Bioritize System Progress

[Bioritize]

Thanks Oliver,

I will start Carbon filtering the water I use to replace this stuff.


I tested water again today,

Ph 7
Ammonia fell to 4 ppm
Nitrites .25 ppm
Nitrates 80 ppm

Looks like the DO is helping bring this into balance. I also ordered 4' of the air tube to add to the grow bed. Got the light up last night and put a couple seeds in here of some greens to use this free nitrate.... haha.

[Bioritize]

Hey Guys,

[youtube:y79b6haw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_CbR_DFA9E[/youtube:y79b6haw]

I posted a little video for your enjoyment.

The system seems like it is beginning to cycle.

Water Quality:

ph 7
ammonia 4 pmm
Nitrite 2 pmm
Nitrate 80 - 160 pmm

I have seen a nitrite surge this week, on Monday it started at .25 ppm and today it is around 2 pmm. I hope this means that my bacteria are starting to do their work. Now to get the Nitrosomonas to start working for me.

I put some veggies in the bed to help use some of these free nitrates, which came from my most terrible tap water.

On that note, I have been looking around for a good water filtration system and I have found these ceramic filters. (http://www.monolithic.com/stories/a-pra ... ter-filter). I wondered if anyone had any experience with these? If not, what do you guys use to filter shitty tap water? The cloramine is what I am concerned about mostly.

I am currently slowly filtering water with a painfully slow Brita filter. I have been doing about 5 gallons at a time then changing out 5 gallons from the fish tank to try and fight this high ammonia I have going on.

I also think I need to add one more grow bed to this system and probably remove the silly "pre-filter" buckets.

Any advice is welcome.

[Bioritize]

Water Quality

Ammonia 8 ppm
Nitrite 5 ppm




Woke up today and tested water again, looks like the ammonia and nitrite are maxed. My problem right now is I do not have enough filtered/clean water to change the water out. My question again is what to do with terrible initial water quality?

What kind of filters do you guys recommend?

Should I go out and buy some distilled water to do a water change? Would 25% water change be good or should I go more?

[keith_r]

the water changes may be part of the problem if the chloramines aren't being completely removed,
i thought i read that you already have fish, if so, don't feed them, or feed very little until the levels drop or it will only get worse..
"distilled" water may be ok, but it you may want to run a bubbler in it prior to adding to the fish tank for 24 hours, distilled water will have very low DO

[Bioritize]

I just noticed that the blocks I used to elevate the grow bed above the tank are treated wood. I wonder if this is causing the water quality issues. Either way I am pulling everything and draining the tank completely. I will build a table and do this properly using all filtered water this time. I will update with pictures tomorrow when I get it done.

I hope this is my issue as my ammonia and nitrate are now completely maxed, I mean dark.

Thanks guys,

[Bioritize]

Hey Guys,

Updated Video [youtube:u4j50qe7]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_IOXHzC_gc[/youtube:u4j50qe7]

I did a massive water change yesterday and moved the block off the tank and replaced with a table. I plan to add a second grow bed to this system in the next couple days.

The water quality update;

Ph 7
Ammonia 1 ppm
Nitrite 5 pmm plus
Nitrate 80 ppm

Temp 75

Looks like the ammonia is coming into balance and I hope that the nitrite processing bacteria are working on the nitrites. I hope that this thing will be ready to roll in a couple weeks. I have 25 fingerlings on the way in about 4 - 6 weeks, hope this is enough time. I regret pulling the plants but I didn't want to take any chances with the green wood.

[Oliver]

You may not have enough dissolved oxygen. That would affect your bacteria growth. If that is the case, then adding another grow bed might help if it is flood and drain. If, however, you add more fish at the same time, then you will be right back where you started.

What is the timing on your flood and drain cycle in your current grow bed? The more often you cycle your grow bed (up to a point), the more DO you will have in your system.

Also, as bacteria wastes increase (be it Nitrites or Nitrates), the bacteria have a harder time reproducing. This is why ample DO is so important.

Oliver

[Bioritize]

Hey Oliver,

The bed is cycling about every 3 minutes or about 20 times per hour. I have a couple Airfuse tubes on the way that I plan to add to the tank and the bottom of the second grow bed.

Thanks,

[Madmax478]

Do you have access to some Revers Osmosis water? I was chatting with a fellow that did water test for Our local city water and he admitted to me that they add 1ppm ammonia to the local water supply to keep the chlorimines in the water longer. I wasn't able to get proper ammonia readings until I switch to using RO water.

[Oliver]

Cycling every 3 minutes may not allow enough time for the oxygen to penetrate the water. You may want to reduce your grow bed water input flow so as to increase the amount of time the wetted surface area of the media and plant roots have to absorb the oxygen. This will allow time for the oxygen from the air to reach the attached autotrophic bacteria. I am not clear on what the optimum time is for this, so if anyone here has some info on that then please chime in. We use a 15 minute cycle and it seems to work well. You may have to re-size your siphons in order to make a large change in your cycle timing. You also may want to use some of that extra pumping power, once you reduce your grow bed flow, to jet back some water into your fish tank to improve your dissolved oxygen.

We have an incoming water pH of 7.6. As our fish density has increased, we find the system water heading for a pH of 6. If we allow it to drop much below 7.0 we find the ammonia levels start to climb. By adding Potassium Hydroxide, it brings the pH back up and the ammonia levels then decrease to a low level. Our incoming water is already high in calcium, and as we live in a dry climate, it evaporates leaving behind the calcium and other minerals. The plants do a good job of removing these minerals as our total dissolved solids seem to be stable. This is with the mineralization of the fish waste solids, as well.

As for using an RO system, we tried that in order to reduce our pH but found that it was too effective in removing the desired minerals from the water including alkalizing stabilizers. It made our pH very unstable and in the end, we found it to be unnecessary and undesirable. If you have a very high pH, say 8 or above, then you might want to mix some RO water with your otherwise filtered tap water, which will reduce your alkalizing stabilizers eventually helping to bring down your pH; but I am becoming more convinced that a higher pH, which is better for bacteria growth, is important in a high fish density system. Some plants, however, may not take well to a high pH water.

We found that a catalytic carbon filter, which removes most chlorine and chloramines, is adequate for filtering our city water.

Oliver