Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

I have been running my system for a bit over a year. A couple of months back I cleaned out the grow beds and planted new crops. Since then I have lost a number of fish and I'm an getting a number of nitrite and am spikes. When this happens I switch the pump to constant flow and the levels start to settle.

Any ideas why I would be getting these spikes after cleaning the system?

Thanks in advance.
Jonathan.

The bacteria which process the ammonia and nitrites are resident on the media and anything else in the GBs (e.g. roots etc) so by "cleaning" the beds you have disturbed these bacteria and may have removed a good number of their colonies, you may have gone back to an un-cycled or partially-cycled state. Given time, they will re-establish themselves and come back to "full strength".

It also sounds like you might be over-feeding your fish? AP system is a "closed loop" so if there is too much of something in the system, then it goes that it must have been added to the system, this is normally by the system owner! Cut back on the feed a little and you'll get less swings in the ammonia production. Measure your feed or use a scoop to ensure the same amount of food is being added each time as sometimes we unintentionally add more food than we should if we use a "handful" or a "pinch".

I suspected it may be something to do with the cleaning.

Would you have any recommendations to help get the bacteria levels back to how they should be?

Leave it as is and keep running the pump constantly for a while and you should be right..