Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Using water from a swimming pool.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has used water from a swimming pool for AP.It appears OK if you are using it for fish providing that you leave it long enough for the chlorine to disipate but it is a disaster for your plants.Last year I put trout in my pool and the trout did quite well .One was 900 grams at Christmas but when I hooked some plants up to it they suffered a instant death.I tried the ec metre for the hydro and it went right off the scale.I diluted some by 50%and it was just on the scale .I was told by a friend who has fish that all the loose skin off your body turns into nutrient and that's what was giving the high reading .I wasn't convinced but went onto other things and forgot about it.I had to pump the pool out to catch the fish so this year had a fresh lot of water which only read 10 on the EC metre.I got this bright idea to use the pool as a rain water tank it seamed a good idea at the time having 45000 litres of water .
It was just after I started using this in the ap that all the wheels fell off the system.It wasn't until I read on the web about chloromines in water that the penny dropped and I realised that it might be my problem as well.
Whether it is chloromines ,a build up of salt or something else but if you are thinking of using water from a pool no matter how long it is since it was used as a pool then it might be a good idea to forget it.A friend told me his defanition of experiance is a memory of you stuff ups,this could be one.
If you want to read more on this check my contribution on the subject in HIGH AMMO LEVELS.

dbird, what do you mean by an ec meter? We are new at this game and have converted our swimming pool to hold barramundi. It has been going only since September, but is going well so far. We are still swimming in there too, so are quite interested in your experience.
d and m

An EC meter is a "truncheon" ala "BlueLab" ... used in hydroponics to measure the "electrical conductivity" of a nutrient solution....

P.S. .... it can acually be in the form of a meter with a probe attached....

Pardon the ignorance...but why measure the electrical conductivity?? Also, what are the chloramines? Is this something added to scheme water like chlorine (in which case we don't have that problem) or something to do with a chlorinated pool?

Look up chloramines on google - give you much more info than I can. But yes, some scheme water is treated with chloramine, and it does not break down like chlorine does.

Whith hydroponics you have to measure the ec so that you know how much nutriant you have in your tank.I thought that you would be able to do the same with ap but it appears that it has place in ap .But having used it was interesting as it revealed that ther was something in the water which wasn't showing up elsewhere.It is also interesting to use the same meter on so called fresh water,Rain water won't register anything ,scheme water will register between two and four and some bottled water will register up to six.I think that you would have more trouble with chloramines in a pool than elsewhere because you keep adding chlorine which evaporates and probably leaves the chloramines behind.Whatever it is I would sudjest that you don't use pool water for AP unless you know for sure that you have it all sorted out .
Cheers,
Don.

It will all depend on what chemical system is used for the pool and what is done to prepare it for plants and fish. Keep in mind that some methods use salt and salt will register very high on an EC meter. In fact 3 ppt of salt for fish health is usually safe enough for most plants will register off the scale on the bluelab meter but be great for the fish and ok for most of the plants.

If the pool is treated heavily with chlorine when it has a heavy load of ammonia in it, you will probably wind up with quite a bit of chloramines (however you spell it) which won't disapate and would require either a water ager/conditioner or a water change before being good for an AP system.

Since you say the pool was fine for the fish but immediately killed the plants, I suspect salt since chloramine in amounts high enough to kill plants that quickly would probably have been pretty bad for the fish and bacteria. Chloramine may also register on the ammonia tests while it won't on the EC meter but salt will definitely register on the EC meter but generally doesn't show up on the aquarium master test kit.

I suppose the lesson is to do your research about the pool and pool chemical system before sacrificing fish, bacteria or plants to it.

I suspect that it could be salt as we are always putting water in which evaporates and leaves the salt behind .The fish did very well but the plants all died. I guess the lesson to be learnt here is that if you intend to put fish in a pool or use pool water for AP then it might save you a lot of heart ache if you are aware of the problem and check it all out before you start.

What sort of plants were they? Could you expand on "suffered a instant death" - did they go yellow and die, or just droop and die or something else? It may just have been the shock of moving them?

A test might be to water a sacrificial pot plant with the pool water and see if it suffers the same fate. It could be just that you don't have enough nutrients in the pool to sustain the plants?

Just some suggestions.

[quote="dbird"]I guess the lesson to be learnt here is that if you intend to put fish in a pool or use pool water for AP then it might save you a lot of heart ache if you are aware of the problem and check it all out before you start.[/quote]

It is hard to be aware enough of the wide variety of problems that can affect each stage!!!
Before using our pool, we did have our water tested properly before putting fish in, though this was mainly to find out about our bore water (we don't have scheme water). The testing agency we used were great, and actually contacted Fisheries to find out what levels were suitable for fish, so he was able to concentrate on testing those specific qualities and report accordingly. It certainly gave us some info (for example our bore water is nitrate rich at 10, before we even started any fish).

dandm

Is the testing agency you used close by in Jandakot? I have a soak that I would like to use but the ph is on 8 and all others tests are about 0. I can't taste salt and yabbies have been living in there for years, but are down very much on numbers this year.

What tests do they do and what is the approx cost?