Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I think George likes the swirl, its keeps the crickets in the water for longer. Don't see the fish just hear a splash every now and then.

Still testing the same. Nitrite is still getting lighter. From what I can tell zeolite works well as a passive buffer for ammonia and probably cleans the water a little. In an active filter it would work a lot faster as well as in smaller setups. Forcing water through it in a smaller system you would have to be careful not to starve the bacteria of ammonia. It does a good job of taking it out of the large system and its only on the outlet to some of the GB's.

Has anyone looked into the volume of water and its ability to hold onto nitrate. In a smaller system the turnover gives more water exposure to air and in turn more of a chance to gas off ammonia and nitrate. Does this mean adding more water give a system more nutrients to work with.

Not sure I'm following you Duff....

Logic would suggest that more water ... would lower the concentration of available nutrients... unless you increased the fish biomass and/or feed... i.e produce more...

Ammonia will offgas somewhat.... if the water is constantly agitated.... i.e paddlewheels do this...

Nitrates, AFAIK... aren't in a form that can off-gas.... without some sort of conversion to another form....and why?? would you want to remove nitrates... the essential element for plant growth....

Re what Rupe said, however yes you have a larger resevoir of nutrients in a more dilute form. It will catch up, eventually, Duff then you better have a shitload of plants to pull it down again.

Ultimately it's a function of just how much you stock your fish to the volume of water....and the volume of your growbed filtration....

Exceed the volume capability of your filtration.... then the least of your problems will be nitrates....

If you had the same 50 fish I do in a 2000ltr tank with say 30 small plants and growing would it have dropped the nitrate to 0 by now. Or at least kept it low. The test kits show the ppm or mg/L. Now with 3000ish ltrs of media and only 50 fish how did it get to 80+ nitrate for 50000ltrs. If a large system uses a 3000ltr ft and 2000ltrs of media. Then I've got enough nitrate for 16 ish of those systems. The only real difference is the amount of water. Also most large systems have more fish. Not that I want to lose more nitrate just seeing if there is anything useful in this.

OK... I think I'm following you now Duff....

I suspect you're getting the 80 reading for nitrate because the system is processing a large(r) ammonia/nitrite load..... over and above that just produced by the 50 fish....

Are you dosing the pool with urea, urine, seasol etc...

Regardless... nitrates 80.... not a problem.... if you want to bring it down, either add more plants, or add some heavy feeders like tomatoes...

Was dosing the pool a little before the fish, max was one hand full or urea. But the reading were low before the fish and they have been in there for a while now. Might have to dig up some larger tom's from the dirt and see how they go. Currently I've got 8ish smaller tomato plants in there. If it decides to rain again I'll see how a larger water change goes. Then I can keep and eye on it and see how long it takes to build up again.

Am 0ish
Ni .5 and falling
Ph 8

Does an algae bloom cause the ph to go up. Think it gave the bacteria a boost anyway. The nitrate has come down a bit also.