Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone,

Have kicked off my system 6 weeks ago. I`m trying educate myself as much as possible trough reading post topic history and also by reading literature, but it is becoming clear and clear that I`ll need some advice as I`m running into some pitfalls! :-S

Well, system setup is an IBC CHOP2. I have a one thousand liter IBC tank as my fish tank (filled with 600L as of now), two grow beds made of another IBC housing 300L of clay pebble and a 200L barril acting as my sump tank. I have a 2000L/hour pump in the sump, pumping water back onto the grow beds and also forcing circulation over to the fish tank, which comes back onto the sump tank by gravity. Also have an air pump with air stones into the sump with 7 liters/hour capacity for oxygenating the water. Couple pics attached.

Hydraulic wise, every working flawlessly once I understood the dynamics behind the auto syphon magic!

Left it circulating for a few days and once water became clear after filtering the clay pebble dust, I went ahead and added some zucchini, lettuce, broccoli, sweet onion and spinach seedlings, and fed it with soluble 20-20-20 NPK for hydroponics plus a cap of chelated iron every other day.

Ten days later, veggies were growing somewhat and then I added 100 tilapia fingerlings.
I did check PH and temperature and did equalization while bringing them to the new home but I've lost all of then in just a couple of hours.

It was a bit of a shock to cause this genocide...
Removed all the "corps" quickly but water got this horrible smell.
I didn't know what was happening!

Decided to make a half water change.
It didn't improve much and smell was still bad.
Then I red online it could be causing an ammonia spike.
Bought an aquarium ammonia test and realized it was indeed sky-high with over 8ppm.
By this time I had no idea how to monitor the cycling process, in terms of Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate.
Did a few minor proportion water changes in the next couple of weeks until the ammonia got back to less than .25ppm. I thought I had resolved the symptoms caused by the fish death but still had no idea what have caused it in the first place.

Veggies were growing on a similar rate as compared to those planted on our regular dirt garden.
Decided to add another batch of fish while I was reading Sylvia Bernstein book to further educate myself.
As a precaution, did a final water change of nearly 40% and also took the conservative side and added "just"40 tilapia seedlings!

This time, they have survived a bit more but again found them all dead in the morning.

This was really a cold bath... You start thinking you should perhaps not be doing it at all... Killing leaving beings... really sad.

Well, removed the dead fish again and digested the remaining chapters of Sylvia Bernstein book overnight. Fortunately, I did it prior to doing another water change as I realize the ammonia left in the water was actually good stuff to help building the bacteria colony we need.
Kept going with the hydroponics NPK and iron.

Purchased a API freshwater master kit and then I thought I was done with cycling basics.

Today, I`m at this stage where the ammonia in the system from the second fish death took me 15 days to settle down.
I`m getting less then .25ppm as for ammonia.
PH is around 6.8.
Water temperature will vary from 23-25 during the day to as low as 17 Celsius just before dawn.
I`m now struggling to get Nitrite down as I`m getting readings of more than 5ppm since the first measure on this API kit ten days ago.
Strange thing is that the Nitrate did spike to over 160ppm but then slowly reduced to less than 10ppm this morning.
Seems like the plants are consuming the Nitrates as expected.
What I cannot understand is the absence of Ammonia with no reduction on the Nitrite readings!

Questions I'd kindly appreciate assistance with:

What could be creating this scenario of no ammonia, decreasing nitrates but still high levels of nitrite?

Second question would be: Water changes I did were all with chlorinated tap water. Could it be the cause for the second fish death? Any clues other than this and possible reasons for the first fish death?

Really anxious to add fish again but also not willing to take any further risks.

Apologies for the long post but thought it was important to provide background on my first one.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Abraços!

Estevam Viragh

I am still new to this as well but I have gone through the fish lost episode also. As for chlorinated tap they say to let it sit a day for the chlorine to dissipate. I run off a well and I havent had any issues. 100 fingerlings can be a lot at times if you dont already have your system established. The bacteria you need are not there or are not strong enough to handle all the ammonia etc. Plus these fish will only get bigger and increase the levels as they grow. I lost 100 gold fish when I started my larger set up which is like a chop 2. My issue was some fish died that I could not see and that added to ammonia issues. I had 5ppm level and I just left my system do its thing for a week till I noticed the ammonia drop. I then added a few large local caught blue gill. Also some lake water was added to my water in the process and that might have contributed to getting my system underway with better bacteria. I had a huge 8ppm nitrite spike the other day only to return to it yesterday with .25 ppm. Are you giving your fish time to acclimate and adjust to the difference in water between what they come home in and what your fish tank has? Transferring fish quickly between two different waters can really stress them and kill them, quickly. Maybe try and buy a few larger fish as they can be a bit tougher with rough conditions. You dont want to loose you ammonia source so you will need to provide your system with something. I considered if these large blue gills dont make it then I would just supply liquid fish /seaweed for the next couple of months till it seems things are really underway. Treating it almost like an organic hydroponic system.

