Aquaponics Rocks

[Guest]

Hi People

Before I show my very humble attempts at Aquaponics I'd like to display some photos of the favourite Aqua garden I have seen.



I have plans for my own backyard Aqua veggie garden but in a greenhouse with the pond providing better thermal control.

This mans system is a continuous flow of fish water pumped from the pond into the beds and returned to the pond.

A bit on how it all works

Fishes wastes are converted by beneficial bacteria into bio-available nutrients for the plants. The plants become part of the filtration process and in conjunction with high bacterial populations form the most impressive water filter I have seen attached to an Aquarium.

My 40-45 gallon (fluctuates) system deals daily with continuous quantities of raw fish waste without the need to change water. In conventional Aquariums water changes can be as high as 30% a week.

So one function of Aquaponics could also be described as, and this may be important for organic hydro as we go further into this journey - Water Based Composting.

It's all to do with the bacteria. Fish food can be converted to plant food without having any fish in the tank. Of course, it takes longer, or if it could be broken down in the same time, would require more bacteria.

Now I don't profess to know this for certain, but very strongly suspect - Organic nutes could be easily handled by the right populations of the same bacteria in a water based system. ie: DWC.

Back to the beautiful garden I found.

Aquaponics can EXPLODE! - Here's some wee veggies that were planted



And here they are 25 days later.



Now this guy is obviously an awesome gardener, but the question remains, what about fruit in Aquaponics?

Here's a tomato that produced over 9kg of fruit.



It's time for me to go get some coffee on. And think about what else I can share with you while I light a wee fire.

 

[Guest]

I have a feeling that this is going to be my new favorit thread.

 

[Guest]

I have been growing Aquaponics for over 2 years now. Some of my grows were awesome in that they showed real promise. Some were

Aqua weed, well, despite so many hardships, Aquaponic weed is what's kept me going for so long in the pursuit of a decent system to grow some Phat organic buds.

To go into all the trials and errors here would be too depressing, too misguided, and too long.


So let's look at why the above garden system is kicking ass instead.

Light - So much of it he has a shade beating it off. Got to love that sun when it's there.

Medium - This is what houses the beneficial bacteria that are so, well, beneficial! He has those beds filled with what looks to be expanded clay, a popular Aquaponic medium and what I use in conjunction with Aquarium gravel in my system. (I do not recommend Aquarium gravel unless you like me already have it in place and it's too much PITA to move, more on why later)

Bacteria - Because he has lots of grow medium to house them.

Aeration - Water is aerated as it trickles through the grow beds and again as it is returned to the fish.

Water Circulation - Stagnant water is unhealthy water. Take a look at a swamp compared to a mountain stream. Much of the difference seen in water quality is due to the waters movement. The garden is a continuous flow. Scientists have proven Aquaponic continuous flow to consistently be 20% more effective than ebb and flow.

Nutrition - The system is well stocked with fish that are fed a varied diet. Nutrients are constantly being made available to the grow beds through the recirculation of the water volume. Fish wastes are constantly added and processed.

Variety Of Planting - Tough one for a grow room. A variety of species provides pest and disease buffers. Perhaps an indica, several crosses, sativa, some industrial hemp for some rope to tie the damn buds up!

Ventilation - That great outdoors thing again.

I've likely missed something vital. that smoke was niice with two i's.

Yes, I did.

Continuous Cropping - Nutrient uptake levels are balanced out by having plants in varying stages of growth. Additionally this helps avoid too large a harvest at once and resultant imbalances beyond systems buffering capacity (disaster!)

We'll check out my Aqua next and see some MJ.

Promise!

 

[Guest]

Subscribed. Keep it coming.

 

[Guest]

Hi folks welcome to the thread.

Now that we've seen that mans beautiful garden could someone please airbrush my plants where the thrip and other plagues infested upon me have been.

I will put in extra smilies if you do.

This is my wee hobby grow, for my personal pleasure. Piccy first. Talk more soon it's inevitable with me hehe.



