Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yesterday I took a sample of my water for the normal testing that you are supposed to do.

I have a high ph level it was around 7.4 and 8.0 but everything seems to be doing good. It's the same as last time I checked it.

The ammonia in the water this time was high this time around last time it was 0.25 ppm this time its between 4.0 and 8.0 ppm or it could even be higher just the test doesn't go above 8.0 ppm

The nitrite level were at 0 ppm last time and this time it looks to be over 5.0 ppm again the test only goes up to 5.0 ppm.

The nitrate levels last time were at 0 ppm also but this time they are between 80 and 160 ppm or they might be over but the test only goes up to 160 ppm.

Is this all good are should I do something I don't know what but I believe the ammonia and the nitrites are too high and even the nitrates might be too high too but I don't know what to do.

Please Help!!!

I don't have much experience w/ amm and nitrite readings (my systems been cycled for a while), but that sounds really high. Do you have fish? How many? How much filtration? Do you have plants in the system? How old is the system?

If you have fish I'd recommend stop feeding and salt until you get some advice here from people more familiar w/ the cycling process. Fish can go a week or 2 w/o out food and be just fine.

Yes I have about 5 fish I believe. What's filtration - if that the grow media then I have that it's mostly lava rocks but on the top I have put hydroton on it so it smoother on my hands. I have a few plants in the system but they haven't been there for long maybe 2 1/2 weeks and they seems to be growing fine. My system I have exactly had for probably a year or more but I'm just now having it up and running so it probably has been running now for maybe a month. Now when you say salt how much do I just? And is it just sea salt or kosher salt or what type of salt because I have kosher and sea salt or is it some type of special salt for aquaponics?

Sorry... how many gallons of growbed? The growbed media is used to filter solids out of the water, so it's often called filtration. Don't use table salt, I've heard of people using pool salt. I've never actually salted my system, so I can't speak to that... but the idea is take some water in a container, add the appropriate amount of pool salt relative to the water volume of your whole system, mix, then add to the main system.

If your fish look fine, you can just wait it out and not feed for a week, then give just a little food until your cycled. After that you should read no (or very little) amm and nitrites. If you continue to have excess nitrates you'll have to add more growbeds, plant more plants, or eat some fish.

The ft is 100 gallons or 378 liters - its probably half full right now
The gb is 60 gallons or 180 liters - it full of lava rocks and hydroton

I think Ill just wait it out the fish seems to be doing ok
How many weeks does it take to cycle your system I did some research but some say like one month others say like 4 months???

Cycling up a system means getting the bio-filter bacteria colony up to speed. To do this usually requires some ammonia and the water pumping around the system.
When you cycle up the system with fish in it, you have to test often and worry about the fish.

What kind of fish do you have and how big are they?
Your ammonia and nitrite are both dangerously high! Those fish may not survive it well depending on what they are. Definitely don't feed and you may even want to do a partial water change or top up with more water in your fish tank if you have access to water that isn't too hard or full of chloramine/chlorine. Depends on how much you value those particular fish since water changes may slow cycling and not knowing how long your levels have been really high, I don't know how much damage has already been done to the fish.

Anyway, Here is a link to a blog post about cycling up a system as well as some other posts with info on things like salt.
Cycling Up http://www.aquaponiclynx.com/cycling-up-a-new-system
Salt http://www.aquaponiclynx.com/salt-for-fish-health

Right now i have koi and goldfish these arent the fish i want to have in the system they are just there to get the cycling going... but they are small
i think i might add more water but ill be from a hose will this be ok?
i check my water weekly right now so it hasnt been that high for too long

Right now i have koi and goldfish these arent the fish i want to have in the system they are just there to get the cycling going... but they are small
i think i might add more water but ill be from a hose will this be ok?
i check my water weekly right now so it hasnt been that high for too long

Stop feeding until ammonia and nitrite drops to 0
Do a 50% water change
Add some salt to help the fish.
Add plenty of air, the fish gills are probably burnt now.

Instead of the water change can I just add more water to it from the hose???
Where do I get pool salt from I dont have a pool???

Better to do a water change in my opinion.
Ammonia and nitrite are toxic.
Doing a 50% water change at 8ppt still leaves 4ppt ammonia, which is still 4x what I would ever allow in a tank.
And nitrite poisoning can be worse than ammonia, which is what your ammonia is being converted to eventually.

so is the water out of the hose ok to use or should i put it in buckets and let it sit for a day to get rid of the chlorine. i dont know if the water has any in it???
once i get the water changed should i do another water test or just wait til friday cause that is when i normally do it - i do it once a week until i get my system up and going then after that probably do it once a month

The chlorine cant do any more damage than the ammonia.
You could drain 50% then fill 30% today and the rest tomorrow if you wanted to remove some of the chlorine.
But I have always done 50% water changes straight from the hose without suffering losses.
Just have the jet on the hose when you fill. The aeration helps remove the chlorine. Sometimes you can even smell it bubbling out.
You can wait a week to test water, but do not feed the fish for the whole week, and probably not till you get no ammonia and almost no nitrite.
Nitrite poisoning can kill fish weeks after the levels have dropped back to zero.

For salt, anywhere that sells hardware should stock it. I dont know where to get in the US

I did just notice that there are a few lava rocks at the bottom of ft the other day.
I didn't notice them before cause the water was kind of hard to see through but now I can see the bottom and I see some rocks do you think this is what caused the high spike in everything...I am still going to do a 50 % water change and get the lava rocks out from the bottom of the ft... but I was just wondering if this could have caused the spike???

Nope.
The cause is most probably from overfeeding or a fish has died