Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Got caugh out bigtime by the heavy rains weve been having in the north. My system has been going for a few months now and hadnt bothered to chech my nutes for a couple of weeks. It normally sits around20-40 ppm nitrates and ph of 7.2.

Checked today Ammonia 4ppm!!! nitrates2-5 ppm!! nitrates 20-40 ppm and PH 6.4!!!

Because the tank has been constantly overflowing with rain water ive really bumped up the feed for the crays and the fish as i thought most of my nutes were being literally washed away (im estimating at least2000 liters of extra water have ben added by the rain in the last 2 weeks).

What im guessing is that i didnt take into account the fact that rain water is on average 5.6 PH depending on location and that the sheer volume of acidic water dragged the system down against the bit of shell grit ive got buffering the system.

Once the ph of the system dropped belowthe sevens the bacteria got sulky and stopped doing their thing, i in the mean time have been belting the food into the crays and the rainbows and adding to the systems woes.

Luckily we went net collecting today at the beach for a seperate biofilter and i collected a heap of cuttlefish quills for the chooks. Used a grater and grated the quills into the system ,and am running the pump continuously.

Just checked the ph and its up to 6.8 will check in the am and if needed more cuttlfish or even some bicarb.

Definately something to be aware of!!!

thanks for the update tim, i think you've got it pegged

so Tim, do you think we should chuck a bag of shell grit into each of the big grow beds as insurance? We've had over 400mm in the last 4 days

Well this morning saw 4 large redclaw dead and a couple of slugish ones Jaymie. I think what made my problem much worse was the idea my nutes were getting diluted so i was really cranking in the feed. the trouble was that the big sudden ph shift from all the rain water hits too fast to be effectivly buffered by the grit in the system and it knocks the bacteria for six. The long term fix is waterproof covers for the beds in monsoonal areas/high rainfall areas. Short term buffer maybe even with bicarb as its finer and may give a quicker result.Keep the feed low or stop feeding. At the end of the day if your getting a lot of rain water in your beds your going to get all sorts of wild ph swings Not Good!! . Maybe even stop pumping the fish water to the beds but then your bacteria is not going to like ph 5.6. My problems probably worse because the bed/tank has a large surface area to volume ratio ie 700L system4.5 sqm surface area.

Its a shame but hopefully im now just a bit smarter. its a trial system anyway so its done its job and i wont get caught again.

our tank is 90% covered, as is the big grow bed, 16 half blue drums and the towers. Only the medium bed, about 2000L is not undercover.

I love how 2000 litres is your medium bed.

hehe

The big one is 3500L

Jaymie, How about some more pics now that you're more established and the suns come out ??

sun what's that? Its still raining! we still don't have the pumps running fulltime
I got some jobs done yesterday in between downpours, but, soon.... :clock:

nice little cat 1 bopping around down your way Jaymie , weve got one up here bobbing around mornington isl its nice to have some decent rain , we havent had a proper wet since 2001