It's Alive!



PH, Nitrite, and Nitrate test are so colorful!

I have nitrites in my aquaponics system! They finally showed up after my last daily water test. Reactive solutions, vials of water, and colorful results do add a bit of intrigue to this whole gardening experiment. Detecting nitrites in my fish water is exciting and terrifying all at the same time. It's exciting because it means that my system is alive and running, but not fully operational. My aquaponics success is contingent upon bacteria. I need nitrification bacteria to eat up all the ammonia my fish are pumping out. Currently my ammonia levels are off the charts. Ammonia is toxic to fish. Since I have detected nitrites in my system it means I have bacteria eating up the ammonia, but they produce nitrites. Nitrites are extremely toxic to fish. What I really need is nitrates to feed my plants. According to my book knowledge, nitrate producing bacteria will soon flock from the air and multiply in my system and in the process eat up all my nitrites. This is a good thing. All I need to do is keep a constant temperature above 70 degrees while keeping a constant water ph at 7.0. My water is so hard here in Minnesota that I had to pour half of a bottle of acid into my tank to even things out in my amazingly alkalinized water. I did pour it in over a number of days. I like my fish in the alive category. I currently have $30.00 worth of Koi fertilizing my raspberry bushes and I would not like to repeat that mistake.

Lettuce!

I have a fish tank full of toxic water containing ammonia and nitrites. I need nitrates for my plants. I also need my plants to filter out the nitrates from the water to keep my fish from going belly up. I'm worried.