Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
you don't shock your fish. Be very careful. Add a small amount of the powder to a buck-
et of water. Then pour it into your settling/clarifying tank over a prolonged period (like a
day). Remember, it is very alkaline so do not just dump it all quickly into the system.
The longer a system runs, the pH will tend to stabilize and you will only need to add
something like calcium hydroxide or phosphoric acid occasionally.
If your farm water is low in nitrates, you can also adjust the feeding of your fish to adjust
water quality in your farm. If your system is low in nitrates, feed your fish MORE food to
balance the system. If there is too much ammonia, decrease the feed.
Occasionally your cleaning cycle will be out of sync with the fish harvesting and simply
feeding your fish more often helps. If you have very few fish there is a quick method that
will help increase nutrient levels, but you have to follow directions carefully: Turn off the
water pump or do this after a pumping cycle has competed. With a board or paddle of some
type, stir up the Clarifier/Settling Tank so the waste is swirling about in the water.
Let it
settle for at least an hour.
Run the water pump for an hour or one full trip cycle. Resume
the normal cycle. This is a stop gap measure and should not be used very often.
What you are doing is freeing up nutrients in the settling tank for your plants when there
are very few fish in the tank. If procuring fish is a problem, go buy 25 to 50 feeder gold
fish to get the poop going again.
