Cycling, Please Help!

[chrisfoerst]

Hi Everyone,
I am in the process of cycling my first system. I have been doing readings with an API kit everyday for 10 days now and I have
ph 8.2
amm. 3.0ppm
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
(My 75 gallon tank is on a constant flow to two half barrels, water temp 76, and I have a whisper 300 blowing bubbles. I added stress zyme to help initiate bacteria growth. I should add that I have six small tilapia in the tank.)

The ph has been like this since day 1 and I was wondering if adding spagmum peat moss is the best organic way to lower it.
I have been changing about 6 gallons of water every day and stopped feeding the fish for 2 days but the ammonia level is still very high. Any thoughts about this?

Any suggestions of how I might lower the ph and ammonia, and get the nitrates up?

[keith_r]

don't add anything else.. the cycling will start, don't feed till the am drops,, you can't force nature

after the nitrification process really gets going, your ph will drop (unless your media is raising the ph - have you tested it?)

i'm not sure what benefits of peat moss, but i imagine it would stain the water.. i though i read somewhere that it was acidic but i could very well be wrong about that..

BE PATIENT, it will start, and i'll say it again, don't add anything else..

[chrisfoerst]

Ok, thanks for the quick reply! How long can I go without feeding the fish? I am using hydroton so I don't think it's the culprit for the high ph. Rather the water out of the tap is high to begin with. But, you think that once the bacterial growth starts and the ammonia goes down, that the ph will follow?

[keith_r]

hydroton won't cause any ph issues.. you can go several days with no feeding, some folks "purge" their fish for a week before harvesting (no food at all) so i'm sure it won't be a problem for the fish

[chrisfoerst]

Good, thanks Keith. I'll post an update in a few days.

[rfeiller]

Untreated peat has a pH of about 4 it will lower Ph and to a small extent soften the water. It will probably not aid in cycling the tank. Yes it does tint the water a tea color, but then a closed system is yellow to brown anyway.
Some pet shops use to give away small amounts of gravel from their tanks with undergravel filters. Two week cycle is fast a month is more like it.

[chrisfoerst]

Ooops, I just realized I never responded to your post.

Thanks for the info about the peat, I will hold off for now.

[urbanfarmer]

Your pH is good for the bacteria, which is what you want right now.

[rfeiller]

The tilapia would not appreciate the peat anyway, :) they prefer hard alkaline water.

[chrisfoerst]

Good, so a ph of 8.2 is ok for my tilapia? What about the plants? From what I hear, they like a ph to be much lower.

[rfeiller]

remember you pH will start coming down it does take awhile, but there are a lot of plants that will do ok with that pH

[urbanfarmer]

remember you pH will start coming down it does take awhile, but there are a lot of plants that will do ok with that pH
The lower it gets the longer it takes to get even lower. Remember a pH change from 8 to 7 indicates a hydronium ion concentration decrease that is 10 fold whereas a change from 8 to 6 indicates a decrease that's 100 fold, so on and so forth.

It also depends how often and how much you feed. It also depends on how often you change/add the water and how much water you change/add.

:mrgreen:

[jackalope]

Good, so a ph of 8.2 is ok for my tilapia? What about the plants? From what I hear, they like a ph to be much lower.

From the research that I've done, plants like the PH to be round 6 or 6.5, but Tilapia can thrive in the 8's, there are some cichlids that like it to be up to 9.5, if you can imagine that!

Actually, AP with warm water fish isn't the absolute ideal ....... the fish have to have warm water, but the plants will grow better in cold water (that's where Hydroponics has it one-up on us ..... no heaters)! If you were able to use a cold-water fish, like perch or bass (or some other), it would be more like an ideal, but for some of us, that's not going to work, because of the State F&G laws.

For instance, in Montana, I can keep tropical fish in an aquarium in a residence or an office, but not anywhere else, and when it comes to cold water fish, they MUST be under F&G (FWP here) supervision :!:

I'm not too partial to having some state FWP drone invading my privacy without a warrant, so I prefer to stick to Tropical fish (read tilapia) in my 'office' (my unheated saloon), but that limits me to about 3 or 4 months of AP, because of the weather here. Just one of those things!

Just my 2 centavos ...... YMMV

[urbanfarmer]

I keep stumbling on research that indicates plants do funny things at higher pH and can do just fine. I think the problem is we try to care for the plants at a pH of 8 the same as a pH of 5.5, and therein lies the fundamental problem. However, I need more science to back this up! Give me about a month because I have to take my focus back off aquaponics again and study for my graduate exam... I will keep y'all posted, I promise! :mrgreen:

[chrisfoerst]

Ok, at a certain point I'll have to just add my seedlings and see how it goes. My ph has only gone down from 8.3 to 8.1 The ammonia on the other hand has dropped substantially. But, now my nitrites are through the roof and my nitrates got up to 20ppm and just today seem to have dropped back to 5ppm.

When can I add my seedlings?

No cold water fish for me, we get up into the 100s in El Paso! But, if I ever move north...

[urbanfarmer]

You can add the plants immediately. You only have to wait to add the fish not the plants.

[chrisfoerst]

Great, done!

[urbanfarmer]

The plants will actually absorb ammonium and urea directly from the water. Ammonium uptake by plants kicks in at pH levels over 7 like you have, but don't worry about any of that for now. Consider it "advanced topics in aquaponics" and wait until you get the basics down.

[urbanfarmer]

Any updates?

[chrisfoerst]

I started planting my seedlings but then I realized I had the siphon problem which I am hoping to figure out today. (Between teaching and my small girls, I don't get to play with my aquaponics system as much as I would like.)

As for the cycling, I am concerned about my nitrites. They have been in the 5ppm range for the last week and don't appear to want to budge. The ammonium is at .25ppm and nitrates fluctuate between 10-20ppm.

Should I continue to be patient or should I be worried about my fish?

[urbanfarmer]

I started planting my seedlings but then I realized I had the siphon problem which I am hoping to figure out today. (Between teaching and my small girls, I don't get to play with my aquaponics system as much as I would like.)

As for the cycling, I am concerned about my nitrites. They have been in the 5ppm range for the last week and don't appear to want to budge. The ammonium is at .25ppm and nitrates fluctuate between 10-20ppm.

Should I continue to be patient or should I be worried about my fish?
I would stop feeding the fish immediately. Wait until the nitrite drops off, even if it means waiting a week or two without feeding the fish. Brown blood disease is a potential problem.

I would do a partial water change because your test kit can only read 5+ ppm of Nitrite, which could mean it is at ANY concentration above that...

[chrisfoerst]

Great, I'm so glad I posted. Thanks! I will do that.