The Golden rule to start your aquaponics 

Thank you :) A friend and I are about to start our first hydroponic setup with the eventual goal of transitioning to aquaponics as soon as we get some practical experience with the basics, this will most definitely help.

Great video and awesome information. I'm looking at starting up my IBC setup shortly, but I've been getting as much information as I can.This has been one of the best instructional video I've seen for setup before placing fish. I would've done what you said not to do. Looking forward to watching more of your video's thanks.

Thanks for the video. Good information! Thumbs up from me.

very good explanation

amazing information

Good content I've been learning a lot from your video's. I've been working on a chop and flip myself, i put a few videos of my progress. Keep making video's :).

Excellent video. Very informative and essential for beginners

Hi Jonathon and Rock, I use bore water in my aquaponics and do not add any salt to the system. When I salt bath my fish I use a plastic tub and add salt to the tub. Fish are placed into the tub and after a few minutes the fish are caught with a net and placed into the fish tank. The salt stays in the tub. Cheers, Jim

I feel so good now, that I have already figured the fish should go in way later myself.

very useful. I am running very high ammonia after 4 weeks but have not gotten any bacteria yet. I put some discharge water from my septic system to try to accelerate the process. Holding my breath and trying to be patient. I have a 20,000 gallon tank so it is taking its sweet time.

Great value contribution of potential knowledge of aquaponics breeding lesson basic knowledge.

ask someone with a running fishtank system for dirty sponge from the filter and drop inside yours, thats a kickstart.

Thanks for the Vid Jonathan. Followed your advice to cycle my new system. Got excited though and planted some lettuces in the DWC. However now that I have introduced the fish (gold fish), which are still small, they are not putting out enough to keep the nitrate level above zero. Can I add liquid seaweed or something like that to feed the plants without hurting the fish?

Add 1 more fan to your club. Very informative.

Hi Melbourne Aquaponics, I am planning to do a aquaponics set up for a 3 ft by 1.5 ft by 1.5 ft tank for breeding discus. Could you advise aquaponics is suitable for breeding discus and how to set up such a system? Thanks!

If you're reading this and thinking about starting in aquaponics and you've never taken care of fish, get a planted aquarium for your house. Just a small tank, a few tropical fish of your favorite variety. This will help you learn the proses for cycling a tank.

Hi Jonathon, Best tip I can give is to salt bath all fish before adding to the system. I salt bath any new fish and if I see any fin rot, body lesions or fuzzy lesions I will salt bath all of my fish. A salt bath will remove all external protozoa, bacteria and fungi. Best to prevent white spot than try to treat it in a aquaponic setup. 1 cup of Pool Salt to 10 litres is a 2.5% salt bath. Add a vigorous airstone and observe the fish closely. Remove the fish after 2 to 10 minutes or if they roll over or look very stressed. Then place directly into the tank. I find this invigorates my trout. They jump out of the water at feed time the day after a salt bath. Some body lesions may require a repeated salt bath weekly. After hot weather my trout sometimes develop fin rot and fuzzy lesions. A salt bath cleans them up totally. My 3600 litre system is wrapped in hessian with soaker hoses along the top and impact sprinklers above the setup. 1 hose line wets the hessian while the sprinkler sprays from above. Run the cooling system for 10 to 20 minutes in the evening and the morning during hot weather and if needed once or twice during a very hot day. This way i keep the water well below 25C. I do not feed the trout during hot weather. My trout survive summer due to my cooling system and salt baths. Enjoying your videos, Thanks, Jim

Merci

good

thank you handsome for the good advise.

For salt water (sea) what substances to use? I need for crabs. Thank you

merci, ton graph résume bien toute ta vidéo

How do we measure the concentration of nitrates and ammonia?

Johnathon, what if you want to use an existing 20 gallon aquarium to start a new, small aquaponic system?

Thank you Jonathan 😊 !! Excellent video (even if your sexy accent is distracting), very informative, not over complicated and encompassing so much information in such a short time. PS: it's only the gents that have an issue with your "pronunciations" ..... it rather invokes a suspicion of envy of some kind ;D hehe

Does the grow medium itself transform the bacteria's from the fish water?

So your saying to set up the entire system with rocks, pumps, a handful of fish food, but leave out the fish and plants for the first month while the bacteria establishes?

Hi Jonathan I will like to know the name of the water testing kit you showed in the video thanks.

name of the box

I've heard that adding urine is a good way to start the bacteria before adding fish because urea breaks down into ammonia and starts the cycle

Should I also start to plant some seedlings also before i put in the fish?

can i use a filter for clean fish tank? if so what type of media?

you can also buy pure ammonia and use that to get tank going as well. much faster process then fish food. person who knows that he is doing can do it in 1-1.5 weeks. Search on google for details on concentration. Its a good video, but those are basic steps to start any fish tank, not really related to aquaponic in general. Or you can start with catfish or goldfish or betas (expensive), pretty much any fish that can grab air from the surface can survive cycle of the tank. For fish like telapia or other standard fish used in aquaponic setups for food, you need established tank that runs several weeks with stable bacterial ecosystem.

The nitrogen cycle is absolutely easy to deal with in an aquaponics system. The first thing you do is use chemical fertilizer with urea, ammonia & nitrate in it as a nitrogen source. Add this to your system weekly for a few months with substate in at least part of your system for the bacteria to grow on. Then, check the levels. After this, use trash fish such as feeder guppies, mollies, goldfish to make sure the system is balanced. Check levels again in a month. If they are good, add your tilapia, Pacu , or other production fish. Simple. For the narrator, please do this in french so the autotranslator will actually work.

