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Amonia (undiluted left)
Nitrite (1/50 center)
Nitrate(1/20 right)
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The farm is cycling ! since the 16th nitrites have appeared and since the 22nd, nitrates have made their appearance, and are seriously increasing since yesterday! This means that in less than 2 weeks, beneficial bacteria became able to start the process of nitrification, and the pH is starting to drop, wich is another sign that the nitrification is happening. Ammonia by the way, have disappeared since the 27th ! Today, there is still a great deal of nitrite. which mean that the water would not be safe yet to introduce fish.
The kit I am using to measure the different nitrogen forms is color coded, and as i explained in my previous post, i wanted to find a way that would be more reliable than eyes to evaluate the concentration (corresponding color on the chart). The website I have use to try to achieve that does not work as well as I hoped. This may be due to the fact that I am not able to produce standards of known concentration to input into the on-line free-ware (but if I could do that I may feel confident of using my eyes to judge the color). This is still a quit cool attempt to replace a tool like a spectrophotometer.
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| Green onion, bok choy and the rosemary (in dirt) |
Anyway my all point here is that the numbers dont add up, I have not added any ammonia to the system (past the day I removed the egg shells - realizing that they released a lot of it) and while the ammonia measurement did not seem to go over 20 ppm (I have diluted these 1:10), the color suggest that there is now 160 ppm of nitrate. Also, I have diluted the sample from the system when the colors develop in the darker range of the chart, so I do not over estimate the concentrations.
It is also possible that eggshells that may have fallen through the netting of the sock have kept releasing protein - hence ammonia- into the system.
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| More green onion, parsley and on top, the bell pepper |
On the actual plants side: the parsley is doing well (better that the one potted in poting mix), the "saved" green onions are growing away and the bok choy as well. I also transplanted some bell pepper that grew in the my avocado pot (not exactly sure where theyre coming from - but most likely from the worm compost). The only thing that does not do well (as is pretty much dead) is the basil and the 2 roquettes that i planted (probably 2 early). I am wondering if the nitrite is responsible for that or if i damaged the roots of the basil too much...
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