Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello, short introduction, my name is Greg and Im here in South Carolina in the USA. Ive been lurking for a while and about three weeks ago I took the plunge. Im bullish on food for the future and think AP is the way to go. I hope to one day have a for profit commercial system, but one needs to crawl first. Ive set up a small system in my living room to get my feet wet. I have gone the way of cycling with fish.
It started off well enough with Ammonia showing up then nitrites and then nitrates. Only problem is the nitrites havent gone away. I realize it may be a bit early but im not sure. Also my plants arent really growing. They sprouted quickly but have since stalled. Ive attached some pics. I have a 15 gallon tank and im running a constant flood. Please let me know what you think. Thanks!!

Hi Greg!

Welcome to the BYAP Forum!

Your system looks like it will be a great attraction for your living room. Tell us more about it, please...

How long have you been cycling? It takes a while for things to stableize as the microbe colony grows to handle the bioload.

What are your current test numbers (it is a little hard to tell in your pic) and have you been logging them so we can see trends?

What kind and how many fish? What are you feeding the fish? Regular flake food is not really designed for growth and may not result in many nutrients passing through for your plants.

Congratulations on taking the plunge!

--
Sam

Hi, Ive been cycling for about three weeks now. My current numbers have been the same for about a week and a half. PH of about 7.6 ammonia of zero and nitrites are the highest somewhere between 2-5. My nitrate has consistently been in the 80-160 range. These numbers have been constant with little to no change and ive been testing everyday. Ive got 7 little goldfish and Im giving them Flakes, if that is bad what would you suggest? Also I may have made a mistake with the metal trellises, should I get those out? Thanks for your help!!

Patience is key... 3 weeks is still early enough in the process. So if your Ammonia is all getting converted to Nitrites, then your Nitrosomonas have grown to a level enough to do their part, but if your Nitrites are not completely being converted to Nitrates, then you are still waiting for the Nitrobacter to grow enough to deal with all the Nitrites the Nitrosomonas are creating. You might check some of the threads of those using goldfish to see what they are feeding them, e.g. Colum's System. But generally the thought is that regular aquarium fish flake food is designed to reduce fish waste to help keep the water less toxic. Your trellises look like they are coated and so probably not much of a problem for your fish nor plants. I think they look fancy enough for an inside system -- I'd leave them in place.

Not sure why the plants have stalled, but it really is early... Keep a close eye on things (as you obviously are) and especially for now... be patient...

Maybe post a few more closeups of the plants and some of the many experts on this forum will have recommendations...

--
Sam

Hi, my nitrAtes have taken a dip in the last day. Its down to 20PPm. Is that common? Everything else is still the same. Nitrites are still real high between 2-5. Should the Nitrates fluctuate? Will I ever get a reading of zero. I also topped off some water if that matters at all. Thanks again for the help

Yes the nitrate readings will fluctuate but it may not look like it because the kits are not that accurate. Nitrates will be used by the plants and it's not uncommon to be running a system with 0 for the nitrate reading because they are used as fast as they are created. Having a reading is not a big deal but I prefer to keep it fairly low (below 40 is good but it's usually OK up to around 200 (depending on the fish species)). To me a climbing nitrate reading is an indication that you need more plants or plants that use more nitrates at least. There are other ways to deal with high readings using filtration too.

The nitrites will drop and normally they will run with a 0 reading but right now your system isn't completely cycled and the bacteria can't complete the processing fast enough so you have a reading. Once the bacteria reproduce enough then this step will happen so fast you'll almost never see a reading other than zero for nitrite.

If you haven't I would check your top up water source to see if it has any readings.

I found my seedlings would stall and I believe work on their root systems then have a growth spurt and so on even after the system has cycled. Only a bit later did they seem to grow more steadily.
I would help if you positioned your test kit results so they received direct light when taking the photo.

Pete.

re: goldfish food.

You wont get a lot of nutrient load from the flakes, but it is always hard in a small system.

