Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Today I sprinkled shell grit around the water entry grid in the grow beds and filled another stocking up and placed under the return water in the sump. I'll see what happens tomorrow and see if I can get some potassium bicarbonate. I might wait a few days and see if my ph goes back up with just the shell grit. I don't really want to add too much to the system. I did add two teaspoons of chelated iron to the system today. Last time I added it it seemed to increase my ph. Hopefully that will be okay. The water looks murkier than it has in the past. The fish are still feeding well.

CUT BACK OR STOP FEEDING! If you have effectively partially or completely de-cycled your system, cut way back on food (or stop completely for a few days) and test for ammonia and nitrite daily. That murky water may be bacterial buildup or food particles or ??, but probably is not a good sign!



Less urgent items:

"The vegies have been powering along. I am ready to harvest a lot of chinese cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli. I am worried about removing so much growth....probably a whole grow bed and replacing with seeds. Will this effect the levels?"
No worries: nitrates will jump, but will stay in safe zone. The dangerous ones (ammonia and nitrites) should do fine as they are dealt with by the bacteria. You might test ammonia and nitrite and keep a sharp eye on fish behavior for a few days, just to be on the safe side.


Shell:
Placing a handful or so wherever it will get good flow seems good. I would think that if you do have a SLO that scattering a couple single handfuls of shell in the tank (no significant layer) would really help with ph quickly & safely and would not interfere with solids pickup. The shell would gradually get dissolved or sucked up the SLO.

Long term, keep a handful under each inflow to your growbeds to keep ph rock solid.

I have had the fish on half rations for five days. I gave the fish a whole cup yesterday to see if it would cause a spike in the amm levels....it didn't. Testing this morning my pH is slightly darker than yellow (6). nitrite 0, amm .25. I will only feed them 1/2 cup a day until my amm level comes back to 0 (is this right?). I don't think I have a SLO....just a submersible pump in the middle of the fish tank....is that a solid lifting overflow?

I have put about half a bag of shell grit throughout the system. I am thinking of adding some water (bore) as when I first started my water tested at about ph 8. Would I be better to add some more water to bring the pH up instead of buying potassium bicarbonate? If so how much water should I add?

I have not topped up my system with water since I started it in April. The tank is located right next to the shed. I noticed that we get a lot of rain water run off into the tank.
Enough to have overflow problems. I am concerned that the roof might be made of asbestos. I am thinking of painting it with bitumen paint. Is this a big concern?

I am very lucky the fish seem to be alive (I can only see them if I feed them). I have scraped the bottom of the tank with a fine net and haven't found any dead ones.

I have planted lots of new seeds getting ready for the warmer weather

When I swap from trout to barrimundi I am going to
drain my tank
scrub the algae off
fit an overflow pipe into the bottom outlet to allow for rainwater
fit a new floating raft that is thicker (for insulation) and is a tighter fit so less light is let in.
Cover the remaining 1/3 completely so no light gets in.

Any other improvements???

Thanks for everyone's help. I am sure my fish would be dead by now without help from everbody

I would be extremely concerned. Please check. Asbestos is really nasty stuff, that is why they wear suits and masks and complete protective equipment to remove it. To dump it must be wrapped in plastic before it is buried.

Topping up with well water should help move the pH in the correct direction. At least well water is very capable of shifting my pH quite a bit. As with the other pH lifters, add a bit and then test. Don't go doing a 50% water change or anything as moving pH should be gradual. Top up a bit, let the water mix then do a test to see how much it changed.

Good Luck with it.

Thanks TCLynx. I'll add some now and see what happens. The water looks even worse today but my test results are not too bad, ammonium 0.25. Hopefully it will be back on zero tomorrow.

Sounds good to me.


Nope. Let's see if I can find a good diagram......ahh, here's a good one from TCLynx (of course! *grin*) http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... 96#p174196


I agree with TCLynx: don't add too much at once. Of course, if you added about 10% water change in a trickle over a few hours (not all at once) that would be just fine.


Unless the roof shows signs of wear it will not be releasing more than minuscule trace amounts of the stuff.

