Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am still slowly learning,
recently my plants have not be growing overly well i had a few plumbing issues and lost a lot of water, i topped up probably a third of my water direct from the hose, could this slow down my growth, i only have access to scheme and hopefully soon bore water, am i better to get a few drums and gas off the water before adding?

If you're flushing out all your nutrient rich water, it'll take a little bit to bounce back.

Add some Seasol to the mix, it'll bring the micro/macro nutrients back to better levels.

And if you added 1/3 of your tank in town water without treatment, then I'd worry about chlorine/chloarmines. The systems can handle a certain amount of chlorine (1/10th is usually considered safe), but too much and you'll end up with dead fish.

Chlorine can gas off easier within a day, chloramines are a lot harder. The easiest way I was told to tell the difference, is to smell the water from the tap, chlorine will have a faint (very faint) chlorine smell, chloramines will be odourless.

as always super helpful thanks colum

Don't think chloramines are an issue in metro WA - where in WA are you?

I've done a 1/3 tank top up with perth scheme water with no issues. Though you are better off with a top up drum to off gas and age the water - also useful if you need to adjust ph.

Might be wise to test bore water before use as it may be too high in certain minerals such as iron.

cool yeah I'm in gosnells so hopefully not a problem, ill keep it in mind when the bore goes in to have it tested. bought a 200 liter tank yesterday so will use it to gas off my water going forward

I think watercorp uses chloramines for long pipe runs to places out in the boonies, so generally metro is ok (other than the chlorine and fluoride )