Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Let me start by saying I am a newbie with my first IBC aquaponics set up. I started the cycle on the 17 of Sep with 1000ml of amonia and 1 quarter of seed weed extract. the cycle when normal but I kept adding ammonia as instructed but I think i put way to much ammonia in the FT. Now after 5 days I tested the nitite and nitrate and I find out that nitrite was 0 but nitrate was around 5 ppm. Is there anyway I missed my nitrite spike and if yes why is my ammonia level way over 7 to 8 ppm. How can I normalize the cycle.

I was thinking about a water change but will the water change kill my bacteria if I have any to begin with?

i would just leave it, if there is no fish in there you have time on your side

Cheers
pete

You're on track... you haven't had your nitrite phase yet....but you will... especially with that level of ammonia....

No need for any more ammonia... just watch for the nitrite spike ... probably >5...

You put in 1000ml of ammonia and kept adding more as instructed? I'd stop listening to those instructions, and as suggested, just leave it...

Thanks everyone,

I know I put way to much ammonia so lets keep it that way and see what happen. I just did a water test and nothing have change.

By the way I planted some lettuce, tomatoes and broccoli 5 days ago. and they are not doing good, the lettuce is almost death and the broccoli and tomatoes are alive but not growing.

+1 for rupe and eb
i did a simmilar thing and it took about 4 weeks for my ammo to come down then rite did spike now all is goin good and no doubt your plants will have been shocked a little bit but it will happen.....just be patient it will work for you as it did for me.

more importantly if you ask questions you get more answers just be patient its well worth it

cheers troy

Stand by and keep testing. You can probably simply wait and the ammonia will come down. If you don't like that, perhaps do a partial water change to make sure your ammonia is down in the readable range and then let it continue on it's own till the ammonia does come down.

Seems there has been a period of time where people were saying to does ammonia terribly high and keep dosing. I never liked those instructions.

I always liked to dose only to between 1-2 ppm and then I would wait till the ammonia started dropping before my next dose. And then I would watch the nitrite spike and not dose a third time till the nitrite started dropping. Then after that I might dose regularly for a while till the system got to the point where I could dose to 1-2 ppm of ammonia and 24 hours later both the ammonia and nitrite were 0 again then I called it cycled. (this usually takes at least 4 weeks, if you manage it quicker good for you, you had perfect conditions but don't boast about it cause then people think something is wrong when theirs doesn't cycle even quicker.)

Now I know some people will tell you that you can cycle in a much shorter time but they are not letting it fully develop. They are probably dosing to 4 ppm of ammonia and then letting the ammonia and nitrite come down after they spike and calling that cycled which it isn't really, they have only gotten through the initial spikes and the system is still not fully cycled but they did it in about 2-3 weeks.

Hi Vitin6039

When I first started my system I couldn't understand why everyone was saying to use
small amounts of ammonia (urea,seasol or fish emulsion).

Logically I thought the more ammonia you put in the better it would work.

So as an experiment I decided to use HIGH DOSE UREA to see what happens.

What follows are the results of the experiment.

My system consists of
fish tank 1500 litres
sump tank 800 litres
grow beds 3x 600 litres.

I dosed the system initially at 40 teaspoons of urea/1000 lit of system.(100 teaspoons)

day 1 was July 15 2010 water temp for the test 9+/- 3 C. (daytime)

day 4 ammonia 0.5
day 13 ammonia 4 . . nitrite 0.1
day 16 ammonia 8 . . nitrate 0.5
day 22 ammonia 8 . . nitrite 5 . . nitrate 5
day 30 ammonia 8 . . nitrite 5 . . nitrate 80
day 42 ammonia 0 . . nitrite 0.25 . . nitrate 40

At day 50 I threw in the trout and the system hasn't missed a beat.

Fishless cycling is extremely forgiving, you can use a little or a lot of ammonia.

Personally if I had to start again from scratch, I would throw in a couple of handfuls
of urea, some seasol for the extra minerals and not worry about it for 6 weeks.
I might test it once weekly if I remember.

Just as an aside, the lettuce that grew in that system was the best ever.
the lettuce leaves were nearly as thick as cactus leaves.

I hope seeing my results puts your mind at ease somewhat, I know my biggest
problem was patience.

cheers Lou

Thank you everyone for all the good advice, I did a partial water change 50% and the ammonia is about 8ppm or so, now just sit back and wait. I did have wrong expectations thinking that the system was suppose to cycle in 15 days or less but I see it may take a month or more. The temperature in central Texas is going down to about 69 F/20 C so that is no good for the bacteria to grow but during the day it is about 85-95 F/36 C so I expect to take a bit longer.

Here is how the system is set up.

ah, those are fine temperatures for cycling.
First system I cycled was a barrel ponics system and I did it through winter here so the water temp was down to 40 F regularly and it still worked.

Anyone knows how many GB can I support using this 200 gal FT? I am thinking to get about 20 fishes.

Depends, are you going to do constant flood/30 on 30 off/siphon?

Well, I am using a siphon but it takes 10 min to fill the GB and 3 to drain.