Indoor System v2.0

Margali

My big outdoor system is on hold so I set up my fish tank again. System is for pretty plants and some herbs. System is pretty basic PIFT with constant flood. The second bed will be online once my uniseal arrives in the mail.

Tank- 29gal (110L)
Growbeds- 2 window boxes with total of 4gal or 0.5ft3 (15L) of wet lava rock
Fish- 6 goldfish that are 1.5" long

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Based on 1lb / ft3 media and the goldfish weight page, I can keep these 6 until they are 5". Or I can get a few more and plan on moving them to the outdoor system as they get bigger.

Margali

I added the fish last night. The tank is at 74oF and salted to 1ppt. Test results this morning:
pH 7.8
ammonia 1.0
nitrite 0
nitrate 20

scotty435

I like the setup and how you hung the planters :thumbright:

Cheers

Margali

I got the second growbed online. I'm going to train ivy from the top planter to hide the pipes.

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I used 1" slip by spigot elbow and coupler thru the 1.24" uniseal to save some room. The gravel guard is a tea jug. I used a hot nail to make some small holes in the edge of the planter so twist tie can secure inlet piping.

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I've seeded the new growbed with lettuce and basil. The smallest 2 of my 6 goldfish have died. Ammonia was ~.75ppm and nitrate 20ppm before I added 10% more water to the tank.

scotty435

Nitrate wouldn't be a problem at this level. I would hold off the feed and let the ammonia levels go down. If you haven't salted to help against Nitrite toxicity you may want too (it also helps the fish build a slime coat).

Salting for Nitrite issues - 1ppt = 1KG per 1000L or 1gm per L

There is a good ammonia toxicity table in the IBC of Aquaponics pdf which is a free download. The link is in the upper right corner of the web page.

Hope this helps and sorry to hear about the fish

PS - one other thing you should note from the table on Ammonia toxicity is that temperature and pH both have an effect. If you add water with a different pH or temp, the ammonia in the water could become more toxic (switch forms) so the water change out may not always be a good solution.

Margali

System is salted to 2ppt now. I ran out of salt...
I only fed the fish once since I got them. I won't feed them again until the ammonia drops. The dianthus plant has some new growth so it should be sucking up nitrates.

Temp 74oF (23 oC)
pH 7.8
Ammonia 1ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 80ppm

Margali

System is going okay. The dianthus has a lot of new growth. The other plants and seeds aren't doing anything. I really need to get lights set up.

Temp 74F
Salt ~2ppt
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 5ppm
Nitrate 40ppm

Margali

My system sounded really loud this morning so I investigated before work. The bottom planter has split above the uniseal after only a couple weeks. Luckily the water was all going into the tank or it would have been a huge mess.

Now I have to figure out what narrow planter to use... Or maybe switch to hole out the bottom like Geek2Nurse's setup. It may have been the torqueing on the wall that caused the problem.

scotty435

Glad this mostly came out OK.

Hole out the bottom sounds good. Considering what happened I'd change the layout to pump straight up the center between the shelves and put the drain holes where it overflows above the tank in the center area as well. Maybe drill larger holes through the shelves to make it easy to install the drainage fittings through the planter base. Try to make it so if any leaks happen they go into the tank like this one did.

Cheers

Margali

Here is a picture of the damaged bed. The problem was my skill with drilling the hole. Looking at it the hole egg shaped and top side where it split had all the stress.

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I ended up moving the higher shelf so they were at same level. I couldn't find any decent 2' lights. I have a 4' long light with 2 T8 4100K spectrum bulbs. The shield isn't great but that's okay. My living room is like a cave.

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Most of the plants are in poor shape with the all the problems. However, I'm happy to say my 5 fish are still in great shape. These 2 are really cool. Punk goldfish with mohawks!

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scotty435

Looks like you've eliminated some of the potential for spill problems. You could also put something over the end of the tank where the pump is if you have any doubts about the hose coming loose. Since the pump discharge is pointing up it could spray into the bottom of the shelf and make a mess. This is probably overkill though.

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