Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Help! I started my system a few months ago. We cycled it with fish, all of our Large Mouth Bass made it as well as our Koi even though our Ammonia and Nitrites got high. Anyway everything came back down and was fine. Our catfish got some kind of disease and died (or so I think it may have been nitrite poisoning) Since then our nitrates were up to 40 ppm and we added two float beds to our system. However now our nitrites, nitrates, and ammonia are at 0 and our plants arent growing really at all. Our pH is high 8.2 We havent added anything yet to the system to bring it down. We did have some water leaking out of one of the fish tanks because it got too full and I hope it didnt compromise our bacteria because Im not sure how much leaked out. Once we found out about the problem we corrected it. I dont know what to do though. Do I not have enough fish?? My media is gravel that I just found out is a mixture of granite and marble. Which I have heard marble is not good to use.

My system is two 275 Gal IBC tanks I have approximately 70 Bass 4 Koi 40 Goldfish (feeders) 5 chubunkans.

I have 4 growbeds that are 5ft by 3ft and a ft deep that all hve the media gravel in them and I have 2 5 ft by 3 ft and a ft deep float beds.

We definitely plan on getting more fish, but I dont know what to do for the time being. I have muriatic acid but I was unsure if this would be the solution or if it would just cause more problems.

I have never done a buffer.





I dont know what to do or what my best options are. Any advice would be helpful. All the different resources online have different answers. Some say use acids some say dont. So Im not sure what I should do.

Some questions:
what type of media do you have?
how much are you feeding fish?
what is your water source?

In my experience, lower pH is difficult. The chemicals that are used aren't all that safe for fish and plants.

If you have lots of fish in your system and you're getting zero readings for all 3 I suspect 2 things. 1. your plants are sucking up all available nutrients and you need to feed more. BUT I don't think this is the case
2. you might be doing your tests incorrectly. Try and read the instructions and follow exactly as explained.

You pH will eventually drop. The nitrogen cycle produces H ions that will lower pH over time. If you can increase the number of fish and also the amount you feed.

be patient, sometimes it takes a lot longer than you like for systems to cycle and settle in to a productive system.

What feed are you using and also pics sometimes help

The water leaking out of the tank won't have affected the bacteria. If they were having problems your Ammonia levels would be building up.

I think your kit is working and the bacteria are churning along converting the Ammonia to Nitrite then Nitrates and finally these are being used almost immediately by the plants. This doesn't necessarily mean you need to feed more, that depends on the fish and what they are willing to eat. HN has some good comments and suggestions but I think this may be a deficiency related issue due to the high pH of your system.

Charlie's request for pics should help determine if there is a deficiency that's slowing things up.

You can run a system with high pH as long as you supplement nutrients that may be unavailable, like Iron. I did this for 2 years and it does work.

In the event you do decide to lower the pH, follow safety precautions and only use the muriatic acid with top up water not in the system. Here's how you would do this;

Hydrochloric acid (aka Muriatic acid) - Add to topup water - adjust top up water pH to 6.0 to 6.5 and let stand 24 hours before adding to system (check pH before adding as a precaution). This will lower the system pH gradually over time.

Let's see some pics so we can figure out what's going on

Cheers

what is good with fish lemon juice will lower ph and is safe just use a little bit at a time as if it swings to fast fish will die

don't use lemon juice, it's anti-bacterial properties can kill the "good bacteria" that converts the ammonia
my system ran with a high ph for almost a year before it almost crashed (dropped suddenly to the low 6's) and i had to start buffering it up..
if you feel you must chase your ph, to lower it, you can use muriatic acid, mix in some water before putting into your system - add only a little, a ph swing of more than a couple points in a day can really stress your fish
instead of that, have you tried using maxicrop with iron? a small quantity added to your system will provide micronutrients that the ph is locking out..i used about a cap ful a month in a system with 110gal ft, and 110 gal gb

I too have tap water over 8-8.2. My system was staying there. All the experienced APers said wait but it seems that it was retarding my plant growth. I have done like Scotty said and I mix HCl into my top off water and add it to my sump slowly. Now my water is around 7.6-7.8. BTW, my tomatoes and cukes are still pretty small. The mint and peas are shooting out! Check out my posting to see if we are experiencing the same thing.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20156

Thank you all for the input. We did put lemon in our system and then I saw a video saying NOT to do that because it will kill the bacteria. One person said to only use lime or lemon in emergency situations. Anyway my issue or concern is the plants arent growing. I think my pH is coming down it looks closer to 7.8 now and Im showing somewhere between 0 - 5ppm on nitrates since I just added a koi thats about a ft long and 25 more 5 inch large mouth bass they may be helping the nitrates build. I didnt want to have to substitute any nutrients. If I started my plants in peat pellets and then transferred them to the aquaponics system could that be an issue. I wondered if I had them in the pellets too long? Could you stunt a plants growth by doing that? I have been taking the stems/leaves off that look badd that are dying or look like they have something wrong with them, should I have not done that? My tomatoes are doing horrible though. Im sure from the pH being high I know plants like pH in the 6's I got some muriatic acid but I have been trying to wait it out to see if my pH will drop. I was under the impression my plants would grow quicker in the system than in a regular garden. But since our system isnt quite where it needs to be its taking them longer. Also does anyone know will bees pollinate my plants do I need to self pollinate I have my system in a greenhouse. I llive in the mountains of North Carolina I plan on having it temperature controlled so I can have fresh food year round.

Have you done a pH test of your source water?

Yes we have well water and we tested it before we started the system it is surprisingly 6.4

Have you run the vinegar test on your grow media?

Does look like an Iron deficiency on the second to the bottom pic you posted (Interveinal Chlorosis). Can't do much for it if you don't want to add anything. Either need to spray with Iron of some kind or lower the pH so that the Iron already in your system is available. Nice system by the way

We did not do a test on our media. I did call and find out that it is made up of marble and granite. I have heard marble can mess up your pH. What does the vinegar test do for you? I am pretty new to this myself. We did a lot of research before starting but there were obviously a few things we missed. So you can add Iron to the system? How would I get that..? Also, I have muriatic acid I just heard that if you start adding acids you will probably always have to add them. Going to do another pH test today to see if it is still dropping since it went down yesterday. I figured there was some sort of deficiency I wish my plants were green again! So I had talk to a friend who said once the pH comes back down I need to buffer my system is this true ?

unless you add some chelated iron, with your ph you will continue to have problems.. i used 1 liter of maxicrop with iron in about 1 year,, you don't need much, and this provides micronutrients that your plants are not getting
use a good quality aquaculture food, and supplement as necessary - your first couple months may seem like slow going, but your system will pick up when you least expect it.. you can spend a lot of time chasing your ph, or work with what you have

so the maxicrop doesnt have anything other than seaweed and iron? No EDTA right? I saw some of them have that which I dont want in my system.