Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

nice pics.

as a side, goldies are perfectly happy at tropical temps

They can take 38 deg c

Guys I am very excited by my little discovery that the pH of my system is below 7.5, discovered in a very strange manner:
See this first something about using anthocynanins in food stuff for a rough ph estimate
I didn't believe it without trying it, but you must try it its awesome

My turmeric test:
First I took a pinch of turmeric (you can try curry powder too, which contains turmeric) as it says on that page, I added some base (baking soda) - it turned from bright yellow to bright red!!! (Does so at ph >= 8.6)

It works!!

Then I tested my system water, it didn't change colour, so my system pH is less than 8.6 (which I thought was obvious anyway)

My black currant test:
Then I took some black currant juice (these plants grow outside my house as weeds!). I added baking soda and it turned from reddish purple to plain grey-blue.
Wow!

But I didn't know what alkaline pH was necessary to turn the reddish-purple thing grey-blue. So I needed a standard ph solution - what should I use?
Aha! Egg shells! in black currant juice water (which is acidic) the egg shells will dissolve until they dissolve no more and buffer the juice at ph 7.6 or so.
Guess what! The juice did turn blue after a while of stirring the egg shells in the juice! And some undissolved egg shell was left over of course.

I tested my system water again. No colour change. So the pH of my system water is less than 7.6!
And I have a feeling it might be on the acidic side after lots of nitrification. I'll have to put off testing for later as I have an exam tomorrow.

(remember I use an egg shell buffer in my system, but I guess they weren't buffering enough! I should put the egg shells under the pump outlet!)

So as usual pH is probably, likely, the cause of my frequent plant stalling and fish acting like they were swimming in ammonia now and again.

The bacteria must have been unable to do their stuff in the acidic water.

About my months of suffering with frequent plant stalling in my system - how simply problems can be solved if you have test-equipment. (Either the master test kit or the master - turmeric-blah kit hehe )

Let me tell you again, although these are common foodstuff, the colour changes are very sharp! Like any chemistry lab indicator. You have to try it once at least for fun!

The anthocyanins (which are water soluble dye like things) do this great job.

Morning glory seems to be perfect, it can check for ph < 6.6 or > 7.7. But I don't think morning glory is a locally available/common Indian plant so its not for me. (sad)

There is always a way if you have a will.

good onya for making do with what you have!!!

yes, i spent hours in the garden as a kid doing this............................you'd be surprised, more than half of the flowers i collected had a ph colour change!

This Vs sport as a kid...............no brainer

There are supposed to be two kinds of geeks - the ones who grow up on chemistry sets and the ones who grow up physics (hobby electronics.)
I'm the latter kind.

But it's never too late to be a chemistry kid (and it's now for me )

so if i split my time equally collecting flowers for PH indicators, making hydrogen via atleast 3 different means, shocking the kids at school with a car ignition coil hidden in my bag, drawing 3" arcs from vacuum tubes in junked TV's what does THAT mean?

LOL, i'm so lucky to be alive and have my eye sight.
i had a knack of not believing the texts and having to prove it was wrong.

reverse polarity capacitors explode. no they dont. BANG. ok, yes they do.

sodium hydroxide added to water can develop enough heat to crack the glass container. no it cant. CRACK. ok, yes it can........no pussy cat, bad water dont drink.

Good to know about the plant reactions. There is a plant here called hydrangea that grows with pink or blue flowers depending on the pH of the soil.

If you can't get aquarium test kits, could you get litmus paper at a chemistry supply store?

The sagas of my system involved 1000+ nitrate (plants grew great) and then a pH crash. The nitrates started to resolve after the addition of an RSG filter for nitrates, -plus- getting the pH in line with seashells and potassium bicarbonate. Now nitrates are 0-10 and pH 6.8 - 7.0. The RSG filter was cleared of sand and re-filled with shells and iron.

I suspected you would be so.

(Especially with the ignition coil - steve=fire/ignition. )If you don't take it in bad light, and view it as hearty light humour, I present you with a funny avatar:


Sure, there're quite a few of chemical supply shops in my city I'm sure. My friend bought test tubes and sulphuric acid and stuff some years ago...
Even the test kits may be available but I have to try hard to find it. (I'm tired of trying to find a local source already...)

In case you're wondering why I haven't visited the chemical stores yet, I have exams now for a week and plan to go later...

Steve will love that picture!

I see an avatar change coming on

Who gives a damn what Steve thinks....I LOVE IT to Gokul

Steve likes it too