Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Funny, I did all of the building, but now my wife calls it OUR system... It's all good though, I'm glad she participates now!

Ronmaggi - that is how all of my other projects went. I joking kept asking her where was the lil pig in her pocked for all those we's. This time she asked what can I do to help so it's our project.

More pictures...

still more pics.

I had an issue with the bell siphon water flowing too forcefully into the 2 inch lines going to the sump. It was over flowing under the GB to remedy this issue I added a 90 degree elbow to direct it to the sump.

Quick Update. Here are a few new pictures of our system. I finished the back wall installation. Replaced the pump and got a timer.

Trying to rescue a Japanese Plum tree that was blown over during the last big storm. Here are our gb's planted.

Our test results after a couple of weeks of pee-ponics. One quick question how do I lower the ph of the water our system? It is testing around 8 on the ph chart. I would like to lower it before introducing fish to the system.

Before dealing with pH.
1-What is your source water? How hard is it? Warning your source water may come out of the pipes with a false low pH due to trapped CO2 in the water. Bubble it overnight and measure the pH again and you will likely get a more accurate reading on the pH of your source water.

I generally caution about using acid in a functioning system. Now that you are cycling up, you want to make sure to only slowly adjust the pH of your system to avoid hurting your bacteria or plants.

Seeing as you are still in the process of cycling, there is a good chance your pH will come down on it's own as your nitrite spike starts to go away depending on how hard your water is.

(this is all assuming your media isn't affecting your pH. If your media is full of limestone or something like that, no amount of acid is going to lower your pH.)

If dosing muratic acid into your system before you get fish, I would say go with maybe a spoon full per day to let the acid start eating away at the hardness in your water without bouncing your pH too much until you get the pH down into the mid 7.2-7.6 range, then I would probably say leave the system alone. Again, I don't like using acid directly in systems and I will normally tell people to treat their top up water and let it stabilize before use in their systems.

Thanks for the quick reply TCLynx2. I collected 300 gallons of rain water to start the system off but have added some tap water last month no more than 60 gallons in the sump. Our media is expanded clay so it should be ph neutral. The water does not seem hard but is there a test I can do to check? I'll keep testing daily now and track the progression to see if it comes down.

Thanks again.

Tim

There are test kits for hardness
http://www.thatpetplace.com/kh-carbonate-hardness-test-kit-freshwater-saltwater
you can get them from aquarium shops or online

It is not uncommon for a new system to run a high pH during cycling. You might wait till the nitrite drops before you worry too much about the system pH.

Thanks again TCLynx2, I'll hold off until we finish cycling the system to worry about the ph.

A few more water test updates. I didn't get a picture of the Ph but it was a 7.6 and ammonia was at .25. getting closer to fish time.

A few upgrades along the way full IBC tote sump tank for one.