Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a 1500 gallon system one swirl filter and one bio filter. My question is, how often should I clean my swirl filter?

Some people do the cleaning daily. Every week in summer would probably be good enough but I would avoid anything longer than 3 weeks between cleaning - this would be the absolute longest I would leave it during the warmer months. The bacteria that decompose the waste under anoxic/anaerobic conditions are slow growers but at some point enough gas production occurs that the solids can float up, making them harder to deal with and the gasses can also create problems for the fish and of course the gasses represent lost nutrients. If the solids float up you've waited too long, clean more frequently.

You might also be able to automate this and do it daily. I think someone around here has done this.

Thanks for your help. I’ll correct this in my book. I’ve been doing it monthly and I’m beginning to see changes in my garden.

Hiya Gil, I got lazy with my swirl and although had no adverse effects on the fish I found it affected my pH. I’d always had a high pH but almost immediately once I removed the swirl from the system the pH dropped and now I’m constantly battling low pH and considering reinstating it!

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Skeg In The Hills.

I believe that with your help, I’ve solved my swirl filter problem. Now I have no idea if I’m reading my API test results correctly. None of the colors are even close. The colors don’t match the cards that came with the kit. All of them are too light in color. Now the kit chemicals are old, could they be the problem?

It's possible but not likely that all the chemicals for all the tests would have gone bad. Post up some pics to show what you're seeing. Sometimes the angle or the background you use makes a big difference. It's also possible that the water color or some additive that changes the color (like some types of iron) can make the results tough to read.

How would I go about sending pictures to backyardaqoaponics? I'd like to do so<

There are several threads on adding pictures that are located here - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4