Aquaponics Article Worth Reading

[B. Pearcy]

I found a link to this article posted on Aquaponics in Florida via Facebook.  It's a good article that I learned a lot from. It explains a lot of complex science in simple terms. I've been struggling with ideas for how to increase or decrease ph this weekend, and this IFAS article presents several ideas.

[Kobus Jooste]

Interesting paper.  One idea could be to run AP systems with lower pH and increase the gravel bed ratios to compensate for the lower nitrification capacity.  Mine has been running 6.5 or below for a long time, and one of its simptoms have always been residual Ammonia readings of around 2 mg/l.  I'm adding more media beds to try and deal with this.  Another option would be to run the systems with a pH of 7 in summer and use foliar sprays to deal with deficiencies, and then lower the pH of the system in winter when the fish metabolism is slower and you will be feeding less anyway.  This could flush the built-up micro-nutrients out of the media beds until you increase your pH again to deal with increased feeding loads.

 

Anyway - these are first thoughts.  Nice paper.

[Harold Sukhbir]

Hi B Pearcy,

Thank you for sharing the article, very informative. I've already accepted the fact that it will take some time for the gray areas in AP to turn to black and white, to understand all the variables, this is only the beginning for us.