Water Testing

Finally bought a couple of water testing kits. Ph and then Nitrites and Nitrates.  Did my first testing yesterday. Ph fine but No2and No3 are through the roof. However the fish are still swimming. (did have 2 dead cat fish...) and they are all still hungry.  It was not till I opened the No3 test kit that I discovered the colour chart was missing. I emailed Tetra and almost instantly had a reply with a colour chart attached. Will be checking water again today. I've added this detail in a chart to the side of my Blog.

Progress update.

All seems to be going OK.  Just checked the Ph sitting at about 7.2.  Looking very good.  Having a bit of a problem with the siphon in one of the beds. I think following Murray Hallum's advice I'll add an elbow to the outlet and see if it helps things along.

We seeded some Morning Glory which is doing well, Bak Choi and the coriander have yet to sprout. In the smaller tanks we have Thyme and Rosemary and another type of Bak Choi. All doing OK. We did add in some Pawpaw but these may take a bit longer. The two banana plants appear to be OK. Early days for them as any change to their condition will tame a long time to show.

I also added a kilo of small cat fish to my overflow/sump tank. Logic being that some food is spilling over and they will act as cleaners. Wait and see. That's it for today.

Progress

Been a couple of days now since we plants the seeds. They have grown and beginning to look like real plants!!!! Also been doing some 'tweaking' in the syphons and all seems much better.

Back to Front

I've set up my system and added a big grow bed I had used earlier for hydroponics. Now as I say 'back to front' I have to calculate the number of fish I need.  I'm going to check flow to see the full cycle time of three different tanks and then work out the suitable number of fish the system requires to feed these three beds. Fish density is not my main concern as I ca see water throughput is quite high. I need to make sure I get enough fish waste to make it sustainable.

I've got about 180 litres of water, two half full barrels with aggregate and one grow bed 2.4 x 1.2 x 8cm deep.  Will update when I've got this sorted out. Off to by some seeds.

And we're off

Added some fish. Tilapia today and some banana plants 2 number.  We put those in first last night. Not possibly the correct order of doing things but could not wait. Wanna added some seeds so now we wait to see if anything will grow. Interesting and strange the pump cuts out when I turn on the florescent light which is on the same circuit.  Any ideas why this should happen?

Ressurected System

Hi,

Having met up with a bunch of like minds Aquaponic types last weekend in Bangkok I decided to get my system out of mothballs.

Started setting it up yesterday and today. Gone away from the high level flood and drain system to a sump tank. I think in my case this should be much easier. Need now to get pump working properly.  The old one  lasted 5 minutes and died. Then I need to add stone to the grow beds and buy some fish. Going again for using Tilapia. Fairly hardy and it gets me up and running. To think I've been sitting around here doing very little and had all this gear stuck in a store... Oh well no excuses now....