Establishing the nitrogen cycle, aka ‘cycling’, is the hardest, most frustrating, part of aquaponics, in part because the activity is all invisible to the naked eye. aquaponics cycling, however, is the most crucial and probably the most difficult part of aquaponics – but it really isn’t that. You can start cycling a system by introducing the fish feed you will be using to feed the fish into the system, as the feed starts to break down on the bottom of the fish tank and in the growbeds it will release ammonia for the bacteria to feed on.. This is where we begin week 1 of cycling our aquaponics system. follow these simple steps for the first week of the cycling process: add the ammonia to the fish tank a few capfuls at a time. after you add a dose of ammonia to the system, take a reading with the ammonia reading kit..
The image above shows a typical nitrogen cycle that occurs on earth daily. for an aquaponics system to function properly, we depend highly on the bacteria and its function in the nitrogen cycle.to begin with, nitrogen really is the fundamental element for all living things on earth.. The aquaponic cycle kara myers once the beneficial bacterial populations and efficient cycling are established, fish may be slowly added to the system. it is recommended to start with cheap feeder fish, or goldfish, in an aquaponics system.. This starts the period of what we call cycling up an aquaponics system. it can be done with fish or fishlessly. i am a big fan of fishless cycling since it removes most of the stress of trying to cycle up a system with fish..
