Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The reassuring thing is that its on the way down anyway Ron, I believe your not too far away from a cycled system.

It could take some time for the PH to come down and personally I wouldnt fuss on it too much. Ive seen systems run at 8+ for years with an ubundance of growth.

You have a strong Nitrate colony building now so you should start seeing the plants come back, Id help them out with a dolop of seaweed extract like seasol once a week or I think you guys get maxi-crop over there.

Ph 8.2
Ammo .25
Nitrites .5 YAAAAYY
Nitrates under 40 over 20 so... 30
Gonna add more lemon juice. I have a bunch of lemons to get rid of.

Someone payed attention in maths class

Yea, I was that kid in fourth grade that was explaining fractions to other kids...

Numbers
Ph 8.2
Ammo .25
Nitrite .25!!!!
Nitrate 20
There was some mildew on the cucumbers, so I made a solution of one cup water, baking soda, and one cup milk. I stirred the baking soda into the water, then added the milk. I poured the liquid into a spray bottle, leaving any baking soda that did not dissolve. I sprayed it on and wiped it off. It seemed to knock it right out. We'll see tomorrow. I added the juice of two lemons to my tank. Again we'll see tomorrow if they have any effect on the ph. I did two, because the baking soda milk solution is alkaline, and some did get into the growbed.

Ph 8.2
Ammo .25
Nitrites ZEEEEERRRRROOOOO!!!!
Nitrates 20
We celebrated my daughters 4th birthday today, so we got to show off the system to some family and friends. They were all impressed. My brother couldn't wrap his head around the fact that there was no soil. He dug into the gravel some. I assumed that he knew at least about hydroponics, being a police detective. Alas, he hadn't. He works homicide, not vice.

Ph 8.2
Ammonia .25
Nitrites .25
Nitrate 20
I fed the fish last night, so a slight bump is understandable. I am holding off tonight. I picked up a multigrafted plum/peach tree. I moved the lime to a less crowded spot, and put the new tree in it's old spot. It is taller than the grapefruit it I'd next to, so I think that it is using the space better. It has the deepest root system of anything I have planted yet. It was kind of a challange to get the hole in the gravel deep enough. Some of the dill I planted by seed is poking up. I may have to pull up the cucumber. I'm not sure that it is going to pull through.

My readings are identical to yesterday.

Again
Ph 8.2
Ammo .25
Nitrite under .25
Nitrate 20
Will that .25 of ammonia ever go away?

Some people argue that if your ammonia doesn't ever drop to zero then you have too many fish and/or not enough bio filtration. I argue that fish continuously make waste so there will always be a trace ammonia present, even if continuously pumping. My system has (had) 20 trout in 900L of water with 500L of fully flooded media and even after two or three days without feeding, my ammonia still stays around 0.1-0.25ppm.

As an experiment, I know that my fish haven't been fed since PM 19 Jun and the pump has been running continuously since then; when I get home again I will do a water test and let you know the result. (they might let me out this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow?)

awesome... :-)

Mine is the courtyard system as designed and sold by BYAP and redistributed by others...

19 trout in 920L water, 500L hydroton media, fully flooded, continuous pumping (during the period)
Last feed PM 19 Jun
Test AM 22 Jun

Water temp: 9C
pH: 6.5
Amm: 0.1ppm
Nitrite: 0.0ppm
Nitrate: 5.0ppm

Am I overstocked? No.
Am I deficient in filtration? No.
And yet the ammonia is not zero.

What test kit are you using to determine the ammonia reading as 0.1 ...

Ph 8.2 still, it seems that lemon juice has no effect
Ammonia .25
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
I have more room for more gravel in one of my grow beds. It is only half full because I, like many others, did not get a full cubic yard from my gravel supplier. I have just been too busy to call them to get the rest. Maybee I can get them to comp me some bags of gravel, that way I dint have to borrow the beast. We will see.

AP Master test kit...

The test colour is greener than the yellow zero reading but not as green as as the 0.25ppm reading, so by visual interpolation I call it 0.1ppm. I could be more than that, but it certainly isn't zero; there is ammonia in the system.