aquaponics - breeder steve's book

[SlowCalaToker]

10k, I have a couple of quick questions...

When you are cycling your aqua setup, what is the water like that you are pumping to your plants? I hope that made sense...

I am using water from my 75g Koi tank as my mix for the nutes. I am using Earth Juice, and bubbling the mixture for 48 hrs before feeding. My plants show what looks like to me to be a nitrogen deficiency, I'm increasing the amount of Grow I'm using in today's feeding, so that should be taken care of... My tank is crystal clear since I have a sump/bioball filter rated for a 200g tank. I use the clear water from the top of the tank, which I'm sure has a thriving nitrogen cycle going on. To take full advantage of the possibilities of the water, should I be stirring thing up and using water with the sedimented waste and food, or is using the clear water OK?

I really hope you can understand what I mean, I am having a hard time putting into words what I wanted to ask

Thanks in advance!

 

[10k]

10k, I have a couple of quick questions...

When you are cycling your aqua setup, what is the water like that you are pumping to your plants? I hope that made sense...

I am using water from my 75g Koi tank as my mix for the nutes. I am using Earth Juice, and bubbling the mixture for 48 hrs before feeding. My plants show what looks like to me to be a nitrogen deficiency, I'm increasing the amount of Grow I'm using in today's feeding, so that should be taken care of... My tank is crystal clear since I have a sump/bioball filter rated for a 200g tank. I use the clear water from the top of the tank, which I'm sure has a thriving nitrogen cycle going on. To take full advantage of the possibilities of the water, should I be stirring thing up and using water with the sedimented waste and food, or is using the clear water OK?

I really hope you can understand what I mean, I am having a hard time putting into words what I wanted to ask

Thanks in advance!

SlowCalaToker,
You're talking about something completely different than aquaponics actually.
Your filtered aquarium water is essentially just pretty clean aged water with a slight amount of nitrates and minerals in it, along with some beneficial bacteria.
That plus your earth juice is a fine combo for feeding your plants. The fish tank water alone is great stuff for soil or soil less waterings too, but beware
if you stir it up like you asked, then it may be a bit too hot...

In "stirring it up" you'll be getting the waste sediment and decaying food, called "mulm", (called "mulm" by the aquarium enthusiasts) also in the waterings.
Mulm has a lot of mineral content in it, but also quite a bit of elements that aren't quite fully broken down completely including some ammonia. It may be ok for an occasional feeding along with the fish tank water to help feed the soil and boost the microbial activity though, but too much can even be somewhat toxic, so proceed with caution. It could also be added into your tea bubbling to boost your EJ poop soup too, but you may need to experiment with how much mulm is too much.


But anyway, in a well designed Aquaponics system the "mulm" and other organic matter is processed out of the water before it cycles to the plants so that the medium doesn't accumulate too much and overfert or toxify the medium or the plants. The medium IS also the bio filter, so we don't want to be dumping "the decaying chunks" into the medium and overloading the cycle. (see #4 above in post #10)

hth,
10k

 

[SlowCalaToker]

Thanks for the respons, 10k. It's so effin awsome to have experts in the field that yo can pick their brains!

 

[Ipsissimus]

aquaponics with tomatoes and peppers:

http://icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=2550972#post2550972

 

[captain.koons]

aquaponics run 1 was a flop. My girlfriend agitated the gravel and burnt the fuck out of my plants, plus I think I should be using a better biofilter maybe.

It wasn't a huge run and no harm really done.

I'm going to be more careful with run two, 10k do u just throw a lid over the table with netpots or what?

thanks for the link Ipsissimus

 

[Grow+Positive]

No, I think you must have missed the thread I linked for you above.
In it I went into great detail about adjusting fish population and pre-treating the top up water to accommodate the need for less N and more P&K later on in flowering.

I see where you misunderstood what I said above...
"True aquaponics does not need fertilizers, just a little adjustment and mostly in the way of feeding the fish and ramping up the population."

I really should have written...
True aquaponics does not need fertilizers, just a little adjustment and mostly in the way of feeding the fish and ramping the fish population up AND down.

Anyway,
Go to the other thread and you'll see it explained in much more detail.

see you there...
http://icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=127845

I'd be happy to help you get your system tweaked and up n running.

hth,
10k

yeah 10k your right my bad, i forgot that part. probably because it just doesnt sit well with me to use pH up and down to get the PK levels i want. but if thats how its gotta be then thats how its gotta be...? you have to add equal amounts of both to keep your pH the same, but ideally wouldnt you want to add more K than P?

and would it be feasible to have multiple fish tanks with different stocking densities to be used at different stages of the grow? say one for veg and the start of flowering, and another with less fish for the majority of flowering? or do you think this would cause deficiencies. granted you would have to always have the proper amount of plants...that might get tricky..

edit: when you said you used a filter to remove excess buildup in the water, did you clean the filter temporarily or just use it to keep shit from going to your plant roots? because i was planning on overkilling the biofilter by filling a 40 gallon trash can with lava rock and having my water pour through that, but if im going to need to REMOVE stuff then that wouldnt be the way do to it

 

[Grow+Positive]

and let me try to reword captain.koons question that you couldnt really answer, because i would like to know to. i believe he was trying to say:

if you had 2 containers of water, a 1 gallon container with 1000ppm and a 5 gallon container with say 600ppm. the 1 gallon you make into an ebb n flow system, the 5 gallon a continuous flow. would the continuous flow work with the lower density but higher volume of nutrient?

