Dude with black dog led was awesome last night you have some really great people on your podcast keep it up bro (chickenhole) hog on here
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thanks alot
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@AquaponicSteve @BrayneGro @Aquaponic_Dumme I wanted to pick your brain at some point I have 5 55 gallon drums I collect rainwater and I was thinking about taking one of them and use it for like my fish reservoir and come up with some kind of system using 1 55 gallon bucket possibly into two 5 gallon bucket’s no more than four any thoughts or suggestions Will probably be using /goldfish
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@Hogmaster i would definitely say you have what you need to start up a system. Just get you a pump and some hydroton. Well pipe for plumbing of course but you wont need anything too complicated. If you have it on a 24 hr system with a siphon you can get away with not having an air pump but you have to make sure you have sufficient water surface breakage for aeration in that manner but yeah there have been designs made to accommodate 50 gal drums. Some of them actually just use 1 barrel and cut off the top 12 inches or so, flip that upside down and use it as their growbed and simply stack it on top of the other piece of the barrel. Otherwise you could make your own growbeds with a pondliner and some lumber. Hit me with any more questions brotha.
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Awesome I was going to go to the plumbing place tomorrow and get all the PVC that I need I think I may just start with one bucket I can always add on later
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How many fish do you think I should start with I want to get them stabilized of course first I have a bait store I can get some big goldfish
To cycle your system you have to wait for your 2 types of bacteria to colonize the system which takes a total of about a month to a month n a half unless you have access to a cycled aquarium or aquaponic system. You could then speed up the process by using a seed culture from your already cycled system by taking some of your media from that system or aquarium and add it to your new system which would introduce all of the bacteria you need to start the nitrification process. Taking the normal/long route, you will be dealing with ammonia for the first 2 to 3 weeks, after which your first type of bacteria will be established and ammonia levels will drop some and you will start to see your nitrites starting to register. After another 2 to 3 weeks your 2nd type of bacteria will have colonized the system and your nitrite levels will drop and you will see nitrate levels starting to register on your test kit. At that point is when you are free to add as many fish to the water as you want, after you take into account how many plants you are going to be growing of course. But to start your system cycling u would use just a few small feeder goldfish because this is the point when the fish are most likely to die, more so if you have too many. You could add plants at this point as long as your ph is good.(6.5- 7) They will also help with keeping the water cleaner for the fish during the cycling period. I only did 3 water changes when i started up my newest system. I used 7 goldfish that i pulled from my other system because i needed to get them away from the more aggressive fish in my main system. I didnt use a seed culture from my already functional system simply because i wanted to get a better understanding on the process. One thing that i did test out as a way to mitigate the stress that the cycling process would have on the fish is i added my own homemade biochar (maybe 15% of the total mixed media) into the grow bed which acted like a carbon filter to absorb ammonia and nitrites throughout the cycling period. The data i had to test this was my ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels, and the behavior of the fish. On my youtube channel i documented everything if you are interested in seeing that. Short of watching the videos, all of my fish survived and i only did 3 water changes up to the point when my nitrate levels started to register. Hope this helps
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What are your thoughts on it being in the same as my current grow area I’m worried about snails and other critters? Don’t want it to effect my other grow space 
I wouldnt put too much thought into it. When you do aquaponics its important not to look past the step of making sure that you add enough media into your growbed to create a dry layer on top that will prevent gnats and any other soil pests from gaining a foothold. I have had that problem whenever i have not payed attention to making sure i had a 2 to 3 inch dry layer. As long as you do that, then you will be good. I personally have never had snails but if you have them really bad in your area i would just say to keep an eye out for em. Fish will eat them so i wouldnt really see them being able to proliferate out of control anyway.
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Nice thank you sir not a snail issue but we do have them
@Whitewidownoobie here’s a podcast if you want to learn a lot about LED lighting and the differences