A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

checking my levels advice please

I am wanting to verify my numbers in my system. how healthy or not is my system.

TH: 80

ALK: 80

PH: 7.0

No2: 0

No3 20

Ammonia 1.0

water temps are hovering around 85-86

air temps 90-95 outside highs have been 112 and only lows of 80 so I think I am not too bad off.

I think the NO3 is a bit high but doing WAY better,, I had to harvest more than I wanted and was feeding 3 times a day,, had a high of No3 at 80 and did a 50% water dump to my garden outside.

I cut the feeding to once a day and have more plants back in the system.

my EC is 1.4 and CF is 14

The TH has been as high as 240 and the ALK as high as 120... what does this tell me?

thanks for any input!!

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jim Troyer on July 30, 2012 at 10:52pm

Hey Brent,

I had to check first, figured you were in the desert with those temps! Glad I'm in a cooler place, Phoenix, AZ metro area lol! -- only made it to 100f today, 78 f was the overnight low

If you bring down your water temp it will probably drop the no3 as well. We use shade screens to keep the temps down here in the FT and the direct sun off the plants. My in ground 500 gallon pond is running 82 f today, the inside nursery tanks are 80f. You can use burlap as a shade screen too, just doesn't last as long. The water change was a good move. Next time plan ahead and have seedlings ready to go into the system. Now is a good time to start a staggered rotation of crops, plant something new every week that has a similar growing period so you can avoid those wild swings in your system. The good news is, your system is definitely cycled and you didn't kill off your fish so you're in good shape.

Your plants will do better with a pH below 7 -- shoot for 6.6 - 6.8 so the minerals will be more available for uptake, I use pool acid to adjust our 8.2 pH water. Remember citric acid, ph down and vinegar are not for AP use.

all the best

Jim

Permalink Reply by Kellen Weissenbach on July 31, 2012 at 2:54pm

Hi Brent,

I would feel more comfortable with that ammonia level being lower, but you are currently within the "safe zone" since most of your total ammonia is "locked up" as ammonium.

Permalink Reply by Brent Wheeler on July 31, 2012 at 7:09pm

Jim,

I cannot bring down the temps with out refrigeration,,, this system is totally indoors.... and well vented...

I have removed the Oyster shells I was using to add buffering as I had a bit of PH swing but now that it is settling and I want to lower the PH so I have pulled them...

As to the planing the planting and harvest,, all ready there, I also had two trays of seed that had 99% fail rate for some odd reason, this upset my plans a bit but we are getting back on track,,,,

ok so if I want to say organic why would I not want to use vinegar to drop the PH if I have that issue? no way would I want to use pool chemicals.. what other option is there???

thanks for the info and your time!!''

Jim Troyer said:

Hey Brent,

I had to check first, figured you were in the desert with those temps! Glad I'm in a cooler place, Phoenix, AZ metro area lol! -- only made it to 100f today, 78 f was the overnight low

If you bring down your water temp it will probably drop the no3 as well. We use shade screens to keep the temps down here in the FT and the direct sun off the plants. My in ground 500 gallon pond is running 82 f today, the inside nursery tanks are 80f. You can use burlap as a shade screen too, just doesn't last as long. The water change was a good move. Next time plan ahead and have seedlings ready to go into the system. Now is a good time to start a staggered rotation of crops, plant something new every week that has a similar growing period so you can avoid those wild swings in your system. The good news is, your system is definitely cycled and you didn't kill off your fish so you're in good shape.

Your plants will do better with a pH below 7 -- shoot for 6.6 - 6.8 so the minerals will be more available for uptake, I use pool acid to adjust our 8.2 pH water. Remember citric acid, ph down and vinegar are not for AP use.

all the best

Jim

Permalink Reply by Brent Wheeler on July 31, 2012 at 7:15pm

Kellen,

I have way too many fish for my system I was in a bit of a rush to get this lit off and figured I would loose more than I did... was planning for worst and it never even got bad lol...

Now that I have cut my feedings to once a day (was every other day for awhile) and more plants started I think it will begin to drop all the readings, I have LOTS of air and they survived much higher levels (had some feed problems at first) so I am happy with this for now.

thanks for our input!!

Kellen Weissenbach said:

Hi Brent,

I would feel more comfortable with that ammonia level being lower, but you are currently within the "safe zone" since most of your total ammonia is "locked up" as ammonium.