Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My pH as been slowly rising and is now at around 7.8. I'm not sure if it's from our recent warm weather or not. The gold fish are getting a bit stressed, but I'm not sure if it from them being in 80F water or the higher pH. I had a "floater" this morning when I left for work. So far, the veggies still look ok.

Do you think I should be concerned? Any suggestions for bringing back down?

What was your pH before ... and how long ago?

It was 7.4 at the beginning of March. This is when I started it up after letting it nearly freeze in the greenhouse over the winter.

I would be VERY surprised if that small rise would have affected the goldfish.

Perhaps they are stressed from the heat. The tank went from 60 to 80F in a day with the heat....I don't think it ever got that hot last year. I haven't seen any signs of disease. Salt is around 2ppt. Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate are all at 0.

Extra air and see what you can do to keep it from cooking your fish over summer, perhaps some shade or extra venting on the greenhouse?

pH rising often has to do with algae or perhaps even plants causing more DO in the daytime but this also comes with an overnight drop in pH due to CO2 in the water and what fish usually die of in this case is the lack of O2 in the water in the wee hours of the morning before the sun comes back up to reverse the process.

Then again, sudden changes in Temp can be hard of fish too. Bummer, goldies are usually pretty bullet proof, then again my mom lost all her goldfish from her pond this past winter, small pond hard winter, they probably died of being fishcycles when it froze to the bottom.

Tend to agree Synapto... was wondering though which way the pH was heading....

Heading toward 8.0... hot days... algael bloom starting perhaps...although the nitrate reading would tend to suggest no major excess nutes...

Almost certainly low DO then....

In some parts, the pH of the source water will vary depending on the season.

Low DO calls for more aeration. One of Food&Fish 's experiments showed a 4F drop due to an airstone being added to the tank.

2 Birds, 1 AirStone

I have an air stone in there....but it probably really isn't big enough. I did notice last night that the water has a green tint so perhaps your right about the low DO.

I think I missed the class on abbreviations. DO=? Can't do a search for short words here!

Dissolved oxygen (think I stuffed the spelling but thats it)