Backyard Aquaponics
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Hi there,

It's been a while since I've updated this thread.

I'm having a spot of trouble and was hoping for some advice.

The problem is that my amonia is high and I can't figure out why.

My current stats:
amonia 4
ph: 6.4
temp: 23.5
Nitrite: 0

The amonia has been high for a long time. Possibly months but it just won't go down.

I have cleaned the FT and there is nothing on the bottom and no dead fish.

Is it possible that the high amonia reading is comeing from dead roots in the GBs?

I had noticed that they weren't draining as well as I would like, some water was sitting near the surface at one end even when the water at the other end had drained.

I tried digging the gravel around with a shovel a bit and this sort of helped.

I'm wondering if I have lots of dead plant matter in there which may be contributing to the amonia.

The amonia isn't toxic at the moment as the temp is still low. I'm worried though if the temp rises that it will become so.

I've also hardly been feeding the fish in a hope to get the amonia to come down. I've been feeling bad for the poor little buggers though and gave them some food this morning. They were ravenous.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Cheers

CT

I'm thinking you're overstocked and your GB's are full of solids. Increasing the ammonia.

From reading back, you've got 3 GB's, how big are they?

Hi,

Each gb is 600l .
FT is 3000l
I've got about 85 silver perch about 10cm
lots of air in tank (in fact prob too much)

Is there a way to proove the gbs are the issue? How does one clean a gb?

Dig out all the gravel and wash it or something? Won't that kill all the good bacteria?
Maybe I could get a civ from bunnings or something and wash the gravel on that?

There can't be too much air, so don't worry about that.

You stock according to wet media, so I'll guess you have 500L of wet media there. Which means you should stock to 20-25 fish per GB. So max 75 fish.




Give Rob's method a try. See what comes up from the beds.

You might want to look into installing a RFF filter as well if the bed is horribly clogged. To keep it under control.

Slow down feeding in the mean time, they can survive for weeks without being fed.

I think I would test some other water to see if maybe your Ammonia test kit hasn't gone bad.

I don't know if you have a solids filter (Like a Radial Flow Filter or Swirl Filter) but adding one of these and then removing excess solids would reduce the amount needing to be processed by the grow beds and might make cleaning them almost a non-issue.

Do you have red wrigglers in the grow beds?

Make sure you are using dechlorinated water when you clean them. I haven't watched the video recently but the suggestion to use Rob's method is a good one I think.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Rob said his nitrites were high. I am not seeing that at all, only high amonia. Would this stil be from rotting materials in the gb?

I'm pretty sure there are worms in the gbs.

I may be able to figure out a way to flood and clean the gbs. I have a pond cleaner so may be able to remove some gravel then flood the gb and then suck out the water with the pond pump.

It's a bit tricky to drain the gb using the existing plumbing just because it's hard to get to to attach another pipe.

What is it that normally cause amonia, is it the roots from plants or just fine particulate setlling on the bottom of the gb?

I'm assuming that by using the air it's lifting the fine material off the bottom of the gb?

Is there any way I could figure out which gb is causing the problem or do I just have to assume all three and clean them one by one.

Lots of different things could cause the ammonia spike but it's often something like dead leaves, fish, or bacteria. It can also be the group of bacteria in the grow bed and how they process waste. Could also be something is missing that they need to process the ammonia. Those are a few of the possibilities but it's sometimes hard to narrow it down. If you want to experiment, try adding a bit of sugar to your grow beds and see what happens to the readings after a day or so (maybe a tablespoon in each). If it's a problem with carbon/nitrogen balance, that could kick start things again. Just so you're aware, I'm not certain of what will happen, there may be some risk but I think it's pretty safe to try. The idea is you're feeding the bacteria and plants in the grow bed a carbon source which they can use to create organic compounds for nitrogen to attach on. It also helps some of the bacteria proliferate.

That's an interesting idea.
I'll give it a go. Didn't think of that.
Could it also be a trace element or something missing, perhaps I should add some seasol, haven't done that in ages.

If that doesn't work I'll have to try cleaning out the gravel this weekend.

It's a slow process though and will probably take several weekends.

Guess I'd better get this issue resolved though before the water gets too hot and the amonia starts poisoning the fish.