Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi BA. New guy here.

I have had a 1200 gal pond in my back yard for 3 years. I have been reading all I can in the last month or so re. fish, aquaculture, aquaponics and the associated reading. I have raised Koi (4" got to 24") and goldfish for years.

Have never had a problem, other than when my mother came by when I was on vacation, she saw the pond was about n inch low so she added some hose water, she forgot and went home! All my 2 year old fish including 3 24" Koi dead! Oh well, things happen.

So cleaned pond well filled with water waited a few weeks and put 15 goldfish and 15 Rainbow Dace in. All lived great not one lost fish. That was about a year ago.

pH has always been high around 9, fish guy at pond store said should be fine, and it was and has been for years.

In an effort to get good at AP and get some practice in raising vegetables with fish I have seen that some of the nutrients might get "locked out" at this high pH. So I purchased some Acid Buffer. I made a 5 gal bucket of around 5 pH and created a wicking effect to slowly wick the 5pH water into my pond. It was working great but very slow, I got antsy and put about a qt in last night. Pond water went to just over 8pH and I thought that was fine. But today I found 1 of the small Rainbow Dace dead, 1st fish ever (I don't count the 3 pacostomus (sp) didn't know they couldn't take 45 deg water, oops)

So it's obviously the fast drop in pH, what do y'all think I should do? How is the best way to buffer slowly in my system my tap water is in the 9 range. So every time I do a 20% water change which is once a month my pH will jump up.

Thanks for any help, and this site is GREAT! LOTS of great info!!

Rob C

I had this problem once when I tried to use coral rocks as my grow medium. Could not figure out why my pH was at a 9.0 for the hell of me. My fish were fine, but nutes were getting locked out from the plants. I tried adding everything from commercial "pH down" products to adding vinegars and soda water every day to lower the pH. They all worked temporarily, but no matter what I did, pH was back up to 9.0 by the next morning.

Switched to Growstones and my pH balanced out within days.

Be sure to see if you can remove any of these items (pH increasing substances) from your pond or grow bed:

-Sea Shells or Coral
-Texas Holly Rock
-Tufa Rock

Similarly, try to add these pH lowering items or features to your closed-loop system:

-Driftwood
-Cactus Wood
-Leaf Litter: You can add brown leaves such as Catappa (Indian Almond Leaves), oak or banana leaves, or use an extract bag for less mess
-Peat Moss with no chemical additives or peat pellets made for aquariums
-CO2: Adding more Carbon Dioxide to the system can drastically lower the pH. NFT and drip systems will naturally aerate your system and help buffer pH

I would add an outside link to where I sourced this information, but I do not want to get yelled at by the OZ, lord of backyardaquaponics

LAWL!!!
Link to whatever you want, especially sources of info, but try not to link to your business, etc.
It is against the rules to use the forum for advertising.
Technically its kinda like the ABC, but we all use business names anyway, sometimes its neccessary.
The forum is here for info only, not to make people rich, After all there is a business tied to this forum that pays for us to gain knowledge with very little benefit to them.

... maybe I wasn't clear enough...

And I wasn't yelling at anyone... and I'm not a lord...

do the oak leaves have to be brown
would small cuttings from the tree work
i'm worried about the bacteria from the leaves on the ground, due to fertilizers,raccoons, cats etc

Good to hear

I wonder, are you a wizard ?

cheers

Definitely...

If your pond is lined with limestone or you fill it with your local 'tap water' from a limestone aquifer, you are wasting your time trying to use it for any plants that don't do well at 9.0pH (which are most). Collecting rainwater is your best bet.

In my experience; adding chemicals should be a last resort ALWAYS (not yelling; for emphasis), as it insreases the "osmotic pressure" of the water which increases the likelihood of said chemicals contaminating the fish and doing them harm. Even when you change the water, you don't get out the same amount of chemicals as you do water and it makes it harder to control. Try to stick with things from maria_farmXchange's list and add them into the system slowly while closely monitoring the pH until you have reached desired pH and it remains stable. It may be more work, but it is less stressful on the fish if you draw the water you will be adding and drop the pH before putting it into the system. As one member on here has said )I can't remember which but you have probably read it too) "This is about resilience" and to my mind, a healthy, unstressed fish is a resilient fish, thus adding one more buffer to big bad Mr. Murphy.

Just going off the information given you may want to check for a few things. Any dead matter, leaves, limbs, etc can cause ph to rise. Also, I have heard that some aquatic plants can cause ph rise as well as any metal planters etc.

I do have to constantly work on getting the leaves and acorns out of the pond, so that might be the culprit. It is 4' deep and has blocks in it so can not scoop the bottom completely. I wonder is the cinder blocks are still leaching out after 4 years?

Rob C

[quote="Rob C"]I do have to constantly work on getting the leaves and acorns out of the pond, so that might be the culprit. It is 4' deep and has blocks in it so can not scoop the bottom completely. I wonder is the cinder blocks are still leaching out after 4 years?

Rob

Concrete will not stop leaching. I would take them out and use something different.