Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So a quick update for the week:

Despite having salted the system early last week, I have lost another 8 goldfish to the Ich, and also a possible pump failure. I noticed the day before I left to visit the in-laws for the weekend that my pump wasn't putting out nearly as much water as it was at the start of the growing season. I'm thinking it's one of two things: 1) pump failure. Remedy: buy a new pump. Or 2) the lines are super plugged up with moss or algae. Remedy: clean the pipes and pump. I'm hoping it's the second option, as I've had several other things come up that need money to be spent, but if that's not the case, then I'm sure the wife won't mind me buying a new pump.

And in better news, the strawberries are doing well, and as such they have started giving us berries to eat! I had the first one this past week, and loved it. My sister had the second on Sunday. The sugar snap peas are almost ready to start harvesting, and the Kholrabi has about another week I'd say before it's ready to eat. The cabbage plants are doing quite well for being in as confined a space as they are in, and I'd give them about another 2-3 weeks before they are ready for harvesting. The potato seems to be doing well, and will also probably be ready for harvest in the next 3 or so weeks. And finally, the big tray of tomato seedlings I've got will be ready for planting next week, meaning I've got to get plumbing figured out for the two new growbeds and stock tank (I still haven't decided how I'm going to route everything).

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. And I'm off to hopefully solve my pump problem...

Cheers!




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Quick update: the reason the water flow had slowed to a trickle was because the pump filter was ultra clogged with slime and other foul smelling things. I'm pretty sure that's where the Ich decided to originate from. I got it washed with soap and hot water, then I also added more salt to the system as I had added in some water to give the fish oxygen (they were all sucking at the surface). So hopefully I have solved my problem.....


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UPDATE!!!!!

Today I've got some good news, lots actually, and some bad news. And just because I like ending on a happy note as much as possible, the bad news first. All but 4 of the rest of my goldfish are dead. When I went out today after work to check up on them, I found about 5 or so floating at the top, with about 1-2 more at the bottom. Which is really depressing, because I had hoped that by salting the tank I'd be able to keep them alive. But I guess it was the right intervention, at the wrong time. And as for the last 4, I hope they can survive somehow. So we will see.

And for the good news; 4 of my fish are still alive!!!! I found it interesting that the majority of the ones who survived were the more natural color of carp. It kind of makes me think that they kept more of the original disease resistance of their wild cousins. But I could be wrong, and if so please enlighten me.

And the second bit if good news; I got the two fish tanks attached to each other!!!









I used 1 1/4" pvc pipe to connect it all, so that way the fish would be able to swim between the two tanks, but then also to make sure there would be enough water flow to help keep it all from going stale. I did not glue it all together with the pipe glue, as I wanted to allow some form of flexibility while assembling it, but i am planning on doing the glue as well as rubber cement on the top of the joints to try and hold it all together better than just with friction. My only hope is that it doesn't come loose and spill all the water tonight..... Next step is to figure out if I want to make both beds flood and drain, or have one be that way and the other constant flood, or have one be a DWC, etc. right now I'm leaning more toward having them both be media beds, but I also want to try out the DWC style. Especially having seen some of the stuff that Colum has done, I want to give it a try too. So that's still up in the air.

And the final bit of good news for the day; I harvested my first Kholrabi plant, and enjoyed it very much!







This one tasted more like broccoli and turnip (at least I think that what the "spicy" root veggie is.....), whereas the last one I had was more broccoli and apple oriented. And to make it better, I've got the leaves for sandwiches and salads/cooking, because those taste like cabbage. I also pulled out the 3 Bok Choy plants, as they all were nothing but seed pods, and we're taking space, light, and nutrients from the other plants. So I've got those in my parents basement hanging upside down with the roots still intact to dry. And I think I'll try the Bok choy again later this year, but around October or November. As that is a colder weather plant, and the greenhouse will help keep the frost off them.