I have adopted bio-bucket recirculation and gravity fed waterfall aeration back into the barrel containing my fish. Other parallels to bio-buckets include recirculation (10 x per hour), beneficial bacterial populations, pH buffered* now seasonally running at higher temps without noticeable difficulties.

Huge props to Hurtback, Bio-Buckets creator and BigToke, Bio-Buckets Guru, both whom have helped me tremendously through their extensive writings/teachings.

*To get your water right for an Aqua grow you could learn a lot more about water quality and chemistry from reading Bigtokes threads. They will help you understand much more detail of what I am saying/trying to say/will try to say, about water, circulation, bacteria, etc, as well. I remain a humble student. Aqua top up water must, however, have 24 hours settling time to remove chlorines before adding in with fish. To this extent a system with a float valve would need a pre-tank that stores at least a days ration of peak water consumption included. I do not recommend water treatment with chemicals to remove what 24 hrs time will remove just as effectively.

My 'buckets' look funny because I had no money and so that's how they look.

Plants are in 6" netpots. Should/could be bigger. I have more medium in the form of an undergravel filter and gravel plus a bucket under the lid of the barrel that is filled with expanded clay and has water trickling through it.

One feature that made a huge difference for me, was having plants in varying degrees of growth. That is, veg, and bloom - 2 stages of bloom. Ideally you'd have plants in a larger system each a week apart and continuously cropped. Ideally... However, just the 3 stages rather than the just bloom I ran for so long has made, as I said a HUGE difference.



That photo is of a clone I'd put in the system to sex (there's 2 you see the best one of course) and then when they were girls I left them there. They were 2 inches tall when put into 12/12 8 weeks ago. We can watch them finish, Jack Herer, 2 weeks to go or even 3.

Here are the next clones that went into 12/12 the day after this photo. I believe they're gonna go nuts they've ignored the 'plants wait a week to stretch' belief completely.



Having various degrees of growth poses immediate problems for the indoor grower. 2 areas of lighting and both plumbed to the same reservoir. It's a system you have to really want. In addition to this I'm having trouble with horizontal lighting for 2 various heights in bloom.


Here's both those clones at 7 weeks. Lost so many photos from OG

We move on. Again, an airbrush please hehe.



That messy ending leaves you see is a pH problem caused by forgetting supplements in a stoner state. The minute I fixed it the damage stopped. The bubbler is for supplements I leave it in the res when it aint bubbling nutes. Details will come.

Tis late. I to bed and blessings all.

 

[Guest]

they look really healthy and thick . nice

 

[Guest]

hey Thx 420KM

Thing is, they look fat, they feel fat, but we'll really know when it's cut n dried I've been fooled by monster fluff before...

I'm quietly optimistic.

The system, imo, is reasonably well dialled in now. The variables however, keeping me on my toes. With no test equipment and no real idea of what to be looking for if I had it.

Did I mention I was both a hydro and fish noob when I started this thing.

I play a lot of it by ear now. Removed a fish for medication lost 1/6th of my fert potential a week ago. So I watch closely and upped the supplements to every 3 days instead of 3 then 4. Small changes are preferable every time.

The large plant is stripping nitrogen from leaves at a furious pace - but it's finishing. The clones I put in there are loving it and have no N problems at all.

I need to try get it all balanced out for a 5 weekly harvest. The new veg clones will only be 3 weeks when the current finishing plant is ready. So I'll leave a bit on it to keep the roots filtering for a week, the next plant the same, till I have the production line sorted at regular intervals.

The Jack Herer loves this system which surprised me as it has a finicky reputation. Super Skunk and Silver Pearl I can also recommend to aqua growers the Super Skunk was Cup Winning good. (literally dropped 2 guys on their ass from one hit)

Quality has never been a problem in Aqua, the plant might look like rubbish or picture perfect, I've had both, both will be STRONG, stronger than if grown conventionally.