Some folks are more worried about asbestos than others. I am not sure how ingesting some very small amt would affect one, just as I am not sure how breathing the same would affect one. Large amounts are certainly a very bad thing, but is your roof giving off more than a trace? Would bitumen runoff (I've certainly seen some brown runoff from such roofs) be more harmful? I would suggest googling "effects of asbestos on aquatic organisms" and see if there are any effects at low levels (if there aren't, there will probably not be any on you) and look for any of the listed effects in your critters.

The simplest solution might be to divert the runoff water with a gutter, but then you don't capture the runoff. Or paint the roof with a fish-safe pond or pool paint/coating.

I have had a problem with exchanging water. My bore pump has ceased up and wont start. Oh well, I'll have to look at other options.

hydrophillia I have been wanting to do a design like TCLynx for a while. I have built my fish tank on a platform about five bricks high. I would love to use CHIFT PIST. I still don't have my head around it. My understanding is that I use 100mm pipe from the fish tank in a stand pipe arrangement for the water to flow down by gravity to the grow beds. Can I still use stand pipes as my return to the sump? I really don't want to use autosipons when the stand pipes are so easy. If I use stand pipes would I just have the sump tank on a timer so after 45minutes It starts to fill up the fish tank again...which would overflow into the grow beds?????.

I guess my confusion is with return water and using stand pipes. I think I would need a bigger sump than my current 1000litre.

I am worried that my main fish tank pump is not pumping enough water flow. If I could change my system to eliminate a pump it will save me a bit of money.

I am also thinking of adding an extra grow bed, so I have a total of four. I am still tossing up whether I should set it up as a stand alone system with a tank to use as a quarantine tank/hospital tank OR should I put an extra grow bed with a sump and hook the sump tanks up together. With four grow beds and a 2000litre tank I am thinking a 1000 litre sump will not be enough. The water level in my fish tank would get too low.

I would really appreciate everyone's thoughts on the CHIFT PIST conversion.....without using autosyphons. Does anyone know of a system currently using this set up?

CHIFT PIST works just fine with timers and stand pipes, however, you need enough sump tank volume to deal with flooding all the beds at once! So, if you have 4, 500 liter grow beds, then you need at least 1000 liters of sump tank. If doing a 2:1 grow bed to fish tank ratio, and are running CHIFT PIST, then your sump tank is gonna be as big as your fish tank, or multiple connected sump tanks that add up to being that big.

I'm trying to figure out ways to automate filling grow beds in sequence for a CHIFT PIST system so the sump tank would not have to be so big and the pump could run continuous but I haven't quite managed to figure it out yet.

The sump tank volumn wouldn't be a problem. I currently have a 2250L tank. It is not filled to the top, so I assume we could count it as being 2000L. I have currently got a 1000L sump tank. My tank has a bottom outlet on the side of the tank about 5 cm from the base. Should I use this outlet for the stand pipe, or am I better to take it over the top in the middle? what diameter pipe should I use for my main fish tank standpipe and delivery to the grow beds? I currently use 40 mm pipe from the tank to the grow beds. I am hoping this will be big enough as we have buried all of the pipes for neatness.

I think using one pump will be a better system with less room for failure.

The water is looking clearer. My water tests today are
temp 14 - 16C
am - .25
rite - 0
The level of amm doesn't seem to want to come down. I am still only giving the fish half their normal feed. They are looking very hungry! My pH is between 6 and 6.4 so that is slowly coming back up. Hopefully tomorrow my am levels will start coming down.

I would be tempted to add a pinch of baking soda to help move the pH up a little more since you don't have the bore pump playing nice to top up with that water. Just a pinch mind you as baking soda is powerful stuff.

Asbestos is really bad if you handle it or breath it in. It also tends to stick around. You can read more about it here:
http://www.home-air-purifier-expert.com ... -msds.html

Like Faye said, I'd make sure!

Yesterday I placed 1 Teaspoon of ecorose in the return water to the sump. Today my Ph has gone up to 6.4. At least we are heading in the right direction. I removed some more plants yesterday and planted chinese vegies seedlings and some brocolli seeds. I am going to have to be more organised with the grow bed and replacing the plants. There is a lot of free space waiting for seeds to emerge. I might be better to raise my seeds in a different area and then add them to the system.

If you can remember where you put seeds, then direct seeding will usually give you plants that are further along since transplanting generally sets plants back a bit. Then again Being able to replace stuff you harvest with already started plants does help to keep track of things.