Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well after seeing a few mature systems on the forum having PH Crashes.... i decided to check mine thismorning..........

its had crashed below 5, Bringing it backup with lime over the next few hours will keep an eye on it all.

tested it 2 weeks ago and it was 7.2 so it just shows you need to keep an eye on the PH weekly as it will just belly up on you as it wants Expecially if you have a good fish load on there!!!!

6.4 - was 6.6 but for all the acid rain! (usually around 6)

Do you run it with some limestone or shell-grit in the system Jamey ??

NO..... Number 1 thing DO NOT PANIC... DO NOT TRY TO BRING YOUR PH UP WITHIN A COUPLE OF HOURS.

All our systems run at what many would call extremely low pH's with basically no problems at all...

IT IS NOT necessarily a problem.

Checked it this morning 8.0.

Would be happy if mine just had slight fender bender!

That's very well put - I like it !!

agree with EB. Do not try to make it right in a couple of hours. No more than a few pH points per day. Its a logarithmic scale (ie, pH7 is 10 times more than pH6, and 100 times more than pH5), and huge swings do more harm than good.

Better buy pH meter. Easy and cheap($ per test)

added a few TBSP of lime to the system at 1:30, it has now come back up onto my Test kit level at 5.8

will leave it there for now and keep an eye on it over the next few days, may even go get some shell grit in there.

i thought with a PH Crash under 5 bacteria starts becoming compromised??

By the next couple of hours i meant i would add some lime and check it in a couple of hours to make sure its at least back up onto my test kit's scale.

Sorry if i have made anyone stress out, was just trying to get the importance of PH checking to people as iv become a little slack on it myself and presto.... down she go's..... after 8-10 months of having a PH of 8...... it becomes easy to become complacent about it.

does anyone know any Measures of Lime to add per 1000L to bring the PH up 2 points or so??

i seen it suggested in another thread that 1/2 cup to 5000L tends to work well?? which would be 1/8th of a cup (2 Tablespoons) to 1250L as a rough kind of guide....... Added at 24h Intervals until its back to neutral?? would this sound like a good kind of guide for people to use??

i put a rock of boiled limestone in mine, i think it weighed like 2 kg.

Where would you purchase such a thing?? Just as Reference for other users...

aquarium shop, or your local laneway/ rock quarry. just make sure you biol it for a good couple of minutes forst, to remove nasties

We haven't tested a system here at the shop in 12-18 months, maybe longer... The only systems we have tested are the trial systems.. We recommend that people without much of an idea do not test systems, because it only leads to problems when they react to the pH...

We have done hundreds of systems and 95% of the people with those systems do not test or react to pH at all... They don't have huge crashes or massive fish losses... Damn if they did we would have people ringing here constantly...

yep mine hit the bottom of the readable ph test (less than 6) so chucked in the limestone and never bothered to check again

i'm with eb havn't tested mine in 14 months even when it turned green just stoped feeding and let it do its thing nature will fix itself if we dont stuff around with it !!