I've grown Aqua

- On top of the barrel in polystyrene containers filled with expanded clay - great results.
- In a 6" pipe with small netpots and drippers - drippers clogged and roots overgrew the pipe far too easily tangling with each other.
- Mediumless was crap. I theorise the bacterial populations around the root zone should be highly populous and so you need a medium to support the populations.
- Passive gravity returned DWC. OK.... Not enough circulation and prone to root rot as soon as temps climb or pests arrive.
- Recirculating DWC small pump - Better. Still prone to pythium.
- Recirculating DWC large pump and waterfall return - BINGO! After reading Bigtoke I wanted this all the time, funds and parts finally fell together.

So to date I know two types of Aquaponics Systems that do well with 'fruit'.

Continuous flow beds.

Recirculating DWC.

Next we'll look at the formula. My method of supplementation, and conventional Aquaponic water practises.

Stay tuned.

 

[Guest]

Got stoned and changed my mind. Water stuff later when my head's clearer can add more detail.

Some history.

Other than Mother Nature’s natural aquatic eco systems, aquaponics first appeared at least 1,500 years ago in China. One entrepreneur got tired of dragging feed out to the ducks, the finfish and the catfish. He stacked the ducks in cages above the finfish and moved the catfish downstream from the finfish. Now when he fed the ducks their droppings and uneaten food fell into the water with the finfish. The finfish ate and “processed it.” The wastes from the finfish flowed downstream and sank to the bottom, giving food to the catfish which are natural bottom feeders and scavengers. The processed feed and anything that the catfish missed was channeled out to the fields to feed the rice crop. He fed once and harvested four times. The only drawback was that it was outdoors, so it got cold. Everything froze up for 5 months of the year. The theory was good but the execution left a little to be desired.

The Inca’s of Peru practiced a different style of aquaponics before the Conquistadors arrived. They dug oval ponds near their mountain dwellings, leaving an island in the center. After the ponds filled, they added fish. Geese flew in, harvested their meals from the water and relaxed on the island. Their droppings and fish scraps quickly turned the island into a super rich, high quality garden. Now not only did the Inca’s have the geese doing the fertilizer work, they also had fresh fish readily at hand and a moat around each garden to keep out hungry prowlers. Plus the mini pond/island system created a local micro-climate that stayed a little warmer than the surrounding mountains, giving extra days of harvest every year. The production from the Inca aquaponic systems fed more people per square mile than any type of farming to this day, in that same type of high arid land.

Stoner ramble time.

Another technology that's cropped up recently, and is common in poorer economic countries is bio-digestors. Bio-digestors process almost any bio-mass (organic waste). They perform many interesting functions I will get to their relevance to Aquaponics shortly.

Biodigestors will get for example pig manure, cow manure or plant waste and...

• Reduce pathogens
• Reduce greenhouse gases
• Provide free power (gas)
• Provide Fertiliser
• Reduce ground and water pollution
• and more

A bio-digestor is a multi-faceted benefit. Ecologically sound. Good quantities of clean burning gas (profitability has been proven in several large agricultural farms) and quality organically available fertiliser. Plus by-products of ammonia and sulphur dioxide that can be readily sold to industry.

The fertiliser content, or solids, that come out once 'treated' in a biodigestor can be further treated utilising a shallow pond system.

The first pond is green water - algae, single celled algae that bloom and boom on this organic content.

A portion of this algae is regularly flushed into the second pond. Plankton. These feed on the algae and bloom and boom themselves providing regular servings of fresh protein feed.

A portion of this is then flushed into a fish pond at regular intervals....

You get what I'm saying!!?

You can get organic manure, any system waste from your Aqua ponds, all your plants roots and stems and crappy foliage, throw it into a biodigestor and pond system and create

Gas = Free Heating and Lighting for your Greenhouse
Fishfood = Free quality protein fishfood, which as we know we can turn into veggies and fruit.

If you are a farmer, greenhouse operator, or plan to be either, I highly recommend learning more on Aquaponics and Digestors with pond systems you will outstrip your competitors profits handily.

Turn shit into 3 additional incomes/benefits.

Again, a reference back to those incans - fed more people per square mile than any type of farming to this day,

End of stoner rant.