Not all is lost so be patient. Its really something to see when you know your system is doing better. My cucumbers were not anything special for a while. Then all of a sudden after I got through the ammonia spike theyve become this vibrant plant.

Im also not trying to stress over water tests. I do them every once in a while but other than that Im trying to just let my system establish itself and fight its own battles until I see something serious for me to intervene. Ive read many that test daily and tweak where others go with the flow. So far so good. Although Im concentrated more on the plant side this year. Come next year Ill add the worry of raising edible fish.

Thx Sir!

Very nice system of yours. I'm every two or three days and the scenario of no ammonia, more than 5ppm of nitrite and decreasing nitrate is still going. Thanks for the heads up on maintaing some source of ammonia, I was overlooking this but now I'm running into the issue of finding pure ammonia or something similar as it is prohibited in my country... :-S

Really kind of lost here with this nitrite readings as per everything I've red it should be coming down together with ammonia and nitrate...

(I'm still learning how to you this editor...)

Another pic here:

Hi Estevam,

Long time lurking, first time posting.
It seems that we are in the same boat (better yet, same IBC) as I'm also a novice aquaponist (is there such a word?)
There are members much more qualified than me to answer your questions, but here is my 2 cents worth:

"What could be creating this scenario of no ammonia, decreasing nitrates but still high levels of nitrite?"
A: I have been checking the levels of those substances in my system on a daily basis, and the scenario was the same. Probably your system isn't fully cicled, and the plants are sucking all the available Nitrates. Also, I noticed a strong peak of Nitrites a few days before the nitrates went at full force


"Second question would be: Water changes I did were all with chlorinated tap water. Could it be the cause for the second fish death? Any clues other than this and possible reasons for the first fish death?"
A:Chlorine is a possibilitiy. But I would be more concerned about NPK contamination. Also, temperature in Sao Paulo was a little bit on the chilly side for tilapia. I'm located a few degrees north and the temperature reached 8ºC a few days ago.

Boa sorte!,

Salles

test

Opa, muito bom encontrar um conterrâneo aqui!!!!!
Em que cidade vc esta?
Eu, na verdade estou em Vinhedo, perto de Campinas...
Seria muito legal se pudermos trocar algumas "figurinhas"!
Meu email eh o estevamviragh@yahoo.com.br e meu telefone eh o 19 9 9286-2068.
Passa teus contatos e eu te procuro.

Last Tuesday I found my swamp with no water in the morning and the submersible pump was nit sucking water into the grow beds and circulating water to and from the fish tank...
Not a big deal so I went ahead to top up it via adding more water on the fish rank (which still has no fish).
It should have been just a swallow of nearly 50 liters but I got an urgent call from on of my clients and simply forgot the rose running water in the tank...
Two hour later my wife comes to me asking "how long has been that water running into the rank?".

Goshhhhhh, nooooooo!!!!!!!!

It couldnt be happing!!!!!!

All I could think of was my valuable bacteria colony Im struggling so hard to build and now it could all be ruining due to tap water (chlorinated)...

Well, left it settle for a couple of days and got back for water testing!

surprise !!!!

I still can read tons of nitrites and a litle bit of nitrates.
PH went up a bit and now is a round 7.3.
But more curious is the ammonia readings of 1ppm as have not added any ammonia and the system still has no fish!

Can I be sure I have not killed the bacteria based on the fact I can read nitrites and nitrates?

Going to attach pictures from the water test this morning.

Ph test today.

Ammonia test today.

Nitrite...

And nitrate...

Hiya Estevam nice little set up, shame about the fish. Obviously something in your system is not agreeing with the fish. Enquire as to what the water pH and temp is from your supplier, best to begin with less than required fish and build the numbers when confidence and understanding grows.. Stop putting hydro mixes in your system, get some fish emulsion. Get a water make up tank, sounds like chloromines in your scheme water.
IMO I would be running the system cf until the rites go <0.25 then adding a splash of fish emulsion and checking the parameters 2 days later and using a seaweed solution to help the plants along. Pretty standard really.
Good luck.

Hi Skeggley, thanks for your support! I was away for a few days and it seems the cycle is now over as I'm getting no nitrites and pretty much no nitrates as well. I think I'm going to give the fishes another try tomorrow!
I'm considering sticking to the Tilapias but most likely going to get bigger juveniles as the tiny fingerlings may be suffering from the temperature slides as suggested by Salles above... Perhaps just 20 of them for now...

Nitrite and Nitrate readings from today.