Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

If cycled, that amount of wet gravel should be more than adequate for 50x feeder sized goldies, they only need about 5-7L of wet gravel per fish.

I think you must have another Ammonia source... Are you still adding Charlie Carp?... or Seasol Powerfeed etc?

Even one small dead fish lodged somewhere will provide a fair amount of Amm. I had a customer that an elevated Amm level he couldn't explain and he was adamant there were no dead fish in the system, but in the end he found he had a fish lodged on the underside of the intake end of his pump where he couldn't see it.

Haven't added any Charlie or any other additive for over a week.
Think the wife may have been over feeding, how much of the sm pellets would you suggest.

Will strip out the gravity pipework tomorrow and see if a dead one turns up.

I filled a spare blue barrel with 100 L from sump tank and 100L from garden tap have added 1ml of HCI and at moment its sitting at 7.8PH with water pump belting the guts outta the water. Will add a bit more HCI as well and get it down further.

the fish are very happy swimming around all depths of the Fish tank

Now that the water recycling has stopped for the night, air pump keeps on running.
Although using a SLO there appears (there is) solids on the bottom of fish tank, do I just swirl it around when the SLO is working or can I make a vacuum cleaner of some sort.?

If you believe overfeeding may be causing the constant Amm readings and you have a build up of waste on the floor of your FT, then I wouldn't stir it up, I would siphon it out of the FT.

For cleaning my FT I use a siphon made from a 1m length of 15mm PVC with the inlet end heated and partially flattened, and on the other end a 15mm PVC faucet elbow with a 15mm BSP x 19mm threaded/barbed poly director screwed into it and a length of 19mm hose attached to it... run it out to your lawn, fruit trees etc.

2 weeks later.... no change, PH 8.2; Amm .25; Nitrites .0; nitrates .25:

Pulled apart all pipework... nothing stuck inside

Mixed rain and sump tank water into barrel, smashing it with HCI (getting PH reading of 4.2, air-rating this for a few days then adding 10L back into ST every 5/6 hours, after 48 hours still no difference in PH or ammonia levels. water temp 12-15*

Fish are happy, lettuce, rhubarb and strawberries powering on.

I think I'll go the water recycling again and keep on doing over next week several times, if I kill the fish, bugger.

Is it possible that the system has not 'cycled' although it should have by now.

Mr damage your siphon pipe is fantastic, cleaned out a lot of dirt after your last comment.

Bump bump H..E..L..P...

The pH tester you've got has a little screw on it. If you're near a jaycar, they've got a ph calibration chemical. You dunk the pen in it, and screw it until the pen matches the calibration chemical. Mine was accurate, but when they are made my the millions in a chinese factory, it could be out.

With the ammonia. Stop feeding for a few days, and make sure there is no rotting food at the bottom, and see if it goes down. Then you can decide if it's feeding, or something else.

Colum, thanks mate
but the PH tester matches the liquid API test kit result.
The fish haven't had anything for over a week, I'am scared they will die of hunger
There is no dead fish or bodies or food in the system anywhere.

They can go for a month without feed. They'll be fine.

So the ammonia is still high after a week of no feeding (and no charlie carp or anything added)?

Mate, the ammonia and PH have both been high for over a month, in fact from the time we started taking records (8th July) nothing has changed.

The people we got the gravel off are now overseas, so cant help out.
The fish are growing although what they are eating is ?? They are goldies and feeders (?) and whenever we look at them they come to the top of water looking for ??? food? but they are healthy, swim all over the IBC.

All the equipment we are using has been used as an aquaponic system before, we saw it working and thats what got us interested.

I just mean can we isolate the issue causing the high ammonia. I'm assuming you've done your wet media vs fish load calculations, and you aren't overstocked. If you haven't fed for a week, and aren't adding anything like charlie carp (which has ammonia), then it could be something like a fish caught in the piping going to the beds, maybe around the flow valves?

Or is there a cat/dog using the beds as their own litter station?

In the mean time, I'd recommend continuing getting your pH down so it won't be an issue to your fish.

I am putting some pis up. some vegies are looking pale but not adding anything till we get this licked.

Have not added any Charlie or Seasol or stuff like that for over a month.
The fish/ wet media Mr Damage clarified earlier on this thread.
Ive pulled all pipework apart, and will do it again, but have to be in Adelaide for rest of week.

At waist height and enclosed yard there aint no animal getting in there.

Continuing to recycle water

I find it weird that your nitrites/nitrates aren't higher though. If you have a continual ammonia reading, it should be converted, and rising the nitrates past the point the plants can use up.

Can you test your ammonia test on pure rainwater?

Nitrifying bacteria that convert nitrite to nitrate are inhibited by ammonia so they won't begin processing nitrites until the ammonia has all been converted.

Maybe your source water has chloramines, which is a combined chlorine/ammonia bond. As the chlorine off-gasses when exposed to UV (which takes time) you are left feeding your system constantly with ammonia. Often the readings can be false or misleading.

Fill a bucket with your source water and test all readings, then aerate that bucket in the sun for 24 hours and retest all parameters and let us know the results. Neutralisers and activated charcoal filters can break the bond to free up the chlorine to aid in faster off-gassing but 24 hours might be enough if you don't have any of that laying around.

The API kit is the golden standard but it is far from perfect. Google the aquarium forums and you will see lots of people with the same issue that you are having with the ammonia kit. The problem is compounded by the fact that sometimes it does not show the slight green tint with straight RO water. The general consensus is that the API kit is reacting to "something else" in the water. Also, people have issues when the process timing is not followed to the letter or the reactants are not shaken properly. The latter issue compounds with subsequent tests because now the solids in the reactant are at a higher concentration.

Use the API kit as a base line but the real indicators are fish and plant happiness.