 

[Guest]

lol yea i know what you mean about the fluff. im a soil grower myself ive seen some really nice looking systems out there. they look like the really produce. thnaks for the info dude

 

[RM - aquagrower]

hey there THS.

great start to what i know will be a great thread. guess you won the toss, lol. for those that don't know, the garden in the first post can be found at backyardaquaponics.com.

well, i got 3 girls out of 4 plants from seed. 2 NL and 1 ice. they look pretty good. i did get a bit over zelous while i was pruning out the underbrush. oh well, live and learn.

truth is, i had only planned for 2 girls (one of each) because when i was building the new system, i installed a shut off valve between the 2 sets of grow stations in the flower room. this was so that i could close the valve, and drain the system in order to hook up the veg system (that i've got to get off my ass and build), without too much disruption to the ones flowering. too many girls is a good problem to have i guess.

been in bed w/ the flu the last 2 days, so no pics yet, but stay tooned.

 

[dan kay]

here's some more good links. i've been planning an outdoor hydro system and stumbled onto aquaponics and it looked fun. i just don't have the time to set that up so i'm planning 1 or 2 outdoor waterfarms. one thing i did notice though is some recomendations to filter the waste water to to prevent toxic buildups. here's a couple good links i found in my searching around.

http://www.aquaponics.com/InfoAquaponics.htm
http://www.aquaponicsjournal.com/

 

[Guest]

Hi RM! Flu Huh? Sorry to hear that man good to see you're back up.

This is the thread yep, thought you'd like it. Tis our new home I put pretty pictures up already, swept a few corners, couple of books out of their boxes...

Hope you don't mind I took the liberty of getting recliner rocking chairs with seperate remotes cos Idon'tgrow ripped the springs and wire out of the old armchairs to try make Aqua scrog screens.

What colour would you like the lounge painted? I'm edgin towards green.

ROFL

I didn't give that link to save that man from noob stoner e-mails.

Hehe. Did you ever get the book or other gear he has? I'd like to buy it one day just to have it those gardens have much labor of love and vision in them.

Some of your favourite Aqua trivia and finds would be nice too. The field is so new we are few

I'm hoping to make this thread a fun informative ride for visitors as well as ourselves. Big learning curve yes, lots of reading yes, lots to learn yet Hell yes. But we have some experience in MJ now, perhaps a decade of collective years between us and other pioneers in AquaPOTics.

So we get to see piccy's of buds AND explore science and nature.

I still love it as much if not more than when I first heard about it.

I believe many growers will have information to contribute here as more on Aqua & bio & water & organics unfold. We will touch on subjects soil bio and hydro growers have experience in that I/we don't.


Hi Dan Kay. Thanks for the links.

Wastes may or may not be removed from your system according to how it is designed. I feed all of my systems fish wastes to my plants, the water is clear, fish and plants both fat and feeding heavily.

I used to remove my wastes, had an obsession with filters in fact, and in the process was removing the source of nutrients and growing smaller plants. Meanwhile my outdoor herb garden boomed off the excesses I watered it with.

Finally 2 years later someone pointed out I was robbing myself of nutrients, then an Australian Scientist created a zero waste Aquaponic system utilising consecutive plantings.



Lightbulbs went off! I'm zero waste must be coming up 6 months now.

Those beneficial bacteria are so good, if they are left alone with raw waste there will eventually only remain CO2 and H2O.

Conversations of how much filter, what type, were common, and dominated months of discussion.

In my honest opinion, as close to zero waste as you can get with plants of varied ages is where the growth/system efficiency really starts.

So, a formula was needed.

How much filter medium?
How much fish?
How much garden area?
How much water?
Supplements?

We have a basic working formula for MJ. This is not perfect. But it's a great start. Some basic guidelines for Aquaponic 'hobby' growers to get a system together that not only works, but runs very well.

Tweaking Aquaponics, like any organics, must be done carefully. Mistakes can take a long time to repair. This formula will be given so your fish will not suffer at all.

If you wish to 'tweak' the formula, it is at your own discretion and I welcome your results good or bad we'll learn from them. I'll likely be tweaking it myself.

