mweidners trial - plastic tote system

mweidner

Hello all, I wanted to introduce myself and post pictures of my small system, I am very interested in aquaponics for many reasons which I will probably get into later, but for now I wanted to get a test system up and running to learn the basics of the systems involved so that I could make a better thought out system in the upcoming year.

I am just getting this system setup and running, I now have all the components in place, have purchased the fish and am just waiting for the seeds to come in, it has been running now for about a week without any issues with the pumps, siphons, etc. I built this system mostly out of spare parts that I had laying around the house here, the only stuff I have had to buy so far was the gravel, a few plastic tubes, a test kit, and the fish.

I am going to be running goldfish in this first one as its not really big enough to support any kind of fish to eat, however I am very much looking forward to growing my own fish for food.

Some details: The fish tank is about 15 gallons (57 liters) and the grow bed is the same size. I am using flood and drain, I have a very small pump that is in the fish tank from a desktop fountain project from last year, the pump is on for 15 minutes and off for 45 minutes via a programmable microcontroller I have for my robotics projects. I am using large gravel for my media. I am planning on growing a couple tomato plants, some lettuce, rosemary, and basil. I might add another bin and alternate with my microcontroller sending water to them and add some peppers.

I am going to add grow lights before I have anything start sprouting, I may control them via my microcontroller to only have them on when the lighting is below a certain level during specific times of the day to minimize when they are on.

So all in all, nothing much to note from this system besides maybe the use of programmable microcontrollers (Using a basic stamp II if anyone cares, will be switching to the arduino processor the first of the year).

mweidner

I have been reading on the forum where people are using their grow beds to filter the solids from the fish and I had a question about that.

Since this is such a small system I have a tiny pump (40 gallons / 151 liters per hour), will that have the capability of pumping the solids up? I guess I am mostly thinking there isn't much suction when its running and I can't imagine it moving much, one bonus is my system floods and the pump is still running while it is draining and that creates quite a current in the fish tank for about 5 minutes while the pump is on.

On the progress side, my seeds all came in today, so I am starting to germinate some to plant in the growbed, am going to start with Basil and lettuce, once those are settled in I am going to put a couple tomato plants in. I will be posting the results from the last couple times testing the water tomorrow when I run the next test.

RupertofOZ

It may... within a certain size of solids... and it's possible that it may have a sponge filter in the pump casing... you may have to remove this permanently....

Outbackozzie

Sponge filter will have to go!

TCLynx

I had a micro system running of one of those little fountain pumps. Mine didn't have a sponge in it but I regularly had to clean gunk off the plastic grill intake on the pump.

mweidner

I am pretty sure that mine doesn't have any kind of filter on it, but I am going to check tonight to be sure.

Besides that I guess I will just have to wait and see if I have an issue with it not pumping out the solids.

One other question, I got my seeds to plant and was trying to decide if I should just put them in the gravel and hope they sprout, or put them on some damp paper towels and wait for them to sprout and then transfer them into the gravel.

Is one way better than the other?

RupertofOZ

Most people just direct sow.... and use a watering can.. AP water of course... to damoen them occasionally and/or work them down into the media...

Outbackozzie

Direct sow = stronger plants.

mweidner

Ok, so the consensus is to just direct sow, I will be doing that today.

I wanted to post up the test results from my Master Test Kit, just to keep a log of them and also because I am having a bit of a fish problem. I had my first fish die on Tuesday and now today (Friday) I see another fish doing the same thing so in a few days it will be dead most likely. I have about 20 Goldfish in my tank (size 15 gallons (57 liters)), they are about 1.5 inches (3.81 cm). The one that died started acting really sluggish and didn't come up to feed with the rest, over about 3-4 days it got to where it was floating on the top looking dead until you touched it or something and then it would swim down and almost immediately float up, it looked like it was having trouble staying down. When it died I looked at it and I didn't notice anything that wrong about it, besides it being dead of course. The only think other than behavior I noticed was that it looked like it was having a hard time breathing (gills flared out more, almost looked like it was gasping)

All the rest of the fish are very active, eat very well, strong swimmers, etc, just seems to be picking them off one by one. Not sure if maybe it is an issue with too much Ammonia or Nitrite. Also as a sidenote I am using NutraFin Cycle to try and speed up the cycling process, it says on the bottle "More nitrifiers, keeps aquariums healthy, rapidly matures new aquariums, for fresh or salt water"

12/5
-------------
PH 8
Ammonia 1
Nitrite 0.25
Nitrate 0

12/9
-------------
PH 8
Ammonia 1
Nitrite 0.5
Nitrate 5

12/12
------------
PH 8
Ammonia 2
Nitrite 1
Nitrate 10

Also the water stays at a pretty constant 66F (19C).

Outbackozzie

Nitrite poisoning.

Add 1kg of salt per 1000l of water.

Your ammonia at that sort of PH is not real good either.

NO FOOD!!!! - and do a slow water change as well if you can, just have the tank sort of trickle overflowing.

RupertofOZ

mweidner wrote:

12/12
------------
PH 8
Ammonia 2
Nitrite 1
Nitrate 10

Also the water stays at a pretty constant 66F (19C).

Water change needed IMO... no room to move on the ammonia at that temp and pH ...

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Secondly... are you aerating the tank at all ... if not I'd put an airstone in there immediately...

And DON'T add any more additives.... :roll:

.... or feed your fish.... there's more than enough ammonia in the very small tank as is...

RupertofOZ

And like OBO says... salt to mitigate the nitrites....

Low DO, ammonia and nitrites.... your "burning" your fish alive...

Outbackozzie

Poor little fella's

mweidner

Ok, then, thanks for the fast replies.

In response, yes I am getting good aeration, when I circulate the water it has to drop a bit and I think it should be adding enough air in. I will change out at least 50% of the water today then, see if I can get the ammonia down.

RupertofOZ

Change water, test... and if nitrites are still 1 (suspect they will be as you're cycling)... then salt to 1ppt ...

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