Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have deliberately left both canister filters un-maintained, so when the day comes I can just unhook, walk outside and pour the contents into my GBs! Can't wait for that moment!!

Both my aquariums are heavily planted and lightly stocked, so lack of filter maintenance isn't really an issue...

my fish are probably suffering from high nitrates, just so I can dump my water change water into my AP... poor fishies...

Not unless they're more than 400ppm+

supposedly they don't like it more than 40ppm.
Well thats what it says on the test kit instructions... so thats what I have believed previously.
Can you comment on that Rupe? cause I don't really know. Why do they say 40ppm ?

Yeah that's something I can't help with, I have really never bothered to much with water testing right or wrong, always just tested for ph and ammonia and that's always worked for me, I think the key is getting your system established and then stable in your particular location. Which means going through the different seasons and seeing how it copes under the different stress times, high heat, humidity, cold and wet weather.

Probably directed towards some mamby pamby ornamentals...

All the literature that I've read regarding nitrates and fresh water fish suggest a tolerance of 450ppm+ (bluegill)

Your system shouldn't get anywhere 150+ max... unless you strip all the plants out... and probably <50ppm with plants in...

Most mature systems run with no discernable nitrate reading at all...

Maybe its for keeping tropical fish, which I do.
Fish from South America and Africa seem to make up most of the tropicals in the aquarium shops.
I did seem to have issues in a smaller tank with my Angel fish when the nitrates were just over 40ppm, but there are so many variables it would be hypocritical of me to suggest anything more than correlation. Temperature is another huge factor in tropicals, too cold and you create good disease conditions.

Yep, I've heard that many aquaria fish don't like nitrates at too high a level... and I think that level is set to reflect the smaller volumes of water that you typically find in aquaria... which can result in rapid increases of ammonia/nitrites/nitrates...

cool, glad that is sorted out

Ok so n update on the egg white, it definitely worked the water cleared up quite a bit, after two days there was like soft chucks of dirty sediment on the bottom of the tank. I just cut some garden hose and used it as a vacuum on the bottom and it's beautiful and clean now.

Day 5 photos coming up tomorrow

That's great !
Can I request you upload them at 800x600 ? (maximum)
Much easier to see what is going on

Day 6 since planting but not everything happy as i still think my standpipes might be a bit high. Womboks look nearly dead but then throw out another green shoot, lettuce, spinach, zuchini, rocket is all powering along, the corn only went in yesterday.

My water has turned like a tea colour would this be from the seasol and is it a problem?

I think i am also starting to get some algae growing on the walls of the tank as i still havent wrapped it in the bamboo sheeting.

I also threw some platy's in thier today and so far they are not dead hopefully stay that way.

really happy so far, just need to finish of the details.

Looks great!

Get used to that tea colour. Mine had always been that colour and even darker when I introduce trout.

That's a nice neat looking system.