Coffee time, WOOT! Damn I love me a good coffee with accompaniments

 

[Guest]

My Formula

1:2:4

1 lb fish (500 grams)
2 gallons medium (9 litres)*
4 sq feet growspace (600mm x 600mm)

Plus EJ nutes range (Grow, Bloom, Meta K, Microblast, Catalyst), mixed 1/40th strength in proportions as directed on the bottles for bloom. It is bubbled 24 hours in advance and added twice weekly.**


*Medium weight can change dramatically hence a liquid volume measure. (volume of space of medium taken equivalent to same measure of water)

**Me from yesterdays post - "Removed a fish for medication lost 1/6th of my fert potential. So I watch closely and upped the supplements to every 3 days instead of 3 then 4."


System Specs.

DWC Recirculating Aquaponics.

Fish

3 lb goldfish and growing
2 small catfish
1 surviving snail big enough not to get eaten by goldfish

Medium

2 gallons Aquarium gravel (counts as medium) with undergravel filter
3 gallons expanded clay in bucket acting as trickle filter
1 gallon expanded clay in 3 netpots

Growspace
8 sq ft Bloom
4 sq ft Veg

Water

40-45 gallons total water volume.
15 gallons in 3 DWC sites or buckets (constant).
25 - 30 gallons in fish reservoir.
Uses approximately 10 gallons per week.

Pumps/plumbing

100 GPH pump running undergravel & trickle filters on 1/4" (6 mm) hose.
250 GPH pump running DWC sites. 1/2" (13 mm) hose for water pumped out. 1" (25 mm) hose for gravity return.
Water turnover of 10 - 12 times (faster after a monthly clean) per hour in 'buckets'.

Aeration

Venturi nozzle attached to main pump.
Gravity return waterfall with a 12" (300 mm) drop to reservoir.
Small single bubbler stone used for supplements left running in fish reservoir 5 days out of 7.

Lighting

400 watt HPS 12/12. Bloom side.
3 x compact flouro and one tube. All cool white. 24 hours. Veg side.

Ventilation

8" (20 cm) stationary fan aimed at bloom plants.
10" (25 cm) extractor fan on ducting drawing air directly from under HPS in bloom side.
2 x 4" (10 cm) computer fans (1 in 1 out) in Veg cabinet.

Temperatures

Bloom Canopy 80 - 88.
Water. Seasonally ranges from 66 - 78. Currently averaging 74/5.
Reservoir sunk in ground helps provide thermal stability.
Mylar on top of the plumbing and plant sites dropped temps 3 degrees over 3 days.

I use Earth Juice because it was there, and it worked. I will talk about conventional aquaponic methods of supplementation and nutritional imperfections tomorrow, if I don't get sidetracked that is.

 

[RM - aquagrower]

doh, didn't think about young stoner noobs pestering the guy. my bad. i have not ordered anything from him yet, but i may.

the new chairs are nice, but we should paint the wall flat white, maximize the lighting.

i first came across the aqua concept about 4 years ago, after reading an artical in a HT mag, written by breeder steve. i found it pretty cool, but being a noob at the time, i was really not real confident in the "shit in a sock" approach. had no access to a hydro store, and had no idea as to where to do the shopping for his recipe.

then, i found og and with it stumbled across the "aquaponics on the cheap" thread. i know that you didn't care much for it, but that thread made everything make sense. i bet i read that thread 5x at least. i guess that was my fav aqua find.

that and a couple of PMs that i exchanged with astro and nimby about proper aeration using powerheads. both of them basicly said that if the DO levels are good enough for fish, then they are good enough for plants.

strangely enough, even after a year and a half of keeping fish, i realized that i didn't really know nuch about BB. lots of study on slow sand filters (from the og faq) tought me all about them.

well enough history.

at this point i'm still using a good bit of mechanical filtration in the fish tanks, in the form of a hob on each tank. no charcoal tho, just a bit of barley in the bags. also have a small "solids catcher" at the end of the drain line into the bio filter. i figure that if/when the catcher fill up i can dry it out for later use.

