Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok so my system has been up and running a few months and all was well. Things were growing wild and it looked like veggies on the way. But very few plants would bloom, mostly tomatos and they were just growing wild. A friend here suggested that the t-8 lights and some light through my big shop windows were not enough or the right spectrum to I added some LED and then I took out the tubes and replaced them with 2 150wat HPS. Now everything is looking bad and dying fast.
So do I put the old lights back? Am I using the wrong wattage?

update!
Checked the levels and the PH is 6, the nitrite and nitrate is 0 but the ammonia is off the chart.
Also the temp inside the shop is around 85 and there are fans running to cool it down.
There are around 15 growing catfish about half ib each(doing great) in the 250 gallon tank.

Do you have some history of your water quality? How did you get where you are?

pictures would help, if Am in high better cut down or stop feeding for while.

if it cycled already maybe something has killed the Nitrobacter and Nitrosomonas?

How many tomatoe plants do you have and how much grow media?
Tomatoes have a tenancy to suck the nutrients dry and rob the other plants in the process.
That'd explain the other plants not doing well while tomatoes are booming.

Hard to say without pics and specific details.

Ok here is more info and pictures. I have about 6 tomato plants. 3 pepper plants 1 egg plant. some calla-flower, broccoli and lemon balm. I did add water from my rain system today and it spiked up the PH but did nothing for the ammonia.

There are pictures of the system here http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=21219 but it's gone through a ton of changes since then.

Here's the test readings:


This is the right bed with 2 tomato plants growing wild but not blooming and other plants. These plants are all doing well just not producing blooms or fruit (for lack of a better word):



This is the left bed that had 4 tomato plants and others doing poorly. this bed get more light too:

Wow! your ammonia is way too high.
Change some water out, your bacteria might have crashed.

How do you get the bacteria back?

What causes it to "crash"?

I'm no expert, but you should change some water out if its super dark green on ammonia - change a 1/3rd of the water is the recommended. then test again.

6 catfish? don't feed for awhile.

The fact that there is so much ammonia and no nitrates or nitrites - suggest that your system isn't functioning properly.

Have you tested with the High PH tester?
What is the temperature>?

The bacteria crash once your Ammonia exceeds 8.0ppm, and your Ammonia has probably exceeded 8.0ppm because there is insufficient bio-filtration. The wet gravel in your system is the bio-filtration, your 15 Catfish would require probably 350L+ of wet gravel (not total gravel)... how much wet gravel is in your system?

Either the system was cycled but as the fish have grown the bio-filtration was insufficient which has allowed the Ammonia to climb and exceed 8ppm, killing the beneficial bacteria... or the system never cycled because the Ammonia was initially let get too high during cycling, therefore killing the bacteria and stalling the cycling process.

Also, yours is a new system and you too many fruiting plants even for a mature system. This is a separate issue to your bio-filtration issue and is what's causing your sick plants. A new system should only be planted out with leafy greens, lettuce, Asian greens, herbs etc, for the first few months until it matures. Once mature I still only recommend my customers plant 1/3 of their GB with fruiting plants and 2/3 leafy greens.

Ok everything I've read says nothing about "wet gravel" are you talking about in the grow beds or in the filter? 350l is a ton so if it's the filter you use a 55gal drum for the filter??

The system had leafy greens in the beginning and they didn't do well, a guy I spoke to here said that they do better in raft and not dump fill systems like mine. He also said flowering plants were best. Also it may look like there is a million plants in these pictures but there aren't really allot.

I have 55 gallons of clean rain water that I will be changing out this weekend.
We'll see how it goes.

Hello,

I'm just starting out so don't take my opinions as gospel, but dropping your ammonia with a 1/3 water swap sounds good, you can jump start things if you have a friend with a clean and healthy fresh water fish tank. you can use the old filter from their tank to flood new bacteria into your system. just keep in mind that whatever they have in their tank you will now have in yours, so choose very very carefully. Also I've heard of people using jumpstart water sold in pet stores,

Ok been a while but here's an update. No mater what I try I can't get the ammonia level down. Down to 5 fish and no plants. I have washed out the beds, pumps and cleaned out the pipes. I have done 3 water changes. 2 about 50% and 1 almost drain the tank and refilled it. I can't figure it out. I have moved most of the plants to the outside gardens and some didn't like it but others came around and are growing and putting out veggies.

So I'm not going to pull the fish out and start over. If I do that will the ammonia gas off with out fish and plants or do I need to replace all the water? This is suppose to be so much less work than outside gardening but I'm finding it to be awlful and a total waste of my time and money!

Try those ammonia clear tablets for aquariums.

Have you lost any fish? Could be a dead one somewhere? In pipes or corners?