For larger goldfish one of the medium protein pellets (prtoien around 30% but no m ore than 40%)
I use (and Coium same) the 3mm skretting nemo sinking.

but for an indoor tank you may want to go something around 2mm.
try to get the uncoloured and less additive varieties.

sadly buying at pet shop sizes is very costly - in bulk you can get 1kg for $6-10.
(in Aust, presume it is similar in USA). Try mail order.

It is worth still providing good quality flakes as goldfish are ominvores and the better ones have spiranella etc.
So the flakes are a good alternate food.

you will never get enough nutrients from goldfish alone in an aquarium so you need to engage in dosing your plants.
you want a couple of different organic seaweed extract type plant foods (one with low N and P and the other with slightly higher). Make sure whatever you get has good K and trace elements (this advice is equivalent to the Seasol and Power feed you see mentioned on the forum but these are Australian brands.).

You should also probably try low dose foliar feeding with a mineral plant food.

Your main needs will be K & Fe, then N and P. You have to gauge N as that is what the fish produce.
And dont want too much P as it feeds algae.

This is an important thing if your mains water provider uses chloramine.
this is well mentioned on the forum and is particulary issue in some areas of US (search chloramine).
So as Scotty notes this will throw some of your nitrate readings around and have nothing to do with the fish.

Hi, thanks for all the good info. My plan was to move on to other fish after the cycle but I dont know if I can do much with a 15 gallon tank. My water source does use chloramine, Ive checked. Im letting it sit out and then using a water treating product. Ill do some looking for supplements and food

Looks like maybe the cycle has finished. I got a zero reading for Nitrites and a near zero for Nitrates. Only thing Im worried about is the Ammonia seems to have moved up a tiny bit. THe test tube is no longer totally yellow, there is a little green in it

In these sorts of situations you sometimes just have to go with the flow for 6 months and try to understand your system. In addition to fish you have chloramine and any liquid fertiliser you add will have traces of nitrogen as ammonia or urea (which is why you need to use a low nitrogen one if there is ammonia showing in your system).

Goldfish are fairly robust so best bet is to simply stay with the guys you have and see how the system reacts as they grow, 7 goldfish is quite a lot for a small system - and as they grow it is quite possible that they will overload that small tank.

Nitrates may not be showing simply because they are being used as they are being generated.
As long as your ammonia stays in the yellow (and not green) and nitrites stay very low then you may never see nitrates again - that is not a bad thing - just mean it is being used by the plants.

if ammonia starts to rise to extent your system cannot manage then you can only stop feeding and/or get a bigger fish tank. Keep in mind that you may have residual ammonia from the chloramine and that adding any additional water to the tank will continue that issue.

For the second day ive gotten zeros everywhere and a ph of 7.4, I think, cant really tell. I also added an air stone to the tank and am thinking of getting some worms as well. Plant seem to be growing slow though

What are you using to deal with the chloramines? They do not outgas like chlorine does...

What are you growing in the tray and what is your water temp?

Greg,

As Eddie and Darren have mentioned, chloramines can become an issue. Chloramine in your water is not the same as free chlorine in your water which does outgas within 24 hours or so. Chloramine's stability in water is one of the reasons water treatment facilities like to use it. Chloramine is a combination of chlorine and ammonia, so if you've got ammonia in your tap water that is one of the signs that your water is being treated with chloramine. Whereas free chlorine is an oxidizer which burns the gills of fish, chloramines pass on into the bloodstream and affect things similarly to nitrite. The easy way to dechloraminate your water is with regular Vitamin C tablets. But depending upon which method you use to get rid of chloramine you could have an ammonia release from the breakdown. There are some wildly scary sites discussing chloramine and some that seem more reasonable. This one always strikes me as reasonable discussion about chloramine and its removal direct from the San Francisco Water Dept:

QUESTIONS REGARDING CHLORINE AND CHLORAMINE REMOVAL FROM WATER

The whole doc is a nice read, but this in particular provides a nice enough formula:


As well, Wikipedia has some suggestions: Wikipedia: Chloramines.

--
Sam