 

[Guest]

2 RM - Flat white it is, damn man where's I put those sunglasses? We need artwork now, I'll browse.

You reminded me of venturi nozzle I got, don't they rock! I even have invented a 'reverse venturi' (silent) we can look at when I put my pond in.

No worries on the link. I juggled whether to add it in.

Mechanical filtration - Losing the 2 sponge filters from my grow greatly improved overall vigour and health.

I also have a skimmer design that costs very little for fish folks or bio types interested.

My sponge filter is now on standby so if I ever have to pull everything, or a disease hits....

I figure there are a huge array of conventional Aquarium pieces and both you and I have some. Me, undergravel filter, you, hob's.

Now as we know, these house bacteria thus serving their purpose if not placed to encourage anaerobics.

If I ever started fresh I would only have as system basics

Large medium beds
Fish
Pump and plumbing.

Again, a mechanical filter on standby. When the system's are new, and if the water starts to befoul hook a mechanical or in-line filter up till you have enough bacteria to do the job for you.

System running borderline - hook it up!
Need to remove medication - put the charcoal in!

Aquaria has sooo many wonderful toys, some we can use for sure.

From the new Aqua growers who come after us we'll see a ton of Aquarium stuff that may/may not be adapted to Aquaponics. I pray my counsel is wise and you can help keep me honest.

"Aquaponics on the cheap"? - The Anointeds thread?

I read it repeatedly too, read everything I could as you'd know.

I thought it was fantastic, but flawed. Like my system.

The 'nature kills off fish till it's balanced' was bullshit imo, and encourages fish noobs to nitrogen poisin everything without knowing what's happening.

Or was it another thread.

Breeder Steve's sock was ingenious wasn't it. Basically what that told me was - Aquaponics is extremely difficult to balance here's a list that should you find all the ingredients you win the title of gardening kleptomaniac.

Imagine trying to get all that list fresh and in the same place at same time.

I was daunted more than inspired.

And you saw me struggle over six months to correct the mess a sock made of my water.

Anyone with half a clue can do Aqua, it's not an experts domain, it's just new. A capacity to read and study, willingness, good with tools, you're away!

I've had 'experts' tell me DWC will never work in Aqua.

Can't be done to me is an invite for open rebellion. Still not growed up!

 

[Farmer John]

Very interesting...

 

[Guest]

Damn, just visited the room. Bud rot on one clone and centrally located. Removed about 2 fists of bud (all part of one bud) half rotting the rest attached to it.

The next two clones were topped in veg as I knew those first buds were likely too top heavy to avoid problems. Hoping the next lot has more, smaller, buds.

Nice really that we've got to this in Aqua - my buds are too fat and my plants grow too fast I need to top to slow them down and stretch the canopy out a little.

I guess a dehumidifier would help (it's midsummer and high humidity) but damn man I got 11 things plugged in down there already I think. And I can't afford one

Electrics:

3 x flouro compact
1 x flouro tube
1 x HPS
2 x computer fan
1 x standing fan
1 x extractor fan
2 x water pump
1 x bubbler

TWELVE ALREADY! 13 could be bad.

4 freak'n fans in there and budrot. I was knocking off shade leaves to let air in and aiming a fan in on it too.

I'm over it already (kind of) but how do I stop this from happening. How do you grow monster buds without rot? - Wait for Winter?

to 420KM - they are VERY solid at the top till the decay lol.

The biggest plant the buds are spreading seperately now so should be ok touch wood.

I'll try get camera today for 8 week shots and the new two clones first week in 12/12.

OK I'm still bummed, damn rot that would've been at least a childs football sized bud.

