Coudy water

[alfred leslie goeltinger]

Hello Syvia and Aquaponics Gardenfriends

       Ammonia 0.25

      PH             1.0

      NO3           100/20

      NO2           0.1

Tishtank 1000 liter and 30 Tilapia 7.5 cm.

Growbed 180 liter. 3 Pumkin small 10 seedling about 4 cm high

Fish are in since 1 week everbody alive,but the tankwater is very cloudy.

Also my Syphon dont suck very strong.The water in the Sump is very clear and i pump this to the Fishtank,how comes the tankwater is cloudy

Show it to some of my japanese friends not very impressed.

Can you or my Aquaponic gardenfriends help my out?

Thank to all your lonesome Aquaponicer in Japan Alfred 

[Chi Ma]

Are you sure your pH is at 1? Cloudy water is a bacterial bloom. It will clear up. in a few days.

[TCLynx]

With only 180 liters of grow bed, you have way to much fish tank and way too much fish.
Also, I think you must have a typo since a pH of 1 would be very bad.

for 180 liters of grow bed, I would probably only have 6 tilapia in that system.
How much water are you pumping each hour? with a 1000 liter tank, and only 180 liters of grow bed, it would be difficult to turn over your tank volume each hour. You need more filtration if you are going to impress your friends with crystal clear water.

[alfred leslie goeltinger]

Hello Chi Ma
Sorry sorry mixed up with the ALK.I have this kit and PH starts with 7.4-8.6. The testtubeliquid is yellowish so i dont know its good or bad.So it must be way under.
Thank you for the respond.
Alfred

[alfred leslie goeltinger]

Hello TCLynx
Sorry sorry mixed up with the ALK.I have this kit and PH starts with 7.4-8.6. The testtubeliquid is yellowish so i dont know its good or bad.So it must be way under.
Thank you for the respond.
Alfred

[alfred leslie goeltinger]

But this little tilapia are only 7 cm or Maybe 3 inches and there very healty

TCLynx said:

With only 180 liters of grow bed, you have way to much fish tank and way too much fish.
Also, I think you must have a typo since a pH of 1 would be very bad.

for 180 liters of grow bed, I would probably only have 6 tilapia in that system.
How much water are you pumping each hour? with a 1000 liter tank, and only 180 liters of grow bed, it would be difficult to turn over your tank volume each hour. You need more filtration if you are going to impress your friends with crystal clear water.

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Alfred, TC and Kobus are giving you great advice. All I can add is that you eventually want to size your grow beds to the mature stocking of your tank (assuming you want to keep it full), which in your case would be about 23 kg for a 1000l tank, then by extension about 5 sqm of grow bed surface area, assuming a 30 cm bed depth (5kg of fish : 1 sqm of grow bed area). While your fish are small, just don't fill up the tank all the way and keep raising the water level as the fish grow. TC and Kobus are coming at this from the standpoint of your grow beds are too small to filter that that size tank and the waste those fish will create when they get bigger, which is absolutely accurate. I'm coming at it from the plant angle - with only 30 small fish to 1000 liters you won't have enough nutrient density to drive the grow beds that you need to add to your system. I think the easiest thing you can do now is 1) add many more plants to your grow bed which I think will help clear up your water 2) to drop your water level to only 20% of your tank and 3) ....then work on adding more grow beds.

[David Hart]

Alfred, Your friends (and yourself) may be used to seeing the very beautiful koi ponds / gardens in Japan. I understand that the owners are 'very' meticulous of every detail, and that the water 'must be'... 'absoultely' clear.

Your doing 'aquaponics'...realistically, your water may never be 'that' clear. Most mature / balanced 'AP systems' have 'stained' water. A light 'tea stained' water is the 'norm'.

The only time time my system has been very clear, was the day I filled it...
....and when my 'cat' has forgotten to turn off the hose (for half of a day, or more) when topping off the system... .:-)

I can see to the bottom of my fish tank...it's depth is aprox 3 feet / 1 meter.

[TCLynx]

If you don't have the space to add more grow beds, you can probably find space (perhaps even in the fish tank) to add some form of alternative additional filtration. And perhaps some water plants would help to clear the water and use up some nutrients.

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Why not just "reduce" the size of the fish tank by lowering the water level? Seems easier than figuring out how to add just enough extra filtration...

[TCLynx]

Well because that number of fish are going to grow too big for that amount of grow bed and in other threads it was noted that there isn't room for more grow beds. Along with the desire for really clean looking water.
I would go along with reducing the amount of water in the fish tank as well but I expect that 200 liters in a 1000 liter tank will be really shallow and even more unimpressive so I doubt lowering the water level below about 400-500 liters would work very well. But the fish number needs to be less or the filtration amount more before the water is likely to be really clear. Of course, time an getting through the initial cycle up will also help seeing as there are measurable amounts of ammonia/nitrite, that tells me the system is either not cycled up or is pushing the limits of the filtration. With the nitrate levels up as they are, I expect there are more fish than the plants will keep up with as they grow, at this point, I do not believe dilution with more water would affect the plant uptake of nutrients. The only issue I see with extra water in a fish tank is the challenge of making sure enough of it gets filtered each hour to keep the water quality high and the water clear.


Sylvia Bernstein said:

Why not just "reduce" the size of the fish tank by lowering the water level? Seems easier than figuring out how to add just enough extra filtration...