Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Also scottie - do you have any salt in your system. If not - I'd add some. Will advise how much after I see your answer.

Der - I guess it is as old as the plots

nitrite=2 is scary?



Been cycling for ~2 weeks.

No salt in the system.

Sorry Scottie - not so much. I was looking at the numbers at right (which of course are pH). 2 is not great, but for a short period should not kill the fish. It is tending upwards though - so monitor it closely. If it gets higher, rather than dropping, might be worth throwing a bit of salt in to help reduce the toxicity.

Ah, that can be confusing. Might swap vertical axes (put PH on left vertical axis) next time.



Ok. Thanks VB. I had not read that salt can be useful for that too. It appears salt is the AP panacea!

Need to read the Backyard Aquaponics Magazine Scottie .

As little at 17 grams per 1000 litres will reduce the toxicity of Nitrite - but if I was having issues (not disease related) I'd be inclined to dose at 1ppt (1 gram per litre) for a short while, because salt will also help with secondary issues caused by stress.

Scottie I agree with VB... dose them with salt for both the reasons VB gave....

Did the same thing as VB as well.... thought Nitrites = 8..... HSM.....

hehe! Let me rephrase ... I had not read AND REMEMBERED that salt can be useful for that too. Guess I'm getting old! (32 today)



Cool! Will do. Where's a good place to buy bulk quantities of salt? (& shell grit too)

Scottie - the Backyard Aquaponics Magazine hasn't been released yet

Many people just buy pool salt from Kmart or wherever.

& shell grit is available at most produce shops. Used for chickens.

I use calcium carbonate powder myself - also from a produce shop - is close to same price per kilo as shell grit. I may go back to shell grit though, or use a combination, so as to benefit from the other elements that may be present in shell grit which may help guard against deficiencies in the system.

A 20 kilo bag of pool salt will cost you 10 bucks from a pool or spa shop. Dose to 3-4 parts in ur system which will cause some plants to wilt but won't kill them. Adding shellgrit right now will increase the toxicity of ammo and nitrite by upping ur pH. Don't do it. If u need to buffer pH, do it when ur system is cycled and ur ammo and nitrite have dropped out.
Ur system is only mid cycle so just ease off on the food and let ur bio catch up. It won't take long in this heat. Ur fish has not died from lack of DO, its mouth was closed, ie not gasping for air. There are no noticeable stress signs, or red spots indicating nitrite toxicity so the rest of ur fish should be ok. It does look to have excess slime but I cannot remember what this relates to. Fish ppl will know.
Hope this helps.

TT - I may be wrong, but I thought high pH is bad for ammonia but low pH is bad for nitrite??

Lots of useful advice there TT - thanks very much.

I have another problem & I need some inspiration ...

I have plumbed 2 waterbeds together using 2 drain thingamabobs (see piccies). Water enters into 1 waterbed, flows through into the other & then exits via a drain with a U-bend (used to set the desired water level) before gravity draining back to my tank.

The problem is ... the water is not flowing very quickly through into the 2nd waterbed. If water flows in too quickly the tub can overflow (instead of flowing into the other tub & out the drain). I thought there might be a blockage but I squirted the hose through & water seems to come out the other end ok. It's difficult to actually see if there's a blockage however.

Any suggestions?

I thought of cutting off the grills covering each drain, but I'm hoping to put yabbies in eventually & I don't want them to crawl inside & block it up!! Cos then I'll have the same problem I've got now!

Hmpf! No idea.

One problem i see in the second photo your water setting device should have one of the top elbows a tee preferably the second otherwise it may become a
syphon also where your pipes enter the tank rip the grates out and put an elbow and a vertical filter like i have on my ibc/s thats been running 12 months no problem

Yeah, steve mentioned that a while back. In practice, I've not had a syphon effect - even when I dump a couple of buckets of water in ... I'll certainly monitor it for a while though.



Tthat's a good idea. Got a link? How do you attach an elbow to the drain?