Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What are the optimal ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels for an aquaponics system?

0,0 and 0 .... ... 0 - <40 nitrates....

0 nitrates would mean that your plants were utilising all available nutrients... possibly indicating room for more fish or feed.... depending on stage of growth, i.e how close to harvest...

40 nitrates may mean that you've just harvested/replanted... you're over feeding, or have...

And that you either have room for more growbeds/plants, or should skip a feed....

just concentrate on the ammonia and nitrites for now. people have success with nitrates from near zero to many hundreds

I disagree with nitrates around forty being over feeding. I reckon an over feeding/underplanted level of nitrates would be more like 100 - 160 but that is just my opinion.

Probably true Monya... both overfeeding and underplanted... >100

I picked 40 to indicate an arbitrary level that could indicate either scenario on its own ...

I had 40 in my system until the plants ate it. Now I can't get it over 5.

0 of all here

AS above

I think my nitrates are in the 160 area. This I suspect is due to the fact that some other nutrients may be out of balance and thus the plants are not using the nutrients as efficiently as they otherwise might.

I am also probably starting to push my system limits a little.

Once you get your system cycled, you want ammonia to read 0 and the nitrite to read 0. The level of nitrates is a lot more variable.

My nitrates are consistently over 200, given up on trying ways to lower it without reducing feed or reducing the number of fish...plants keep going mad and producing...fish keep growing and eating...system is healthy with ammo and nitrites @ zero....system seems to have balanced out at that level