Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

ok so I have gotten my first system up and running 17 gold fish and 18 lettus plants (floating raft) and a few tomato and pepper plants started in the growbed with expanded clay as the media.

Water reads 7.4ph, .25 ammonia and 0 on the trates and trites. System has been running since saturday. have also added aeration via 4 air stones and an airpump rated for 100 gallons (my tank size running about 80 gallons of water). Water temp around 60 degrees.

My question is in regards to cycling. What would the ideal ph, ammonia, nitrates and nitrites levels be?

Everything I have read says PH should be 6.5-7.0 is this correct?

thanks in advance!

your ph is fine where it's at.. read up on cycling, it will take about 6 weeks, first you'll have an ammonia reading, gradually the nitrites will come up, then nitrates start to go up, but you're not fully cycled until ammonia and nitrites reach zero the day following an application of ammonia

My PH was 9.2 when I started to cycle and it has come down to 8 naturally, a higher ph isn't bad when starting a young system but as your system gets older a low PH is probably better. With Gold fish they can handle it. and your levels seem right for a just started system... are you looking for what it should look like when it is cycled?

yes i have read the cycling material in all areas I can find. But as CityRootsFarm mentioned I guess what I am looking for is a normal reading on a cycled system.

Also two more questions.

What is everyone using as a plant food prior to planting in their aquaponic system? I am using seeds and then starting them in rock wool cubes under a dome covered seed tray. but at some point a fertilizer of some sort would be needed and I can't use water from my system as that is not cycled yet. I would like to stay as organic as possible.

Also for my 80 gallon system do you think 17 gold fish makes for the correct amount of fish to get this cycled? should i go for 25 fish? Do i have to many? I have read 1# of fish for every 5 gallons in a cycled system and when cycling no more then 1# for every 20 gallons. So what is everyone else's experience?

Maxxi Crop + iron for your "fertilizer" as Keith said 0 ammonia 0 nitrites and a reading on nitrates thats what you are looking for

What is a good iron additive? Any recommendations?


~ jtk07~
using Tapatalk - please disregard typos!

Maxi crop +iron it's an all in one