 

[Apache123]

and let me try to reword captain.koons question that you couldnt really answer, because i would like to know to. i believe he was trying to say:

if you had 2 containers of water, a 1 gallon container with 1000ppm and a 5 gallon container with say 600ppm. the 1 gallon you make into an ebb n flow system, the 5 gallon a continuous flow. would the continuous flow work with the lower density but higher volume of nutrient?

Good question!

 

[Grow+Positive]

10k did you take any kind of notes along your journey, anything to go off of for amount of pH up and down when topping off?

 

[OddPool]

I was running aquaponics for veg untill recently. We're having crazy hot weather, my tank got up over 90 degrees and I must have introduced an infected fish at some point. Basically, everything crapped out on me.

Basically, I have a few thoughts on the topic.

The bigger your tank/res the better. The more water your circulating, the more stable the entire system will be.

The bigger the bio-filter the better. Use lava rock, its super cheap I've been using it for years.

Take the time to cycle the bio-filter when you start things up! It takes some time.

You can't grow the same way you grow with standard hydro. Your plants become a part of an ecosystem. If you have 20 plants and pull all of them out of the system one day everything goes haywire. Any changes you make have to be slow so things can adjust.

The other thing I found is that the roots are covered in bacteria from your aquaponics system. My first round that went into standard hyrdo for flowering started root rotting in about 24 hours. I had to quickly flush everything with water and cycle that set up also.

I was basically cycling a few plants in and out of flower and veg rooms every 2 weeks.

 

[OddPool]

Oh yeah, as far as PH goes. You have to stay closer to 7 than a normal hydro set up. If you want to increase ph you add crushed coral, if you want to lower ph you feed more. But things will always tend to swing back towards neutral.

 

[Grow+Positive]

Good question!

I read that with DWC total amount of nutrients is what matters, but with ebb n flow its almost certainly concentration

 

[Grow+Positive]

Hey 10k sorry to bother you again. I was wondering if you had any info regarding how much you would spike your top off water.

Like total system volume, GH/KH of your top-off water, and how much you would spike it.

I was thinking using RO for top off would be more accurate. considering my tap water is 650ppm lol.

My new system is basically a biobucket set up. 3 buckets (11gal), sump (15gal), and tank (15gal). So totaling about 41gallons, i was thinking that spiking 1 gallon RO water from 7 to 8 would be a good starting point. Although thats probably like nothing

 

[hoopgirl]

Just checking..

Just checking..

hi guys, sorry to hijack this thread, having spent days reading and being slightly confused by it all, as with most newbies it seems, i think i understand finally and just wondered if i could run it past you.

I have been keeping fish for 2 years, and have a mature tank, never grown my own smoke, but aquaponics has just captured my imagination. My tank is a 10gall, with 5 black phantom tetra, 1 plec, 1 assasin snail (called leon, i thought that was genius) 5 guppies and a siamese fighter (elvis). because it is an aqua-one 320, which has a gravity filter, a pump goes to a spray bar then spray onto the filter medium (ceramic noodles and filter sponge) which gravity feeds the tank. i think a nft system would be fairly easy with this set-up, run a 1/4in pipe from the pump head and move the entire spraybar + medium to the top of the tray above the tank, and adapt the end of the tray with a similar feed pattern back to the tank below, also thinking is it possible to use the cermaic noodles (unfortunatly new and unused) instead of clay pebbles as my growing medium? maybe a little peat around the seeds when i transplant them.

I am going to move the entire tank into the cupboard and have both the light for the plants and the light for the tank on the same timer so the fish have light too, then pop in twice daily to feed the fish and check the plants, two to start with.

One question i do have, what is the effect of the change in light intensity/colour on the fish, am i advisable to partially shade the tank to protect them from it, as i do love elvis so much, i would hate to lose him, but can't really take him out of the community tank, as he might get agressive when i try to reintroduce him. The idea is if it all works to set up another tank to cycle during my next grow, then put the tank to snails.

So any thoughts or glaringly obvious flaws in my plan anyone can see? I plan to set this up over the next 2-3 days as my seeds are already in paper towel to germinate

 

[hoopgirl]

oh bugger posted this in the wrong window, thats what you get for having multiple windows, sorry, shall go repost elsewhere