Pushing the limits

[Wendy in BC]

I would like to start a thread that discussing pushing the acceptable limits of AP. Do you have a shallow growbed? and underrated pump for your system? High stocking density? low GB/FT, air stones or no air stones? or anything else that is considered unconventional in this very unconventional pursuit.

Post your successes and failures, as well as continued challanges.

This should be fun and rewarding :carrot::broc1::p::rolleyes:

[Wendy in BC]

OK, I'll start:

I think I have about 500-550 L in my FT right now, and I don't know how many fish. I had about 50 little fish in my 100 litre FT with a 100 L GB. When I went to an IBC FT/GB my filtration ratio dropped : about 550L/250L FT:GB The fish have made more little fish!!~ It's only been a couple of weeks into the new system, and I' still cycling:

NH3 =.5
NO2 = 2
NO3 = 100-160

Fish and plants are happy

I have lots of airstones in addition to solids filtration X2, so far so good, but I'm pushing the limit and am always watching!!

[bigdaddy]

Hi Wendy,

It all gets down to your capacity to correctly filter,If you are feeding your fish at the correct feed ratio, and the water perameters are within limits,you should be OK.

The depth of your grow beds from what I understand is not so much the issue rather your bio and/or mechanical filtration capacity.

When I am learning, I like to keep within the suggested limits,but the good thing about aquaponics are the many varied ways you can apply set principles to your system.

I'm right on the lower limit for my air pump aeration,but I am supplementing it with good aeration from my grow bed drains.I do plan to upgrade my aeration ASAP along with organizing a proper backup system.

I hope that has helped.

Cheers.

[Murray]

I think you will find dotted throughout the forum instances where people have reported difficulties.
Some are easy to understand what went wrong and some are not.

Sticking to the generally accepted standards, at least in the beginning, is the safe way to go and will in almost all instances deliver success.

[Wendy in BC]

Thanks BD, very helpful.

Murray, I couldn't agree more, however, whether intentional or not, there are systems that operate outside of the generally accepted standards, and I'm curious about how far outside the standards some systems successfully operate, and what mechanisms are put in place to cope with the stress, even if it's only temporary measures put in place while a permanent "fix" is being instituted.

[Wendy in BC]

I think it was lou that described, in detail, how he was managing to keep his trout going inspite of high temps.

I thought that post was awesome and very helpful to those trying to get trout to mature before the weather made it impossible.

That's the sort of thread I was trying to start.

We will all have to deal with the unexpected and untested. It would be nice if there was a quirk-like thread to consolidate the posts.

For myself, I will always be dealing with filtration issues, it's a tilapia thing. It doesn 't matter how many growbeds or fish tanks I add, the system will always be on the edge due to the tilapia breeding like rabbits warp 10.

Others will have their unique issues.

[Murray]

Yes Wendy,
Your circumstance (Tilapia) would be a good example why one should add some additional filtration like a swirl filter or a box filter or just a large sedimentation tank.
If you take a close look at the photos from the UVI system you will notice they have fine gauze filter screens over the top of the degassing tank. These are there just to catch any fry before they can get into the floating raft beds.