Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am sure this topic has been covered elsewhere but I couldnt find anything showing the exact figures. I am wondering at what levels (mg/l) would you change some water from your tank when setting up a new system??

welcome mutley. go to the useful information section, there will be a section with ammonia and there is a table there.

as for nitrite 2 or 3 ppm would be the most i want, although the addition of salt can de-toxify the nitrite for the fix

I actually had the exact same question, although I found the chart for ammoni(a/um) in the Useful Information section. It might be helpful to stick some kind of figure or guideline into the Nitrite article as well, as I know I looked there first for water change information, and this topic will inevitably get buried.

Also, Steve, when you say 2 to 3 ppm are you talking about the Nitrite-Nitrogen levels (as measured by many test kits) or the actual Nitrite levels (3.3 times less than that).

Today the Ammonia levels in my little proof-of-concept system finially started dropping! HURRAY! now for the Nitrites.

gee Llama, now you've mad emy headache worse. I remember looking up the distinction at the start of my AP trip and being confident that i had meaningdul results...............cant for the life of me remember which one was which now, or which one my test kit measued.

If anyone can beat me to it then please do, i'll look it up a little later.

I think the chart speaks in TAN total ammonia-nitrogen

If you have the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Freshwater Master Test Kit like I do (and I believe many here do), then the Nitrite test actually gives Nitrite concentration, not Nitrite-Nitrogen.

My test this morning read 1ppm Nitrite, so either way I'll probably do a 20% water change tomorrow...but if your recommendation was 2 to 3 ppm Nitrite-Nitrogen, I was going to go into emergency water changing mode



EDIT: Yah, the chart is in TAN...thanks again, as it was super useful!

hehehhe, i knew there was a reason i likes aquapharm