Nutrient levels and supplementation in aquaponics

[badflash]

I think they are wrong. You need a balance between the plants and the fish. Too much or too little of either and you have problems. Somewhere around 50 ppm nitrates and 5 ppm phosphates appear to be pretty good. If you show 0 the plants will be in plain water, and we know that doesn't work. It means you have too many plants.

[aquaarche]

I have read an newsletter from Tim Mann of friendly aquaponics in Hawaii and also one post in the UVI page that sometimes there are no registered nutrients in a system. Tim thought his test strips were bad bought a new testing system only to verify no nutrients. No one knows why this happens but both say the plants and fish kept growing fine.

I have learned a few things. make sure you have plenty of sunlight to your plants (shade the fish), feed twice a day only, clean filter regularly to keep any waste from building up on plant roots, keep pH a 6.8-7.0.

Lately, I still have pH spikes do to the fact our water is hard. I add one cap full (1.5 liter coke bottle cap) of muriatic Acid that I dissolved Nails in to add iron, per 2.5 gallon bucket of water I add. this has been keeping my pH around 6.5-7.0. A more neutral water source would be better.

I am still in my experimental and learning stage.

[dufflight]

Trace nitrates are fine. Just means the plants are using it as its being produced. I've had some high nitrates before but the growth was the same as it is now. In hydro we are used to seeing high nitrates that the plant uses over time. In Ap the nitrates are made all the time.