thanks everybody! someday i'd like to set up a couple of greenhouses
hey Cecil..
i haven't done anything with floating rafts (although i'd like to!)
i had trouble wrapping my head around the uvi stuff, and dr. rakocy's excel spreadsheet (for backyard systems) got me ever more twisted.. my take away is it seems to me that the surface area provided by the media for bactera was the more important factor, so i base the fishload on the amount of media.. i figure that for every 100 gallons of media, i can grow out 25lbs of fish, i'll added media surface area when i add filration... the only time my nitrates have gotten high was right after i cleaned out the beds.. i try to test weekly, and haven't had any issues with ammonia or nitrites
i've actually got to get started on adding filtration.. i've got a few more barrels and i'm trying to figure out how i'm going to lay out a 2 or 3 stage filter... then i'll figure out how many fish i can add... your moving bed media manufacturer should be able to give you a good idea of how much waste their product processes
lettuce will do great until it gets hot, but rafts with insulation may keep your temps more stable.. media growbeds are major heat sinks... you may have trouble with tomatoes while the system is still "new" - i found that maxicrop with iron was a good supplement, i used a capful or so every few weeks.. it took a while, but i did have a major ph crash at around month 8, i added lots of shellgrit and a little hydrated lime and try to keep the water at about 7.2-7.4
