A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Just starting out

I just got my system built and am currently in the process of rinsing the gravel that I am using. I probably should have rinsed it before putting in the bed, because it is leaving the fish tank lining with soot, i hope i will be able to rinse it all out, but is a little dirt on the bottom going to risk hurting the pump? I have not put the pump in yet and just slowly rinsing. Also I noticed that the bottom of grow bed on either side is holding a bit of water that does not drain completely out. Will this cause a problem with too much water for my plants?

My next steps are:

to rinse until the water draining is clear

then insert the pump and fill the fish tank and start cycling

I will check the ph levels in about a week then start messing with additives

goal is to plant something in the next 2 weeks.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Leo White Bear on November 22, 2013 at 2:49pm

Water is a sneeky element. I am constantly (at least twice a week) filling my FT. Being indoors, naturally I'm concerned with water leakage but I can't find any, anywhere. As long as I can't find any evidence of water around the FT I chalk it up to evaporation and transpiration from the plant leaves. I do have a hunch that the fish are up to something like possibly a jail brake, I'm watching them closely!!!

Permalink Reply by Gillian Burrus on November 22, 2013 at 2:56pm

He, well I don't have fish yet, nor any leaves. But there is something sneaky.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on December 15, 2013 at 6:45am

Pay attention to the weather and you might notice a pattern on sudden changes in the amount of evaporation experienced in a system. On windy dry days, it is amazing how much more water seems to evaporate compared to the calm hot days.

Also, once there are plants in the system, it can be amazing how much water they can suck up some days.

As to will the pH go up again? Once your bio-filter is busily working at converting ammonia to nitrite then to nitrate it will have an acidifying effect on your system, however if you are regularly topping up with hard water that will have the tendency to raise your pH. If you for some reason have a situation where you are not using the hard water to top up and your pH rises then it is a sign that you may have some anaerobic action going on in your system. (gunk build up that is decomposing without enough oxygen) This can cause pH to go up as well as give off bad compounds into your water so you want to find where this is happening and clean it up. Normally it will give off very bad odors which can help you find the anaerobic spot. Look for major clumps of goop or algae or debris in the bottom of a tank that may be sending up some bubbles to the surface. Settling tanks that don't get cleaned out often enough can cause this.

By far the most common cause of high pH in a new AP system, especially one that is flood and drain media beds is either the source water or sometimes people make the mistake of using limestone as media. The Limestone media situation can't be fixed with acid, the media needs to be replaced. You can test media by dropping a hand full in vinegar.

If it fizzes then it is probably not a good choice of media to use. (but an FYI, lots of expanded products will fizz in vinegar if it is not well rinsed off first just because of the dust on it.)

Permalink Reply by Leo White Bear on December 15, 2013 at 7:31am

I totally agree with TC when testing your anticipated media but, also keep in mind that with a dry media the vinegar will seem to fizz while actually air is excaping from the micro pores on the surface of it. To the inexperienced this may look like it fizzes so the best test in my opinion is to place that handfull of media into pH nutral water that covers it by about an inch and test it with your pH strips, solution or whatever you choose to do the testing 24-hours later. This gives the media a chance to hydrate and change the pH if it is going to.

TCLynx said:

Pay attention to the weather and you might notice a pattern on sudden changes in the amount of evaporation experienced in a system. On windy dry days, it is amazing how much more water seems to evaporate compared to the calm hot days.

Also, once there are plants in the system, it can be amazing how much water they can suck up some days.

As to will the pH go up again? Once your bio-filter is busily working at converting ammonia to nitrite then to nitrate it will have an acidifying effect on your system, however if you are regularly topping up with hard water that will have the tendency to raise your pH. If you for some reason have a situation where you are not using the hard water to top up and your pH rises then it is a sign that you may have some anaerobic action going on in your system. (gunk build up that is decomposing without enough oxygen) This can cause pH to go up as well as give off bad compounds into your water so you want to find where this is happening and clean it up. Normally it will give off very bad odors which can help you find the anaerobic spot. Look for major clumps of goop or algae or debris in the bottom of a tank that may be sending up some bubbles to the surface. Settling tanks that don't get cleaned out often enough can cause this.

By far the most common cause of high pH in a new AP system, especially one that is flood and drain media beds is either the source water or sometimes people make the mistake of using limestone as media. The Limestone media situation can't be fixed with acid, the media needs to be replaced. You can test media by dropping a hand full in vinegar.

If it fizzes then it is probably not a good choice of media to use. (but an FYI, lots of expanded products will fizz in vinegar if it is not well rinsed off first just because of the dust on it.)

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on December 16, 2013 at 4:04pm

Yea, some small amount of bubbles escaping from media dropped into any liquid will be normal and a small amount of dust on the surface of the media may well cause some fizz in vinegar. But if you drop limestone or shells into vinegar it is going to fizz to the point of turning the vinegar totally cloudy or even be a bit like alkaseltzer.

FYI, certain expanded shale or slate will fail the distilled water test totally because it has alkali dust on the surface and putting a sample of it into a container of distilled water will cause the pH reading of the distilled water to be very high the next day. However, I can tell you that I have done very well using expanded slate in my systems because that dust only affects the pH of the initial wash water and only affects the system pH right at first (the same way using some calcium hydroxide would affect the pH) and thereafter doesn't pose a problem to system pH.