I would like to share my lil project with you.
Last year I spent couple months harvesting in Cali and met a lot of interesting people, whom introduced me to aquaponics with words “best weed I have ever seen.” So I knew I have to try it too.
Since my return in Nov it took me 3 months to get to this stage:
my room is 95% completed
water tank filled - I started to test ammonia, nitrates and nitrites lvls, but Im still fighting with pH (its still arround 8 and I think its caused by substrate (expanded clay) which should have neutral pH, but I think they got me poor batch…
have ~ 35-40 fish in tank - 20x goldfish, 10x tilapia + …
There is arround 800 litres in my fish tank.
For room control I bought electronic control unit for temp, humidity, water temp, water lvl and water pH.
For growing I have 2 beds - 1,25 x 1 m. Height 1,2 m. Depth of bed (for roots) 25-30cm.
Have 400W HPS for both beds.
For walls used diamond foil.
Active in/exhaust of air with passivne heat exchanger Recair RS160.
Next tasks:
get my pH on/under 7
wait till whole nitrification cycle is finished
add water heating
My problem with pH might also cause lack of oxygen and/or not enough water mixing, so I bought 2 water circulation pumps which will mix the water inside fish tank and help to oxygen water.
Looking forward to plant first plants.
Will keep you updated.
I am trying to avoid using any chemicals. I got back home after 3 days and my problem is still
pH 8.4…
Fish seems to be fine tho. Increased oxygenating a lot. Both goldfish and also tilapia already eating.
water temp 22.7 C
pH ~ 8.4
ammonia - 0
NO2 > 0.4 mg/l
NO3 > 40 mg/l
alcalinity - 4-6 dKH
At least nitrification cycle is almost done…
I am going to add some plants to adjust water quality Ceratophyllum and Pistia. I also got Duckweed, which Im goin to try feed fish with. Not only, but combined with pellets or something. I made something like this guy https://youtu.be/4ksnnwxlq1g?t=9m46s to controll Duckweed spreading.
pH problem keeps me frustrated. I bought RO, so I will try take out water from tank and add water from RO, which should lower down pH. Will try it couple times. If pH will keep increasing to same numbers, I might have to remove substrate (expanded clay), which might not be cleaned up enough and could be causing pH troubles. If problems resists, I will be probably forced to change all the substrate and restart the whole proccess
On some forums I found out about pH problems with expanded clay.
I have to take out one half of my medium, rinse it again and then soak it in acidic water. It sould rise up again a little bit, so add more acid until it gets stable arround 6. Then put it back to grow bed.
Will see what results I will get from doing this for one bed. After that I will decide what the next step will be.
Very old thread…anyway I was talking to my farmer buddy who has a Koi pond and he wants to grow in his pond…I gave him 2 clones of my Vietnam Thunder Fuck and told him to do a little bit more research on aquaponics…