So all in all, it was a good day for my system. 4 fish still alive after the Ich attack, a yummy snack, and a properly flowing fish tank set up! And to finish the post off, here is a picture of the current state of my system;



Have a god day everyone!




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Great update and I'm very chuffed for the 4 that survived.

just tagging in, just FYI on the ich front, once ich is in your system it's pretty tough to get rid of it. The only real way to get rid of it is to let your system lay dormant for the entire life cycle of ich so it does not get a host again. Not a good idea with a system like aquaponics where you need the fish waste to feed the plants... I'm new to aquaponics and haven't started mine yet, but I've had plenty of aquariums over the years... I'm a big believer in keeping low stress environments and feeding fish a healthy diet so they have a strong immune system and then they will be strong enough to beat off ich on their own and will eventually build up a tolerance to it so it can't use them as a host. IMO this is the only way you can run a system and not have constant battles with ich or having to quarantine all new purchases for 30-60 days to make sure they don't bring diseases with them (go to any fish forum and you'll see that ich is probably the #1 reason for starting a new thread...)

Trying to keep the low stress environment can be tough, because stress can be anything from loud noises that scare the fish, you walking up to them that scares them, temperature swings, pH swings, water quality changes, other fish bullying each other, too many fish in too little of space... I would make sure you have some hiding spaces in your fish tank (different sizes of PVC chunks in there for the fish to hide in / swim through or something along those lines).

For good food, that's also tough... most fish foods you are going to buy at the store are going to be about the same as you eating McDonalds every day 3 meals a day for your entire life... they lack a lot of nutrients that are needed to be healthy and load up on a bunch of empty calories, going to make them unhealthy... the closer you get to live food the healthier it is going to be. For fish this might mean raising worms (I have a large tote full of blackworms that I raise for my saltwater fish, also white worms are good, but for fresh water fish I'd probably feed just about any kind of worms that are easily kept... so maybe look in to some ways to raise different types of worms in a tote under the LH bed that looks like it is open space right now...) feeding freshly hatched baby brine shrimp is a good treat, but frozen foods are usually an OK intermediary. Just like us, fish need a well balanced diet, so having multiple different food sources to rotate through from day to day helps keep them healthier and healthy fish don't get sick or have issues with fighting off ich.... I'm not saying you have to feed all of this, they are just goldfish, but it will help them be healthier if you do pay attention to what you are feeding them and change it up a bit to give them more variety than what flakes or pellets you buy at the local pet store will give them. It is still nice to mix in the pellets and flakes so the fish will eat them that way if you go away you can leave auto feeders running for them (sounds like it would already be a good idea for you to pick up an auto feeder if you forgot to feed the fish for 4 days... it's going to take more than 4 days for a fish to starve to death assuming it was healthy to begin with, but it sounds like you might have bought some not so healthy fish to begin with...

As for selecting your fish... that is pretty critical to me as well, I know all of my local stores that carry fish (there are probably about 10 within a 30 minute radius of my house) and there are only two or three that I would buy freshwater fish from and only 1 that I would buy saltwater fish from... and even those stores that I am willing to buy fish from I look at their tanks pretty closely before I decide to buy a fish. Most of the chain stores have all of their tanks hooked in to a single sump tank, so you need to look at all of their tanks to see if they have unhealthy fish in any of them... if I see a few tanks that have dead fish in them I'm probably not going to buy any fish from them that day because if there was something wrong with those fish then all of the fish in the store could be exposed to it... and general husbandry in chain stores is seriously lacking... if they don't spend the time to keep their tanks looking clean I'm not going to buy fish from them... I also disqualify stores based on the knowledge of their employees... if their employees are giddy little teenagers who are just so excited to get to scoop out a few fish because they really like fish but don't know a thing about them I'm not going to buy from them... If I watch them try to catch a fish and it takes them 5 minutes to chase a specific fish around a tank before being able to catch it... I'm not going to buy fish from them because they just stressed them all out...

just some things to think about when you get ready to go buy more fish =)

Thanks for the help riniger, the two fish I have left seem to be pretty healthy from the best I can tell. And for the Ich, I think it is finally gone.... I think.... Because in the new tank off to the right, in the bottom of the tank I've noticed funny white things growing on the settled sediment from when I did the addition. So I'm not sure if that's Ich growing and getting ready to find a host, or what. So for now I'm just watching to see what happens.

