Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

thanks for clearing that up vb

Les,

Bought the test kit and took water to the aquarium shop at the same time. Got told pH OK, around 7.5, and got told ammonia all roght bit nitrates too much.

Got a test kit and read nitrates tonight. They are off the scale. Test tube is bright pink somewhere down the bottom of the scale. And the jades keep dying on me. Soon there will be none left.

Why is it that the larger Jades die and not the smaller SP's?

Can't see any spots or anything else on the dead fish. They are just lying on the bottom of the tank.

Used some of the tank water to wash the gravel for the next bed. GB2 will be on line on Tuesday. Topped up the tank with some rainwater.

Will get the 2 x 5000 ltr rain water tanks on Tuseday, so hope for rain that night, or Wednesday. If there's any time left after hooking up the two tanks and the growbed, I will try and get a start on adding GB3 to the system.

Karel

When ever there is a problem with the water I find it always knocks the biggest and the smallest fish first...

Nitrates or Nitrites? Nitrites are bad, and means that only half of the cycling process may be established...

If it is NO3 I would definitely recommend a fairly big water change to try and get rid of those nitrates... Out of curiosity, test the rainwater that you are using for water changes... It is not run off water?

pink sounds like the nitrite test, its too late for me to rumage around for the colour chart

Roskar, check you are using the right colour card, pink/purple is nitrites and the pool guy said that was okay (your tank has cycled), for nitrates you need the colour card from yellow to dark red.

The pool guy didn't tell you the reading on nitrates?

If you read *this*, Steve has put up a method to read that chart more accurately.

If your nitrates are off the scale then you might need to do some water changes, Steve is the guru on that

Nah,

Bought a nitrate test from the aquarium shop (Not the pool shop).

5 drops of this, shake, 5 drops of nr 2, shake, 3 drops of nr 3 and let it sit for 5 minutes.

Comes up beautifully pink (if you're into pink). I'd rather have colourless I think.

Rainwater is straight from the gutter freefall for 5 meters as downpipes are going on on Tuesday. Bit of a wet affair catching this in a bucket, I can tell you.

Think a water change is on the cards, just want to sit it through until I actually got rainwater. Everyone do the raindance for Tuesday night once the tanks are piped up.

Karel

Karel.

This is not a good thing LOL

Wow, three reagents..........the one i use only has two, obviously a different test kit.

With my nitrate test shaking one of the bottles for 30 seconds is a REALLY important step, and will give false indications if not done......double check your proceedure.

Steve

Roskar, sorry - you have a different nitrates tester to mine

Week 1 update:

Salt at 3ppt, the white markings on some of the fish have disappeared and there is less occurrences of flashing.

Nitrate levels have settled to just over 40 and stabilised (thanks to Steve, I can get an accurate reading now)

Fish are very hungry - eating well now

Water temp around 22-25C, trying to find time to setup new system and cycle it

Okay, so the 2 weeks are up, the white markings/spots have disappeared from the fish and they are looking healthy again.

Step 2 - start doing water changes - at what rate

Les - I didn't remove my salt. If the taste in the plants is not bothering you, then I wouldn't bother - or maybe you just need to reduce it. I have found that it dissipates over time due to the plants taking some of it up and then gettign removed from the system.

Thanks for that, will leave as is and dilute it when time to move the SP, won't bother adding salt to water top ups anymore

Shouldn't really have been adding salt for water top ups, just for any changes. Oh well, no harm done clearly.

oh!
might have raised the salt content from 3 -> 3.1 I suppose