Hey Josef,
I hear you man. It's a darn shame that you lost your love for aquaponics. It has been years I know, and though this may be a long shot, but if you do happen to fall in love with it again, I hope you're doing great with it.
I've had my ups and downs, but overall, I absolutely love running my DIY aquaponics system. I've grown tons of great veggies with it.
The biggest problem I faced when I started out was the water getting constantly dirty and really messing up my tank.
Now, those of you who are running a small aquaponics system and facing a problem with solid waste and murky water, here are some tips that may help.
First off, don’t acquire too many fish. Maybe your water quality is not up to standard because you simply have loads of fish waste, which means you either lack sufficient plants to get rid of these nitrites and nitrates, or you simply have too many fish.
Try to find the right balance. I know it can be tricky but fish grow and produce more waste as they grow. Perhaps keep logs on how many fish occupy a given set of area for future reference.
Second, forget flakes, use fish pellets! Fish flakes make you water regularly dirty. That’s because they tend to float to a spot hidden by roots or vegetation, so those flakes don’t get noticed and they don’t get eaten. They just dissolve into the water.
Furthermore, the fish tend to scatter the flakes all over the place when they eat them. Pellets can keep food wastage to a minimum and help maintain cleaner water.
Also for newbies out there, if you’re concerned about your fish not wanting to eat right away, please keep in mind that you just introduced them into a new habitat, so they might refuse to eat for the first day or two. Allow them to get comfortable in their new environment first. The only way I can tell if my fish is hungry is to try to feed them. If the fish rejects the food, attempt again later or the following day.
And for those who are completely clueless on building an aquaponics system, yet keen on setting one up,
go check this site out.
