Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Makes sense to me.

I'm back in town again.
Here is a pic of my sump, it's a 100 gallon Rubbermaid tank.


Here is the Kill-A-Watt meter with the green house system running.


And one adding power for the other tank.


Plants are still struggling...

Today's changes
I moved a panel over the tank to keep some of the sun off the water.


I ran the supply tube into the media of each grow bed to keep the surface dry to reduce evaporation.

I have my first OOPS. I am using some treated lumber to support a cover for my big tank. Keeping the sun off is helping with water clarity. However while placing the fence panel over the tank the support board fell in. The support boards are treated with poison to keep the wood from rotting. The fish seem fine but there are thousands of dead mosquito larvae floating on the surface. I hope I didn't kill off my good bacteria. I pumped out about 1/3 of my water and am refilling now. I'll probably do that again tomorrow to dilute the poison. Any Ideas?

Hum, I wouldn't have expected the new treated wood to be quite so quickly toxic.

I also wouldn't have expected to hear about thousands of mosquito larva surviving without being eaten by the fish.

seems odd.

As for toxic quickly, it happened over a couple days. The wood was only in the water a few seconds. The water was murky with algae to the point where I could only see the goldfish at the surface. That may allow more larvae to survive. The larvae did not photograph well I only had a point & shoot camera with me. I'm headed there now so I'll know more soon.
Thanks for your reply.

Maybe The water clarity allowed me to see the skeletons of the larvae that "hatched" into adulthood?

Water test results from the big tank today.
This is the first time my Ph has been on the scale.

My ammonia is higher than intended but workable.

Nitrites prove I have good bacteria.

.There seems to be a 3 pic limit.

Nitrates say more good bacteria and plants should be growing wildly.


Yet my plants are slowly dying. Is this still Ph. lock?

pH is still a bit high for the plants. Those nitrites are rather high if you have fish in the system.

If you have been feeding, you should probably not feed for a couple days till the ammonia is down and the nitries come down some. That high pH and high ammonia can be quite bad for fish and nitrites are always bad for fish.

I have not put any food in the system yet.

I'm lost, are you fishless cycling? Or are there fish in there?

Yes there are goldfish in there. Started with 10, there are 7 now. They are growing fast. They eat the bugs that get in the water and algae that grows naturally.

Should I be lowering the Ph. to get the plants removing nitrates. It seems to me that I should add some acid to lower the Ph.

Resist adding acid directly to a system that is already starting to cycle and has living fish/plants.
It is really easy to cause pH to bounce violently by adding strong acids and that is even worse for your fish, plants and bacteria than a high pH.

If you must use acid, set up a separate tank in which to prep your top up water. If possible add aeration to this water to help things mix. (I would advise getting a carbonate hardness test kit as well as what you already have.) Then you need to know how much water you are going to be adjusting and track how much acid you use in that water to get it adjusted. The first time you do the adjustment it will probably take days since you don't want to over shoot. Anyway, you can use muratic acid (hydrochloric acid) or Phosphoric acid. Add a measured amount of the acid into your prep tank and keep track. Let that mix for several hours and then check the pH and hardness, then WAIT till the next day and check the pH and hardness again. It takes time for carbonates to react with the acid so you want to make sure the pH has stabilized and check it again before you add more acid or figure the pH is low enough. Eventually you will have added acid and waited and measured and added more acid and waited and measured and waited and measured and then maybe added more acid again and waited and measured and waited and measured until you get a tank of water with low to no carbonate hardness left and a pH of between 6-6.5.
Then you should be able to add up how much acid it required to adjust that particular amount of that source water to the lower pH and carbonate hardness level Remember that amount because the next time you do this you might just put in a tiny bit less than that total amount into the prep water and not have to take all week to get it done again.

Anyway, once you have a tank of that adjusted source water, use that to top up your system or do some small water changes for your system with it and that will bring your system pH down much more gently and safely than dumping acid into your system.

Patience, I know this early stage of system development is hard but try to be patient.

Thank you, I'll be patient...