And for a quick update;

I got the inlets plumbed up for the two new growbeds!! And as such, on to the pics!!

Here is a before shot:



And the current state of the plants:



Lots of mint tea this coming winter!!!















And that's all I've got for now. Sorry for not a lot of explaining, but I'm doing this at work, and currently am overtime on my break. So I'll just let the pictures explain!

Today when I get off, I'll be finishing the returns and fixing the seal on that siphon.

Cheers!


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Pretty exciting to see what you've got growing in your system already... bringing the other two beds online will be awesome with as much as you are already growing in just two beds. I'm a little jealous with my lack of progress on my greenhouse to get my system up and running... we have a pretty good size dirt garden going pretty well but I'm still pretty excited for getting the aquaponics system set up.

Haha, thanks. It may look like things are going superbly well, the plants are quite stunted looking from the heat in the greenhouse. Though the mint and cabbage seem to like the heat in there. So hopefully those keep doing well


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Looks like you've got a potassium deficiency with some of the plants so some of what you're seeing may not be entirely because of the heat. Aside from the yellow or necrotic leaf margins and interveiinal chlorosis, Potassium deficiencies can cause wilting and stunted roots.

That's what I was thinking, cause it's super evident with the strawberries, but I haven't gotten around to fixing that problem yet.. I probably should sooner than later...


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Build update:

This one is going to be mostly pictures, but I got the standpipe done in the DWC bed, got the return finished, and got the rock washed and put in (I still need about 2 more bags as the water level currently rises to the top of the rocks)













And for the worlds ugliest rubber cement job:



That's all for today. Hopefully sometime this week I'll be able to get the rest of the rock washed and dumped in, as well as getting the foam raft for the DWC. And I've noticed as well that the 3/4" siphon seems to be working far better and more reliably than the 1/2" siphons. I almost wonder if it might be worth it to take apart the old beds next year and redo the siphons with 3/4"... Thoughts on that?


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That's good work!

Thanks Martin! experience certainly helps things go much quicker! That small first system I had with all the mold and siphon problems I was having, then all the flow rates and angles and stuff with this system, I've really learned quite a bit. And all the reading and lurking I've been doing on everyone else's builds has also soaked in quite a bit. Now I feel like I'm almost to the point where I feel like I'm ready to build my third set up (mid to large ibc system). Though I still need to learn how to better control my Ph, and nutrient levels (potassium is a perfect example). But that all comes with time.


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[this in common with the Dying Goldfish thread] and re: riningers post

with things like ich it is often best to put all your fish in a temporary home, and get a second small tank/aquarium for hospitalisation treatment.... That way you can treat the fish independent of the AP and the AP independent of the fish.
The hospital tank allows for higher levels of salting and other treatments that you cannot use in the AP.

In my case in the early days when I had one tank with a hit of ich I used the opportunity to detach my fish tank and refill it from scratch with scheme water (ours is chlorine only so no residual effect) which tends to sort out the fish tank bacteria/parasites fairly well. Then couple days later (once gassed off) just rehooked the grow beds.

In summer things kick back in pretty quick and all your nitrifying bacteria is still in the grow bed.
plants are fine if you leave water at the bottom of the grow beds and water/circulate daily.

re: previous post

I think your third setup will work well as the IBC fish tank is a bit bigger and you get a bit more leeway with issues in a larger FT. I would consider running your existing barrels also with a cut down IBC fish tank (and use top as a third GB). As above having two fishtanks and a spare is not a bad outcome and you should find it more productive on the veg side.