People often ask how they should best start their new aquaponics system, or worse, they don’t ask!
 
Initially there are no filter bacteria to convert the toxic ammonia produced by the fish into nitrates for the plants to use; failure to manage this will generally result in a catastrophic loss of all the fish a few days after stocking the tanks.  On the other hand, the lack of nitrate means there is no food for the plants which then cannot grow healthily and soon show signs of deficiencies.
 
Starting a new system involves several steps and I recommend proceeding as follows:
 
1. erect the aquaponics system
 
2. fill it with water
 
3. start the pump/s and ensure the water flows correctly through the system, and if you use beds ensure that the flood and drain siphon is working correctly in each bed
 
4. heat the water to the desired temperature
 
5. plant all the beds or pots with seeds or seedlings
 
6. place fish into the tanks – it is desirable to have different sized fish in each of your tanks so that they reach harvest mass at different times
  
7. daily – monitor pH – the pH will normally be a little on the high side (>7.5) initially which is fine as, if you used inert components, it will lower as the system matures
 
8. daily – measure ammonia and nitrite – in an immature system both will increase rapidly as we feed the fish because there are initially too few filter bacteria to convert all the ammonia to nitrite, and nitrite to nitrate; if either is >0.5mg/? add BioPond at 1m?/5m3 daily to bring the concentration back below the threshold
 
9. weekly – measure nitrate – if the nitrate is lower than 50mg/? add SeaGrow at a rate of 1.5m?/m3 each day
 
10. once the ammonia and nitrite concentrations are stable below 0.5mg/? then you can reduce the measuring frequency to weekly
 
11. once the nitrate level exceeds 50mg/? you need not add any more SeaGrow as the fish are providing adequate nutrients for your plants.
 
We have started many aquaponics systems in this manner without loosing a single fish, try it, it works!
 
 
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