Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Please tell me you didn't!

Citric Acid, (in limes, lemons, calamansi and most citrus fruits)
will kill all beneficial bacteria's in your filters..
Back to square one.



I'm actually trying to figure out if Tuba (coconut wine vinegar) is a suitable substance to lower PH

Really!?

Hope I didn't put to much! Lets see what happens. I will monitor the ammonia, nitrite level tomorrow.

Watched a lot of videos in youtube using lime or lemon.

oh well.. lets just what happens tomorrow.. I will let you know. (fingers crossed)

So 3 days after adding 4 teaspoon of lime juice in my system below are the water stats that I have gathered.

PH 7.8 still
Ammonia 0 ppm
Nitrite 0 ppm
Nitrate 80 ppm

I was expecting for the Ammonia levels to be high if the bacteria were indeed killed but to my surprise it gave me zero. The test are the same previously (high nitrate level, same PH level)

I am planning to do another lime activity unless some one suggest a better idea? I am hesitant to put hydro acid in there. any suggestions?

Sulphuric, phosporic or Hydrochloric is the way to go.
Slowly introduce a cap full a day and see how it goes over a weeks time..

Lime might not harm in small amounts, but it as well hasn't touched your PH values so maybe if you add more it will truly kill all bacteria.


Sylvia bernstein is a expert on AP so.. I believe in what she says

Hydrochloric acid (HCl)(aka muriatic acid) - Add to topup water - adjust this to 6.0 to 6.5 and let stand several hours before adding to system (sometimes you need to re-adjust). Do this each time you add top up water, this will lower the system pH gradually over time.

I can't tell you an amount of HCL to use because each system has a unique buffering ability so it may take very little (usually this is the case since HCL is a very strong acid) or it may take a lot. The change can be rapid, that's why it's better to change the pH outside of the system where there are no fish, let it come to equilibrium and then add this water to the system. Fish can live through pretty drastic changes, so can bacteria but it's best to change the system water less than 0.4 pH points per addition.

If your just starting out and don't have fish or much of a biofilter built up then you can make faster changes directly to the system.

Cheers

Uh oh, are y'all using another tank, a top-up tank. It this usually just a barrel near the spigot? We're well water, so ours is mostly a hardness issue. I guess I knew I couldn't put water directly in the FT.

Actually you can put water directly in (depends on your water) but with well water you do have to be careful and a top up tank might be a good idea (might be good to throw an air stone in as well). Well water may be low in Oxygen and have some other issues with gasses like nitrogen and CO2. If you're going to add it directly do it in small portions until you know it's OK.

Thanks laruko, the video that I saw in youtube was also an enthusiast.

hi scotty, how much topup water of 6.0 should I add on a 2000L (2 tanks, 1000L each) tank? should I add it only in 1 tank or should I divide it and add the same time?

It would be impossible to tell you for sure how much to add. I think if you have fish and if you're only adding about 10 to 20 percent of the total water in the system you should be alright. Add it gradually so that it mixes with the system water and doesn't send a slug of water with a much lower pH through.

I'd mix it with water in the sump if you have one and let the pump distribute it. You may not see much change because your system probably has a lot of buffer capacity but as you do this over and over with topping up the water lost from your system by evaporation (or whatever) you'll gradually bring the pH down. The pH will also eventually fall even without this because of the bacterial processes going on in your grow beds. The only exceptions to this that I know of are people who have lots of buffering capacity in either their grow bed media or their top up water.

For availability of nutrients, I'd shoot to have it wind up at around 6.5 to 7.2 myself but down as low as 6.0 is OK. You don't have much space before the bacteria start to have problems when your pH is 6.0 and the API test kits only read down to pH 6.0. For this reason, If your API test kit is reading 6.0 your pH could be much lower so watch out. If you've adjusted the top up water to 6 it might really be 5.

If you don't have fish and don't have an established bio-filter then you can do more drastic changes but it's possible to overshoot.

Thanks scotty I will start taking action tomorrow (GMT+8).

One observation though after I added 4 teaspoon of lime in the system, the leaves turned a little bit yellowish compared to absolute green before.

We need more sun my man, or maybe setup some kinda of white reflectors around your system so you can maximize the little sun you have.


http://www.davaoponics.com/

Just found someone in your area, not a lot of posts yet but maybe in the coming future.

Wow! actually the site owner commented on my blog as well. Seems like he is promoting a natural booster for plants in a aquaponics system.

So I managed to get the PH down to 7.6 ish so I stuck with it.

Right now I am starting up a new project but this time on a roof top of my friends apartment that would get me lots of sunlight!

I will keep you posted!