Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Forum folk, its been a week and was just wondering if we are on track. See the test pic below and please comment on the numbers. My 2 concerns are PH seemed to have dropped to 6 and ammonia seems to be up to 4. More amonia? Should I mess with the ph?

Just read somewhere that rain water drops the ph. It has been raining on and off for the last week. Coukd this be why my ph is so low? Shold I try to add the shell grit?

No more ammonia... and yes, raising your pH would help with cycling...

Have you done a pH test on your source water.... (not the rain water)

Yes, here is the start of cycle tests...

So came back after 2 weeks of vacation. Seems my float switch saved my pump and kept a minimum level. The numbers however have not changed. Im starting to think I need to raise the ph before I see some movement in the nitrates and nitrites. Thoughts?

So bought this to increase ph but Im a little concerned it might not be right. It looks like brown pellets and I was expecring something white. Any thoughts as to how to use it and if I should try it?

Raising your pH a little might help but be ware that adding garden lime might have a long term but slow acting effect. I would put it in a stocking and hang it in your system rather than dumping it in loose.

As to the pelletized stuff, hum....... Not sure what they use to pelletize it so don't know specifically how safe or unsafe it might be for fish though It is probably just some sort of clay used to help stick the particles of limestone together.

So I skipped the weird garden lime and added crushed coral. How long does it take? I have taken a reading 1 day after with no change in ph. It seems I will have to get hydrated lime anyways. How do you all store it? I cant seem to find anything smaller than a huge concrete size bag.

Coral/shells... are hard... and take a long time for the acidicy to break them down...

Ace Hardware should have hydrated lime in a reasonable size bag in the garden section. I haven't been doing anything special to store it, just rolling the bag back down and clipping it shut.

Thx TCLynx, dropped by Ace and got a more manageable bag of lime. Overnight the ph reads 7.2 - 7.4 so I think we are in good shape now. Will give it a week or so and retest it. It has been about a month at all 0's except ammo at 4ppm. Hoping the ph change will kick start this cycle....

OMG, freaking progress!!! After 2 months I finally see numbers moving in the right direction... Ph 6.8 / Ammo 0.25 / nitri 5+ / nitra 20 ... I believe I got to wait a little more for the Nitri's to drop. Thoughts? Can I bring a few fish in now?

WAIT a bit longer!
Nitrite of 5+ is way high, just wait for it to fall below 1 before doing any more dosing.
If you are really impatient you might be able to get fish when the nitrite falls below 1 but I would personally recommend you do a bit more dosing after the nitrite comes down so you can dose to 1 ppm of ammonia and have both ammonia and nitrite come down close to 0 in 24 hours.

Keep a close eye on your pH now, often when the nitrite falls finally, the pH could fall fast too so be ready with some buffer or shell grit or something to keep the pH from falling to 6 or below. Problem being that with the API test kit if the pH reads 6 it could be way below and you have no way of knowing. If the pH drops way low too fast, the bacteria can stall out and the ammonia spike again. Keep the pH from getting down to 6 at this point since your bacteria has colonized up around 7 having the pH fall way low will set it back badly. Using the hydrated lime to keep the pH up but if you are having to add that constantly, you may also want to get some shell grit, crushed limestone or something else with calcium or potassium carbonate to buffer the pH a bit more. The system wants a little bit of hardness in addition to just keeping the pH up.

Thanks TCLynx, i do have shell grit in a sock and it did go down from 7.4 to 6.8. But if anything Im concerned that the water temps are to high 85-90 for any fish. Also, you think some more ammonia is needed to give it that last push? Will have to be careful, last time I added it went to 8ppm. Thanks for the great advice.

With water temps that high, you would want lots of extra aeration before adding new fish but warm water fish would survive it (catfish, bluegill or tilapia.)

But your Nitrite is still too high, don't add anything until that gets down to at least 1 ppm or lower.

If you can figure out a dose of ammonia to only dose to between 1-2 ppm it would be good.
What ammonia source are you using? what is your total water volume? I've used ammonium chloride to dose before and it only takes like a pinch of the stuff to dose 100 gallons to 1 ppm. With the liquid ammonia you might be talking a fraction of a teaspoon per 100 gallons.