Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello,

I guess I should start by telling everyone about my system. I have a 110 gallon tank that use to be a horse water trough that wasn't being used anymore, and a 3x3 hydroponic grow bed thats about 6 inches deep. I have a mixture of grow media in my bed. I have pea gravel in the bottom (mainly to take up some space) then a mixture of lava rock and hydroton. I'm using goldfish I have between 30-40 small ones in it right now and I have the water level about 3 quarters full.(I have a small rip in the top of the rubber trough)

I have had the water trough out for over a year but only had 6 fish in it and have added the others about a week ago. I'm putting a few plants in my grow bed today and hope everything goes good! I did a water test yesterday and my results were

ph- 7.2-7.8( It was hard to match up the color)
Ammonia- .25
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 0

Any advice would be great!! I'm still trying to figure everything out and hope I don't have too many growing pains. I have plans to add another smaller grow bed if my system can handle it. I have it set up as a flood and drain on a 10 min on and 6 off cycle. I will get some pictures up soon!

Thanks,

Sean

Welcome Sean My advice is to show us some photos. A picture paints a thousand words and we look forward to seeing what you have done. A word of warning, there is no turning back now as this is an addictive hobby, so enjoy the ride!

HI Sean

Welcome to the forum

I am very new here myself and I am already learning a lot

aman

Thank you for the welcome!! I look forward to learning a lot from everyone here. I tasted my water today and my ph is still high at 8.4 my ammonia is .25 and nitite and nitrate are both 0. Any adivce on what I should do next? Do I need to worry about my ph? Also I finally took a few pictures!!

First, I hope you actually tested your water instead of tasting it, then again if you are able to tell pH by Taste, that is a pretty good skill.

your pH is a bit high, there are a number of likely causes of this.
1- your pea gravel, do you know what that was made of? Pea gravel only describes the size/shape but doesn't necessarily tell us the type of rock and limestone is a pretty common cheap gravel to get. Unfortunately limestone will keep your pH too high and no amount of acid will fix it until you have dissolved away all the limestone (not really an option.)

2-if your source water is from a limestone aquifer it will also have a high pH and the buffering will take some time to be used up by the bacteria.

3- algae can cause diurnal pH swings giving a high pH reading in the late afternoon and a lower pH reading just before dawn.

Algae can also give you issues with dissolved oxygen overnight so I think you need to cover your fish tank to block most of the light to head off your algae problem before it gets too bad.

First, let me thank you for pointing out that I accidently hit a instead of e in tested. I guess there's one in every bunch...
Thank you for the useful advice I'll take out the pea gravel and putting in lava rock.

welcome aboard! And now the addiction begins.........

Thanks Joe!! Love your avatar. Is that a Huskey? I have a brown a white female, best dogs in the world!!

Hi sean! Sounds like you are off to a great start. Your system looks good. Try and find the source of your elevated pH by following TC suggestions above. Welcome to the forums!

I knew a minerologyisty kind of guy that was a sales rep for minerals, he tAsted our potters clay once, and accurately told us the mesh size it was milled to by its grittyness.

I can tell when there's sand in my food when I'm at the beach, but that's about the extent of my super powers. I'd gladly trade them for pH tasting powers.

Yes, she is a Siberian Husky. She is a real sweetheart, about 50 lbs. We also have an Alaskan Malamute puppy that is about 100 lbs right now. They are a couple of real goofballs!

Joe

Well I took out all the pea gravel from my system and it's been running for a little over a week without it. things seem to be moving along my test levels are

ph- 7.6
Ammonia- 0.5
Nitrite- 1.0
Nitrate- between 0-0.5

Also here's a short video of my system. My water is green and I hope that adding a couple of water baskets with plants will help shade the water and if the system can handle it I plan on adding a couple 5 gallon buckets to the side of the tank and adding more shade while expanding my grow area.

Hey man. Welcome to the forum.

Got a good start. Looks like a solid growbed frame that will probably hold the 5 gallon buckets around the edges just fine. This will help shade the tank.

You can get rid of the algea by keeping the sun from hitting the water. Maybe cutting a piece of 2" thick board insulation a bit smaller than the size of the top of the tank with holes for your plants.

Luck and patience (sheesh, who am I to talk about patience?). Let the system do it's natural cycling thing and don't try to mess with it too much.