working bio-filter, some leaf vegies and a couple more cycled grow beds before the fall planting. I have lots of room to expand and my boss will pay the light bill. The only thing that grows well outside here in summer is citrus and fire ants. 
Vlad Jovanovic said:

Nothing to do now but wait  ...and cycle up, bringing you bio-filter totally on-line and ready for fish, seems to usually take 6 to 8 weeks...or so...You could start sprouting some seedlings while you 'wait' for the next month or so...or grab a handful of media from an already established AP system...but really, just 'waiting' it out is all it takes. Curl up next to a good book on Integrated Pest Management, How plants use essential elements in soil-less culture, the Spanish Revolution...whatever. You've created the conditions for the bacteria to colonize all that BSA (biological surface area)...Now comes that part about "patience" where you do nothing...

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Yeah, you guys are definitely in bug territory...all that humidity certainly doesn't help with the pathogens either (not to rub it in or anything, every place has it's own growing peculiarities). Hey, but since at least your aware of some of yours, you could spend some of this "waiting" time wisely and prepare a strategy to mitigate some of those problems that you expect. Seriously, look into an IPM program (or better yet, take a gardening class that covers things like that...if that is an option)...and you can probably do yourself a world of good by starting a worm bin. A good fresh home brewed worm casting tea applied foliarly seems to help with both pests and pathogens. Most people don't think about the importance of a good thriving microbial presence on the leaf surfaces...Just like in our bio-filters, it helps to somewhat keep things more disease free since our beneficial microbes (if established on a leaf or media surface) tend to "out compete" the 'bad guys'...Plus, the worm tea foliar is a good source of primary, secondary, and some trace elements ...And it's all free...once you set up the worm bin of coarse. Other "non-biological" AP appropriate methods might be KHCO3 for the fungal protection, and a spinosad A and D product for the pests, but those items you would have to buy. I rather like the 'biological diversity as a defense mechanism' path, but those things take some time to develop properly 

Hehe..."the light bill" tends to be 'significant' when growing (properly) indoors...How wonderful of your boss :)

[Kent Evans]

Mondays suck for the most part, but when I checked the water this morning ammonia was 1.0 ppm. and  nitrite & nitrate were 5.0. Time to shop for seeds. Life is good!  4/22/2013

[Kent Evans]

Update,

Saturday 4/27/2013 I threw a few bean and lettuce seeds on the rocks and figured it would take 5 or 6 days to germinate and give me time to get some lights together. Boy was I wrong. In 3 days all seeds had roots and standing up. I scrambled to wire a metal halide fixture to give the seedlings some light until I could run the wire and cables to raise and lower the fixtures. Today I finished the wiring and put 2 400 watt bulbs on line. The beans had gotten a little leggie and the lettuce ( well lets just say I can always re seed) may be stunted. The growth rate is wonderful. The nitrite is still off the scale but nitrate is toying with 20 ppm. and ph is still 8.0. Saturday 5/4/2013