Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

here is the latest and its not exciting.

Last week in Adelaide I checked my PH tester = very accurate, arrived home last Friday and have done 5 partial water changes of 100 L each time since I got home

test results 22nd August PH 8.2; Amm .25; Nitrites .0; nitrates .25:
" today PH 8.0; Amm .25; Nitrites .0; nitrates .25;

Looking at the pics of grow beds below...
pic 1 is the 1st grow bed and it looks like its struggling
pic 2 2nd lettuce look healthy
pic 3 last mainly garlic

the fish are healthy, all levels of the FT.

Id guess that for some reason the system hasn't 'cycled' why?

Is it worth putting all the goldies intro a 200L blue barrel with existing water and keep air-rated and completely drain rest of system and start new water of do a hard 50% water change and smash hard with HCI

How are you measuring that? Thats 1/20th of the way between 0 and 5ppm, the first colour on the chart after zero.
The leaves on plants in between the garlic in GB#3 are showing a deficiency, perhaps in K.

Yep the nitrates test is very very yellow

what is 'K' and how do I treat that?

Potassium

I'd be calling it zero then, not 0.25ppm.

Its a bit tricky adding Potassium when your pH is so high- it's not a good idea to add alkaline salts, but KCl might help (Potassium chloride), however, you really need to get your pH down, as that may be the root cause of the deficiency, due to unavailability of some nutrient minerals at pH8+.

Are you sure there is no limestone in your GBs? Test any light coloured rocks with vinegar and see if they give off bubbles.

Dont want to add anything else until I've got this sorted.

There is NO limestone in system, there is NO dead fish in system

a 'friend' suggested adding a culture starter, but what is that and would it be any use?

I asked it earlier but should I put system water in a spare blue barrel, add all the fish into this, keep them air-rated and them dump all water from rest of system and start again.?

How long since you set your system up and first introduced Ammonia? If it is cycled and you havent fed the fish for a week and there is still 0.25ppm Ammonia, there must be a source of it in there somewhere. Where are you getting your water from?

built the system late June

did several small doses of Charlie Carp, I thought this helped 'activate' the system
ran it for 3 weeks and while I was away wife added gold fish but there was high PH & amm even then

water... at the moment I pull 100L from system plus 100L from garden tap with PH 7.2 then adding HCI bring it down to a reading of PH 6 then every 2 hours daylight over 2 days put 20L a time back into system. leave for 2 days then repeat this process I have done this 5 times now.

Everything points to something dead in system but theres not.

Any Chloramine in the tap water?

checked with local plunbers, water testers and SA Water, we only have Clorine in our water

Today its pouring down heavy rain so have put 3 drums out to collect 'fresh' water.
I have another drum of tap/system water that I knocked the PH down to 6 yesterday, its had a pump bubbling the water for 24 hours, when it clears I'll do another check on it and then add back into system

AS above

Over the past week I would have recycled over 2000 L of water using HCI to pull down the PH then draining away about 200L at a tome and slowly adding 40 L of new water with PH of 6.0 into system, The fish thank where I pull water from for testing dropped to PH7.9. Wowee I though but today back to 8.1

A friendly visitor suggested bacteria starter, what is it? and what good would it do now?
Are there kits I can get to test for clorine and Chloramine in the water?

Just looking back over this thread- would it be fair to say you have never detected any NO2 (Nitrite) in your system? If not and if you have been testing reasonably often, then it isn't cycled. However, if you had your water around 12-15C, and added up to ~1ppm Ammonia to start with, then you should be cycled by now, assuming no anti-bacterial substances are in your system.

Gunagulla

cheers mate, never had any nitrites or nitrates
Then why hasn't it cycled?
We have pulled the system apart so many times.... I am thinking of digging out the two slow growbeds and seeing if there is anything in the gravel, but considering that I emptied out the friends beds, into my trailer and then filled the beds myself not holding out for anything un-usual

I'm sure I replied to this earlier, but it seems to have vanished...



I suspect that bacteria starter is just like the bacteria that is already everywhere, only more expensive.

Did you ever add any Ammonia or enough fish poo to get up to 1ppm or thereabouts, to get the colonies started?

Ahh no. Thinking back I knew that ammonia was a problem, so was always trying to stop or eliminate it along with high PH...

so your saying that I should allow the ammonia to spike? does that means I now have to add something to create that? what about PH?