Hi there. So I can understand this. If the fish produces ammonia and nitrates in the water. The fish have to be in the water first. When the levels of the two elements rise, do you take the fish out until those levels drops ?

Hi Johnathan! Question, once the aquaponics setup is complete and all variables have been properly worked out, you said to introduce the fish after a month, how about the plants? When can you introduce the plants into the system, is it prior to the fish introduction or after? Cheers and thank you!

I understood every single word what is that guy talking about. They must use a hearing aid or something lol what a joke.. perfect English. Thanks for the good videos and all the info... I have two Koi ponds connected by a small stream. There are two small waterfalls for aeration. The lower pond is about 18’ x 11’ and 3-4’ deep. I’m thinking to stock the lower pond with trout, and keep the upper pond for koi. Calling a hatchery today

how do I know the exact level of ammonia, any device should I use?

What about planting, can I start plants in the beginning?

can you please explain how we can move about 2000L system 50km. how do we break down and assemble again without harming the fish and maintaining bacteria in the growbeds. thanks

One beginer question ammonia Is suppose to be per and poop of fish or fish food

I set up an aquaponic systems 2 weeks ago. 3 days after the set up, I threw in 10 worms first to test see if they'll die with the water flooding. Instead of using the flood and drain method, I use 30/120 water changing approach (ie. 30minutes flooding the growbed 1/2 of its height, 2 hours stopping). If I smell something funny from the grow bed and fish bed, I am sure these guys won't survive. Contrary to what I thought, they survive. So I add 20 more, man they clean up the system for me. My system no longer smell funny inside the living room. My grow bed is a see-through plastic tray, last night I saw a worm swimming at the bottom of the grow bed sucking something on the small rocks surface. About four days after adding the worms, the fish tank water is clear. I can see all the way to the bottom. It's been 2 weeks, the whole system seems stable. No more dead fish after this. The plants are growing but slow, I guess we don't have enough sun in Toronto at this time, I need to add an LED grow light. Note : You must add an air pump to your fish tank. Air pump will bring more oxygen to the fish and grow bed where the worm reside. It also push out the bad air inside the fish tank making the system cleaner and more vibrant. I use mechanical timers to control both air pump and water pump so they don't get too hot and burn out as they are expensive. I am thinking of using flowform to increase the dynamic of water making fish, worm, plant, bacteria all grow healthy and fast.

Subscribed,, and don't be concerned about your accent I understand you perfectly my friend .some people just bitch for the sake of bitching lol

mon dieu..quel super accent.. laisse moi deviner... origine francaises ?? ou belge ??

I know this says for beginners but I must be in the stage before that. Are you talking about waiting to add fish or add fish then remove? Do I establish my tank and fish for a month first and then start cycling with my medium and seeds or plants? If Im cycling my system with the plants and medium in place first won't my plants die from lack of nutrients? I'm lost because I don't know what your sequence is. Some background information would have been helpful.

Can this type of aquaponics be done in an apartment

What kind of tomatoes are those though

Is there any training centre?

What if I use aquarium water?

I don't like the fish-less cycle method that much. I think there are other issue to really consider. What this video totally leaves out it is concern of overall bio load. Whatever amount of ammonia one introduces, it should somewhat be representative of what amount the fish produce later on...if you add fish to a system where the bacteria level cannot handle the amount of ammonia the fish produce you will still get further cycling happening, i.e. spikes of ammonia and spikes of nitrate. So just adding ammonia and wait for ammonia & nitrate to spike and settle will not do the trick just like that. I find by far the best method is to grow the bio load incrementally, so add 1-2 fish and raise it step by step: If you have large tanks system the initial level of ammonia and nitrate are not that severe at all. I have done this method with many many tank systems over the years and never had a problem. The other issue is if one cycles with just an initial ammonia injection, is that once that is converted to nitrates you starve the bacteria that coverts the ammonia. So again a constant supply of ammonia to the tank is better, that starts very low is then incrementally increased to the level needed.

Your website doesn't appear to be working.

Hi Jonathan, I am interested to know, if I can go for mono-cropping for a commercial system at first place?

for beginner try catfish, they hard to die

salut, ton site internet est inactif..

You are easy on the eyes.

dont put all the fish in at once . buy like 2 fish then add them, 2 days later add another few. etc etc. to give the bacteria time to multiply.

OK, I get to not add the fish right away. No fish no ammonia so you add fish food. What amounts of fish food or ammonia for what size systems? No bacteria no Nitrites and so no Nitrates. If it is just water then obvious question is when do the plants go in? Thanks for warning about these issues. More please.

Stage 2 is nitrites...pronounced "Nightrights". Well done otherwise. Next video: Fishless cycling?

I hate to sound like a typical american but, it would be helpful if you could enunciate a little more. When you say "nitrates" and "nitrites", it sounds like the same word. Don't be afraid to exaggerate the vowels. We do it all the time.

Could you just piss in the fish tank at the start? Serious question :)

Seriously, Why the fuck not just plant plants, in an already established fish system?

Your points are not precise...say it clearly please. What can be done to avoid it

This sounds stuipid but if not taking meds and eat a vegan diet could you set up an aquaponics system with human pee ? Then switch to fish then crustations after you have resources sounds crazy hah

Its pronounced Nitrite not Nitrit; like NitRIGHT as in right. I understand cause you don't pronounce the last vowel in French but it is important in English as it changes the word. If there was no E at the end you would be pronouncing it correctly.