Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Dude - that's nothin

LOL
Best we have a nitrate-off then eh? I've shown you mine, now show me yours LOL

Probably pretty similar actually. This was a week ago. It has been worse.

Let's call it a tie LOL

I don't know how you're supposed to read the difference between 20 and 80. I don't know about you guys but I really struggle.

That on ein the picture of mine is somewhere between 80 and 160. That's a big range. I reckon keeping the nitrates in the 40 - 80 range would be the aim.

i peg it for 80 PPM

I've gotta get around to testing mine its probably off the dial judgin by the algae Mmmmmmm plant food

Shovelled and washed 1.25 tonnes of gravel today. Another half tonne to go tomorrow and that will see the second grow bed full, and ready for plumbing. Will be nice to hook it all up and get it flowing.

Cleaned and loaded the rest of the gravel for bed 2 yesterday, finished water in, just got water out to do. I think it's getting a bit urgent now, check out the water tests from this morning! That 600 grams of extra salt sure did the job on the ph,
up to 7.4 or so,
ammonia almost 0
nitirites 0
nitrates 10- 20

yippee!

Well Done, Mon! Hope mine goes that smooth.

Thanks GF, it's been a lot smoother than I expected, but I couldn't have done it without the help of people on this forum

I know what ya mean! I'd be lost, knee deep in water.

Stu, just a caution, when you PH measures 7.4 then it would pay to do a "high"range ph test as well, considering 7.4 is the highest that one reads, all it really tells you is "its ATLEAST 7.4"

In all probability its fine, just thought i'd bring it to your attention.

Giong by the ammonia and nitrite readings, i'd say you're done

Thanks for that heads up Steve, I will test tomorrow

By high range do you mean diluting the water by 50% with 7.0 pH water and testing that? My test kit is maxed out and I don't want to buy another one, would this work, what would be the conversion for a 50% diluted source?

Well you would know the source water 7.0 and the combined reading after you mixed the two. mmm lets see so .50(x) + .50(y) = z
Where x is your known source water, PH.
Where y is your fish tank water, Ph.
Where z is your final ph reading after mixing 50% of x with y
Example x=7
z = 7.5
Solve for y
.5(7) +.5(y) = 7.5
3.5 +.5(y) =7.5
.5(y) = 4
y = 8
Congrats your fish tank PH is 8
cant see why it woudn't work. ok putting the dusty brain away