Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

*squints at picture*

Looks like your pH is around (*vague hand-wave gestures*) 7.5, 7.6 or so, your ammonia is coming down, your nitrite is spiking (which means your first set of nitrifying bacteria are growing nicely), and your nitrates are coming in (second set of nitrifying bacteria are reporting for duty). These are great numbers for a cycling system but would be horrible for a system with fish in it, so keep waiting!

I always find the nitrate test hard to read precisely - at low levels I can't work out which colour the test is showing, and at high levels the number brackets are so wide they end up meaningless. You've got them showing and it's not up at incredibly high levels, that's all I really fuss about.

Thanks Redcap! Yes, some of the colors seems so close! Plus, I am taking pics with the tablet since my gel is MIA at the moment. I appreciate you taking a look!

don't put too much into interpreting the shades - the tests are simply not that accurate.
It is sufficient to say you are between 7.2 and 7.6 - a nice place to be and one not worth worrying about any further.

I see your nitrates as being in the orange to pink (maybe it is picture) - so 10-20, again not a bad place to be.

Most significantly from an AP perspective is that your ammonia is not yet yellow and your nitrates are not yet blue. So basically both are above what you want.

particularly stage at present is simply waiting till you can get the purple out of the nitrites test.

but all up appears to be progressing well.

Ok. SO, I hate having to shrink the files. Glad when my new phone gets here tomorrow!

Thanks! Do you see the new pic? Does it look like my PH is back up a little? Yes, The pic is bad. New phone in the am. It was much darker than the day before, but still brown.

upper pH suggests around 8. The lower is simply saying that it has reached the limit of measurement.

ammonia is dropping and nitrites are increasing - so still cycling until the nitrites drop down.
if ammonia gets too low before nitrites settle you may need to add some more ammonia source.

are you running plants in the system ? older photos in past posts show some seedlings emerging.
probably want to start getting the nitrates used.

Thank dlf.

I have thought it may come to that. I put some extra throw away flowers in this am and will do a few more this afternoon.

The ones I have in there haven't taken off yet is why I hadn't added. One is a lemon tree taken from seed (Juste trial) the other is kinda a wondering new type.

Today I added, pansy type that Loses had put on clearance.

Ok. Things are going along fine. Except, now one of my auto siphon is getting stuck in constant siphon. So part way through the day it stops filling up.

Can you reduce the amount of water going into that growbed? Sounds like the flow is too high so the siphon won't 'break'.

I thought that too. But it still kept sticking. I made some larger holes in the bell this am. It seemed to work fine before I left. Time will tell when I get home.

We are doing inventory at work. Be glad when it is over so I can focus on what's important! Aquaponics.. LOL!