Getting started with AP

This document is in it’s ROUGH draft phase, do not take anything presented here as true or reliable unless it provides a credible citation source.
To comment and or recommend changes, please refer to this self.post http://www.reddit.com/r/aquaponics/comments/33rn10/raquaponicswiki_getting_started_attempt_2/

Getting started

  1. Don’t be too ambitious. Maybe aquaponics is not for you, maybe life happens and now you’ve spent a lot of money on something you have lost interest in. Myself and a few others have built something like this micro-system for less then $100 and it works great for introducing you to aquaponics without breaking the budget.

  2. Water conditions & state are crucial, so far the cheapest option out there is the API freshwater master test kit with the API KH & GH tests being important for checking water hardness and bicarbonate levels. Note! this is the only commercial recommendation I will make specifically because there isn’t a comparable cheap yet reliable alternative.

  3. Number of fish to Gallons of growspace/water is a guideline. A living aquaponic system is a moving target because plants grow, therefore needing more nitrates and fish also grow producing more ammonia ( which will be turned into nitrate via nitrification ). The safest path would be to understock and cull your weakest plants over time.

  4. Feeder goldfish can be great as a starting fish breed but generally they come with unwanted guests like fish lice or similar parasites. Its recommended to keep them separate from more expensive fish until you know they’re clean.

Quick warnings.

  1. Fish flakes is for fingerlings & fry. Feeding adult/large fish flakes won’t kill them but it can give them an air bladder infection which will cause them to float on the surface or swim upside down/sideways.

  2. Always check the label or better the MSDS. Some things won’t kill your fish or hurt your plants but can make you sick. If in doubt, try contacting the manufacturer of a product to ask if it is food safe or atleast FDA GRAS.

  3. Keep your fish tank shaded from light and or tinted green ( green prevents . Once an AP system gets going, the tank will be full of nutrients like phosphate & nitrate which is an all you can eat for free buffet for algae and some strains of bacterial. If you do get an algae or bacterial bloom, shading your tank can help solve this on its own.

  4. Your aquaponic system is a living system; the fish feed the biolayer and the biolayer feeds your plants while cleaning the water. Knock one part out and it can take the rest down with it.

  5. Citric acid ( lemon/orange/etc juice ) have antibacterial properties. General Hydroponics pH down contains citric acid.

  6. chloramine will not out gas in a day, it might even stay in water for a couple weeks. Vitamin C can neutralize/crack chloramine apart into chlorine and ammonia and the chlorine will outgas, the reaction for chloramine is really fast while outgassing can take hours or days… if in doubt, wait.

  7. Some have had success cycling their system using day old urine. If you want to try this, make sure you’re not on any medication as some of that will be passed through and absorbed by fish or plants.

  8. Dissolved oxygen becomes scarce as temperature rise while carbon dioxide levels rise as temperature goes down. Keep your water “cool” as appropriate for the fish breed and ensure you have proper aggitation ( drain line for a syphon powered bed “should” be enough ).

Plants

  1. Make sure your grow space has atleast 6 hours of direct sun a day. If thats not possible, CFL bulbs in an array can work but its better to get a cheap 2×2 foot t5 light fixture. Also be warned that using lights versus sun will limit what plants you can grow ( eg flowering plants need a more red light during their bloom phase while vegetables need a more blue phase.

  2. Lettuce or similar leafy greens can be a lot easier to grow then more completed plants like cucumbers, radish, or to some extent spinach

Quick tricks/common problems/common mistakes

  1. A functioning AP system will naturally drift to being acidic as part of the process of ammonia being converted to nitrates. As long as your pH isn’t crazy high like +8.4, it “should” come down so avoid using too much acid as its a lot easier to lower the pH then it is to keep it up.

  2. A common problem is using media that contains carbonates, it can take a very long time for it to react with the water in your system and therefore keep your pH very high for a very long time. You can find out if a suspect media has carbonates by submerging a piece in household vinegar. If the material bubbles for more than a few seconds, you are going to have a bad time.

  3. If your pH is too acidic, there is too much ammonia, or something is really wrong. Keep calm and go slowly. If your pH is too high but you keep adding some flavor of acid and yet the pH is still too high, you might actually be melting/burning the carbonates ( measured by KH ) and suddenly pH is going to crash & burn.

  4. Fish do not like extreme temperature swings ( except maybe goldfish but they’re mutants ), ensure your fish tank is insulated or you have an appropriate tank heater.

  5. Avoid putting powdered substances into your system: Carbonates, bicarbonates, ammonium chloride, etc as it is a lot harder to measure how much you’re adding as well as taking longer for the substance to diffuse into your system ( eg If you’re adding potassium bicarbonate, it does not readily dissolve and will sink to the bottom ). Additionally its a lot easier to make a mistake with powder/granular substances.

#Common acronyms & terms

  • AP – Aquaponics
  • Biolayer/Biofilter – This is the bacteria growing in your Aquaponics system that absorbs Ammonia & nitrites and turn them into Nitrate which your plants need to grow.
  • CHOP ( CHOP2 ) – Constant Height, One Pump: Fish can get stressed out when the water level rises and lowers so CHOP is a AP system design to avoid that.
  • CHIFT/PIST – Constant height in fish tank / Pump in Sump Tank: Similar to CHOP, a major difference is that generally water from the fist tank is sent into the media bed or into a line leading to the plants first.
  • KH – Carbonate hardness – This is a measure of how much carbonates are in your system’s water. The higher the KH, the slower/less likely your pH will quickly descend toward acidity ( Below 7.0 )
  • pH – A logarythmic measure of dissolved hydrogen in water. Neutral is 7.0, below 7.0 water become acidic and above 7.0 it becomes more basic. pH can influence the availability of nutrients as well as the health of plants & fish.
  • ppm – parts per million. This is almost exactly equal to Mg/l (Milligram/liter), either notation is a common measuring system for various compounds in AP water ( eg Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, KH, GH, etc ).
  • Nitrification – a Bacteria assisted process where Ammonia is ultimately converted into Nitrates – http://nitrification.org/
  • Bell syphon – a solid state ( no moving parts ) drain that automatically starts when the water level reaches a predetermined height and stops itself.

Further Reading

TODO