Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

While I was out of town my wife accidentally pumped almost all the water out of my system. (all but roughly 10 gallons out of 80 left in the tank.)

I'm at six weeks into the cycle.

My nitrites were high... Now zero

Ammonia was zero... Still zero

Nitrates were zero... Still zero

PH was 8.2... Still 8.2

I picked up some rocks from a local stream and placed them in a bucket of rainwater for a couple hours and the water tested positive for nitrates at 5ppm so I added them to my system.

I was hoping to be done with the cycle by now not stepping back to square one.

I'm not sure if I'm getting to a question, just documenting my issues. Any thoughts are welcome.

Thanks, Art

I don't think you will be back to square 1. The vast majority of the bacteria which convert ammonia to nitrite and then nitrite to nitrate will be living in your media.

If your growbeds were still moist then they should still be alive.

Yep, top up your water and carry on, there will be plenty of bacteria in your bed, not really a set back at all.

great thanks.

Bought some maxicrop liquid seaweed today. What is the prefered dosage and method to use it?

happened to me also a few weeks ago when my wife let my 2 yr old play around my AP. Daughter jumped on a pipe which broke but it was at the drain cycle so my wife didn't notice. 6 hours later she calls me at work saying that there is only about 100L left in my IBC but the fish (28 30cm+ silver perch) were fine. The 100L left was because I raised the pump on an upturned vegie crate. When I got home I gradually filled up the tank again with tap water over 3 days while continuously pumping and didn't lose a single fish. Lucky the silvers are tough buggers as my fishtank oxygenation only comes from the growbed return pipes, which were dry for 6 hours...

Make sure you raise the pump off the bottom of the tank!!

I keep my pump near my top (only a 10g system). Since it is indoors i was worried about my drainage clogging and GB overflowing causing a fish water shower for the tenant below. (Paranoia of an inside mini system.)

Usual dosage for maxicrop/seasol is about 20ml (about a cap full) per 1000 litres of water in your system.

I dose when ever I want to give my plants a boost but not more than fortnightly.

wow. That's a lot less maxicrop than I thought.



Sure seems that I should be seeing something more than this by now.

I know the PH is high but the my local fish guru claims goldfish like it that high. They seem to be healthy.

Could high ph be preventing the bacteria from taking hold?

no.. the bacteria likes the high ph

Your pH is nothing to worry about. The nitrification process will bring it down automatically.

You will then need something like shell grit to buffer it so it doesn't get to low and cause your bacteria colony to collapse.