Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We have had our system for 2 wks now. Ours is a flood drain systems / chop mark 2.
We are gonna be testing for Nitrate, Nitrite and Amonia. How do we adjust these if necessary.

Any input would be appreciated.

Hi Kayshir!

If you are fishless cycling then you need to add Ammonia until you reach a level between 1.0-2.0ppm.

You can use pelletised urea for this, it can be bought from garden centres. When using urea you won't need much, two slightly heaped teaspoons per 500L is a good starting point, wait 3 days (it takes this long for the Ammonia to show fully with urea) then test, if it's not up to the 1.0-2.0ppm range then add another teaspoon and repeat the 3 day wait and test procedure.

Another alternative Ammonia source is Seasol Powerfeed (not regular Seasol). Add two capfuls per 500L, wait again, then test as above. The benefit of using Powerfeed as your Amm source, is that it will also feed your seedlings, which can be planted from day one.

Once you achieve the 1.0-2.0ppm Amm target range... do nothing... except test Amm, Nitrite and Nitrate every day and record/chart the results. About 2-3 weeks after you started adding the Amm it's level should begin to drop, at the same time the Nitrite will begin to rise, it will also then drop after a few days. When it begins to drop you will start getting Nitrate readings.

Once both the Amm and Nitrite have peaked then dropped to 0.0ppm, you can put your fingerlings in, you don't have to add or adjust anything at this point. Keep testing Amm and Nitrite for the next few days to ensure any spikes from adding the fish drop back to 0.0ppm within a couple of days... and feed the fingerlings 2-3 times per day.

From then on your Amm and Nitrite should be 0.0ppm if your system is well balanced. Your Nitrate should be between 0.0 and 40ppm. If it constantly sits above 40ppm then you need more plants, or less fish.

Wow. Thanks we are fishless. We have planted our plants. We shall start testing the water and will get some powerfeed. We are using seasol atm....Thanks for the input....Its all quite exciting. Will let you know how we go.

Mr Damage.

We have taken readings this morning. Ammonia 0 ppm, Nitrate 0 ppm, Nitrite 0 ppm.
We have added 2 caps per 500ltrs of Seasol Powerfeed.
Will take readings again in morn.

Thanks.

Ammonia and Nitrate didn't change. But the Nitrite has come up a bit.
Will add more Seasol Powerfeed.

Add a fish emulsion like charlie carp gives you your ammonia. If my memory is coorect there if very little in the seaweed extacts like seasol. Could be wrong in fact have been know to be wrong but read the list of goodies in the product.

Standard Seasol doesn't have much Ammonia, but Seasol Powerfeed has plenty, it's a seaweed extract and fish hydrolysate combined supposedly. I've used it in a number of systems now and it doesn't take much to get an Amm level of 1.0-2.0ppm.

New readings are Ammonia no change, Nitrate 80 ppm and Nitrite 5 ppm. Are we heading in the right direction.
If the Nitrate is 80ppm and we need to add more plants? We are full and no fish....hope we are doing the right thing.

Today reading 1.3.15 Ammonia is .25, Nitrate 80ppm, Nitrite 2.0ppm and PH 6.0......are we doing it right....seems to be taking a long time to get the ammonia up.

It can take 4 to 6 weeks to cycle and in some cases longer. The golden rule with AP is patience.

The Ammonia won't increase because I suspect you already have a healthy colony of Nitrsomonas bacteria, so as you add the Powerfeed etc any Ammonia it contains is very quickly converted to Nitrite... which, looking at your figures, is also being converted quite well, so your Nitrobacter colony is just about up to full speed also... You are nearly there.

As Charlie said... patience. It will take a little longer than usual with the low pH you have, the bacteria prefer a slightly alkaline environment. Why is your pH so low?... What type of water did you start with?... Have you added acid?

We used rain water and we haven't used any acid... also the gravel we used is not washed and has residue of cement powder in it.......could that be a problem. We are getting iron chelate to put in the plants are a little pale.
So what levels should we have before we get our fish.

I didn't notice your pH reading, yes that is surprising of a new system as usually most start out around 8ish. Can you take a reading from your source water, I'm assuming rain water tank? The nitrification process is acidic so it will keep pushing your pH down over time so keep an eye on it as if it gets too low the bacteria can crash. 6.5-7 is a good pH range to aim for which will best suit your plants as nutrients are better available.

Is pH is truely at 6 I will advise you to bump it up to around 6.5 to 7 as charlie suggest.. anything lower that ph6 may cause you bacterial community to crash and system my need to recycle.

Hi Guys, the PH started out as 7.6 but has come down to 6.0 over the last week... How do we heighten our PH levels to the required 6.5 - 7. We put our first lot of Chelated Iron in today.....waiting to see the results.