 

[RM - aquagrower]

bud rot huh, sorry about your loss. that's one hurdle that i've yet to battle. you'ld think that w/ 4 fans, you'ld have plenty of air movement to keep that from happening. any idea where your humidity is sitting? kinda puts a crimp in the "el cheapo rez cooler" back up plan.

some roof fans come with a humidistat/thermostat controller. maybe if ya can scrounge one of those up it may help solve the problem. i have one hooked to a secondary fan in the flower room.

the main thing that you have to worry about w/ electrics is the total watts used, not how many things are pluged in (as long as you're using good power strips). from the looks of it your only running about 800 watts total, so you could prob go up to 1500 without too much worry.

yea, it was the annointed's thread i was talking about. the main thing that thread showed me was that aqua dwc was possable. we've also got to remember that was his first attempt. at the end, he talked about a "version 2.0", but that never happened.

sadly enough, that seemed to be a common theme. whenever someone had some success w/ aqua, they would quit posting (present company excluded, of course).

altho i thought hassain's "let natuer balance the fish population" to be a bit on the cruel side, it did see the logic behind it. personally, i prefer to use a $10 NO3 test kit (from the pet store) to keep track of things. that, and a cheap (pet store) PH kit are all i use to keep things in check.

that brings up something else. i have noticed that the PH in the grow system seems to slide down a bit. i would recomend any noobs keep a close eye out for this. astro once lost a whole tank of fish because of a PH drop below 6.0. he said that coused him to loose his BB colony. i try to keep mine at 6.5.

i use UGFs in all my tanks as well. i had quit using the hobs in the feeder tanks for a while, but had a small issue with the pump filter and powerheads cloging w/ solids. that was when i changed the "solids collection method", and hooked the hobs back up.

that and you know my theory on bio-filtration, too much is just right.

 

[RM - aquagrower]

a note on breeded steve's "shit sock" method:

i may be wrong, but i'm under the impression that the purpose was not to leach the shit into the system, as most think, but to feed a flock of algie eaters that further "process" the ingredients of the sock.

that would explain why that approach fouled up your system so badly.

 

[Guest]

I had budrot before with that Barbary Mom as well she was fat but skinny compared to this bud. My fan is inadequate I need a better fan drawing cold air in, I knew that, and it gets real humid here this time of year, I knew that too (ulp) so it's growers fault really (& that'd be me).

On my sock, at that stage I had 5 algae eaters of 3 varieties and multiple snails and shrimp in the barrel.

The socks contents leach nutes regardless of critters feeding on it much will get in the water stream. Steve was happy with the attraction it caused his Algae eaters and summised it was good for the food chain being processed immediately. And it is...

My algae bloom the fish snails and shrimp didn't stand a shit show of cleaning it up they could hide in it. But I recall several contributing factors - Light, sock, 3/4 crop harvested at once without enough buffer.

Steve may have had good balance, and props to him for pioneering the idea of Aquaponics MJ afaik, but imo it was still too hard for the average person to get half of what was on his list.

Husseins stuff made a lot of sense to me too.

Thing is with us all being noobs at this I prefer to be open on what I disagree with. It's not a personality thing (like I feel about trolls) it's being honest of what I think of the systems points, and why.

I have huge respect for all Aqua growers, I've made plenty of mistakes and learned from them all. Fish death isn't necessary to balance N as we know nor is a professional scavenger hunt for a sock to correct nute imbalances.

imo

Too much filtering is just right. Yes! Too much bio-filtration.

What will happen in an established system is the bacteria population will die off till it is 'just right'. Too much provides the buffers neccessary for a constantly changing ecology.

A bacterial population cannot be forced upward and remain there. It will naturally die off till there is only enough to process the organics in the system. Likewise it will grow, given the correct conditions, as your system establishes. Settled tap water added regularly replenishes and adds diversity to bacterial populations as they are attracted to the particulates present in the water.

In a hobby sized system I prefer supplementation because -

A partial harvest (1/3) will remove some bio filtration and obviously wont uptake the nutrients the system was previously using. It will however remove the harvested plants potential wastes. This is a good time to skip supplementation and add only water. Within a few days all the rest of the plants have grown a little, the new plant has rooted in the space provided, and supplementation can continue.

In a larger system with plants planted weekly over 13 or more weeks, and with heavy stocking, supplementation is done away with and only pre-treatment of top-up water is neccesary.

With good husbandry, bacterial populations should fluctuate within your systems needs. As fish grow, and plants grow, and continuous cropping, 'too much' bio-filtration allows your garden to do it's thing.