Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looks awesome. Take a video of everything running and host it up on the youtubes! I wanna see how stuff flows!

Update.
Late start, no iron, but I´m happy anyway. Strange to take a cutting, stick it into the water and a few days later you have roots. I´m amazed.
Low on iron and probably something more, but I´m learning. Cocos was a bad choice.Too wet. Leca or gravel better.
I´ll build strawberry pipes next year on the south wall. 18m 4" pipes in 3 levels.
What´s best: ebb/flod with siphons( has to be small ones) or just inclined pipes with a slow and steady flow?
Japanese grapes, ripe and ready.

Hi.
How do I get a pH of 6.5 to work together with a GH 6-7? To me it sounds unreasonable. How do I get a low pH to work with a relatively high GH and Kh?
I have my raw water(tap water) at pH 7.8. TDS 90, GH 3, Kh 3. A very "clean" water. Poor growth in my biofilter built partly of Helix (Kaldness variant) and partly by the so-called Japan Mats(cassettes of hard foam) and partly of volcanic rocks. Have to ad NaHCO3, to get some kind of growth in the filters at all. Nitrification, I think, mostly, takes place in algae and the stuff that grow on pond wall and channels.
pH 6.5-6.8 with continued growth in my biofilters, how do I do?
Maybe I shouldn't´t worry, I´ll go with pH7.5, add iron, NaHCO3 and epsonsalt and be happy?
Or do I go the other way and use my own well water. pH 6.2, TDS 40, buffer that with oyster shells and NaHCO3, add iron, epson salt and high levels of nitrates(to reduce the pH) etc?
Add a few pictures of my system. Have had problems with Fe, pH, GH, Kh and Mg during summer. Learning all the time.
I´m grateful and humble everyday in my green house.
Elias :-)

Hi Elias,

Your setup looks great as usual .

You won't get your pH to work with that Kh. You'll either have to go with a lower pH and Kh or adjust the nutrients to work with the higher pH and Kh. Iron will be the one most affected but you can do fine growing plants at this pH .

As far as the bacteria, ...let it be..., make them adapt to your conditions, they're very good at this. You'll need to block the light from the algae in the channel to stop the algae but if it's just on the side that's not particularly bad and is considered normal. Free floating algae you could kill with a UV sterilizer but it won't help for this type.

You could go with either water source just make certain the well water doesn't have too much CO2 by aerating it for awhile before adding it if you know this is a problem.

Why add sodium bicarbonate and magnesium sulfate? Most of the time these aren't in short supply. Are you trying to control the Kh with the bicarbonate?

I can see that you have an Iron deficiency in the plants on the right in the first photo and there is another deficiency, probably of a mobile nutrient in the tomatoes on the left. If you use chelated iron like EDDHA or DTPA you can add it to the water and take care of this - otherwise you'll have to spray apply regular iron (like what's in Maxicrop plus iron). If you'll post some up close pics of the plants I can take a look and maybe give you a better idea what's going on.

Cheers

That´s the kind of answer I was asking for. Thank you.
All the bios are cowered. No light. I´ve a good 40 w UVC light to take care of the floating DOCs. What you se from the pictures, is just the test run I worked with during early summer. Had much bigger plants at the end ,but they suffered from low iron, Mg and nitrates because of a late start of the system and problem with my bio-filters. They really need high levels of Kh and GH to work with that ”clean” tap water. Thats why the NaHCO3.
I sent my well water to analyze today. Curious if I can use that ”natural” water in my system. As far as I know, it has a real low pH 6.2, high in Fe(not the right one) and probably high in H2CO3. Maybe it´s easier to work with that and go from the other end? A lot of koi pond owners in the area, have problem with bio filters. Very low activity without the baking powder. Some have much better results with bakki filters, a kind of shower filters. Thanks again for an answer.
Elias

Tomato roots.

Tomato roots look great Elias .

On the NaHCO3, I prefer to use Potassium bicarbonate instead. The plants in most systems need the Potassium more than the Sodium and it might help the bacteria more as well since the few I've looked at take it into the cell much more than sodium. Sodium might have some other benefits to bacterial cells so who knows .

What a beautiful greenhouse setup you have there!

Thank you Scotty for good advices and thanks Perstenttiger for the appreciation. Next weekend I´ll start working with my strawberry pipeline wall. Hihihi fun! Stream/ or ebb/flood? LECA or just an empty pipe?

Glad to help Elias. You were probably asking a rhetorical question but I'd go with the empty pipe, don't fill it with LECA but net pots with LECA would be OK. Not sure about the other question, could go either way.

Thanks again. Ebb/flood with a siphon. In this case a mini siphon. The pipes are filled every hour or something and drain by the siphon. Some use that system and some use the continuous stream system. I think less problem with the stream system?

Both are very reliable and both would be pumping continuously but I'm having a hard time visualizing a pipe system with siphons. Maybe if you design your pipes and the siphons right you can switch back and forth. I have done this with media based grow beds using siphons or Constant Flood just by removing the bell and flipping the standpipe so the bed doesn't drain. I think it will depend on the siphon design in this case .

Springtime and new ides. Strawberries in a 110mm pipe. 50 plants. 25 with just Leca and 25 with turf. Here we go!

Elias

When you say "Turf" are you meaning the same as Soil-less media?

Sorry, but maybe it´s called peat? Turf is more like a "turf roof"? Brown stuff from mires. :-)