Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

No the 17 is not where your TAN is at. That is the point at which it becomes toxic.

It is also available here with a brief explanation. http://ibcofaquaponics.com/information/tables-and-charts/

So lets say in summer you have a bacterial collapse and you get a reading of 3 for you ammonia. Your water temp is up to 28C and your pH is at 6.8. You would be getting very concerned as you are on the borderline. (You should be concerned with a reading of 3 anyway but bear with me) Now lets say you do a water top up and you pH comes up to 7. All of a sudden you ammonia reading of 3ppm has become toxic to your fish and they start going belly up.

Does that clear it up a bit? That table is a good one to have a handle of.

Generally speaking, any reading of ammonia or nitrites in an established system is a concern. Within reason of course, if you have just increased your fish load you are expecting it as a possibility. What that chart tells you is at what point you really need to start taking drastic action. You can see at you pH of 6.8 and a guess at your water temp of 16 - 20C your ammonia could get to 8 - 11ppm. I would strongly recommend holding off on feed a long time before that though

Gotcha.... I think

So the graph indicates for a certain pH and temperature, the ppm of ammonia that will kill your fish ?

Bingo. If i had have said that at the start i would have saved myself some typing

Harhar !
Cheers for your persistence/patience... It didn't matter how many times I looked at that graph it just wasn't giving up its secrets.

It all makes sense now ....Thanks again !

Just been cruising members systems threads & noticed that everyone is using syphons.

I am using continuous flood.... by which I mean, pump running 24/7 from sump to FT, overflowing to grow beds via SLO, which are maintained at a constant water level (approx 30mm below media) via a standpipe, then draining back to sump via gravity.

When I did my research on AP I came to the conclusion that constant flood was as effective as anything else, as well as being low maintenance & simple to assemble.

So due to my personal circumstances (work situation) ,I went with this style. So far ( still not cycled), has been low maintenance & fish & veg seem to be doing well.

So just wondering .... Have I missed something... not including a siphon into my setup?

Will my plants be waterlogged ??

Nope... not everyone is running siphons at all...

And many of those that are/were... are now running constant flood....

Rupes right, there are a lot of CF systems around these days. Including mine.

And mine.... For now.

I tried it, then went back to siphon.

Its all personal preface. I like FD with the pump on a timer then CF then siphon. CF is a good choice (most of my barrel systems are CF) as when your seting up there's no fiddling.

If you ever want to do flood and drain all you need is 2 6mm holes at the base of your stand pipe and a timer for your pump

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Thanks for your replies ....Will stick with the constant flood until I have a handle on my new addiction !

UPDATE... UPDATE .... UPDATE !!!!

NITRATE at 5.0 ppm..... Yeehaar !!

Results from today; pH = 6.8

Ammonia = 0.5ppm

Nitrite = 5.0 + ppm (reading a darker purple than what's on the API scale)

Nitrate = 5.0ppm

Couple of questions ... Surprise surprise !

Should I be worried about the nitrites ?

Go away back to work for 2 weeks tomorrow..... Is there anything I need to do before I leave .... Wifey isn't quite as keen as I am on the TROUTS as she calls them (which drives me nuts!)

Not having someone to do the water tests for you will make life harder...

Maybe no feed for 5 - 7 days then a light feed every other day....

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Trained her up on the water tests .... She is a little more into it than I made out on my last post.... But ... They will always be TROUTS in her eyes.

So do you think I need to cut back on the feed (currently feeding once a day), considering the missus will be emailing the water results daily ?

Stop feeding till nitrites are 0 or close to. If you keep feeding you will be basically fueling a fire.