Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Sheesh, nothing gets past you guys eh? Yeh, I got a friend to sew it all up so it would stop being blown to pieces by the wind. It's lasted one set of gale force winds now, but of course it's too hot because you can't open the ends! I don't quite know what I'm going to do yet, maybe I'll put a window in the end but I don't know how I'll do the open/close thing.

Cut 2 sides and the bottom of a square out of the end. Sew in a square of flywire to strengthen the hole and roll up the fabric flap. Sew some velcro on to the sides and bottom of the flap and matching pieces on the sides of the hole it came from. In winter, just roll it down and press the velcro together.

Ok, well there are two things - the growth 2 weeks ago was great, I actually pulled out the watercress because it was taking over. So I'm keen to get back there and take a look at the progress (dad said it's going "mad").

However two fish have died over the weekend. I haven't seen anything, but my brother thinks that I'm feeding them too much. I have 25 Koi Carp, and I'm feeding half a handful of koi feed a day... is that too much? Is it only Ammonia/Nitirite/Nitrate that I have to worry about or are there other factors (like whether I can feed them till they split their stomach lining or something) ?

it depends how mature your system is as to wether 1/2 a handful is too much. more feed = more ammonia, so it's possible if you system isn't ready to filter out that much ammonia it'd become toxic to the fish.
if it was me, i'd back off to feeding them as much as they could eat in 2 minutes once a week.

A quick test with a test kit would tell you Gemmel

if koi are anything like goldies then they certainly will gorge themselves.

your ammo /no2 will tell you if the feeding is affecting your water qual.

I've heard that goldies will eat to the point where their poo-ing out undigested food.

It also depends on how large the 25 Koi are. If they are 3" fish, a half a handful might be too much. If they are 25 lb monsters, they might be starving.

I'm going to be over there this weekend, so I'll do some tests. I'm pretty sure the system is fully cycled, I haven't seen any ammonia in any of the tests for quite some time. Maybe just water quality issues.

I really want to get started on the one at my house so that I can monitor it properly.

aaah, absentee parenting

Everything is fine. Nitrates low, Ammonia zero, pH fine - fish seem happy but haven't been fed for a week. Fish still arn't enthused when I throw feed in. More water leaks in the lids of the half barrels - if only i'd got sealed topped ones.

However when I went over there the sides and bottom of the tank were black. Dad (who maintains the system) had gone away for the weekend and got my cousin to feed the fish. Two died while he was away.

The fish feed is in a tin in the greenhouse, with a small mound of dirt and roots next to it, I have a feeling she's thrown half a handful of dirt in every day...

not funny... but funny

Here fishies....

Make sure you don't leave your packet of snail pallets around Gemmel

Hi Gemmell,

Was looking through your post and saw the photos of the fish. I had all my fish die the other day (10 SP, 8 GF). Some of the goldfish had the same appearance with the slime on them.

I spoke to an aquarium owner and they suggested that it was the fish's stress coat. My ammonia was 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5 so everything was in the green there. The thing that was of concern to me was that my Ph was high (approx 8.5).

Looking at your post, that seems to be a consistent issue with yours and mine. I have done a 100% water change and am giving the system a chance to run without fish for a couple of days before buying more fish.

I will do some research of the impact of alkaline water on fish as it appears to me that that might be the problem. If I find anything I will let you know.

Simon

psychochook - sounds good, I never did figure out what it was. I thought it was contaminant. Have you added 2ppt salt? That certainly helps anyway.

More fish have died. I don't know what happens. It's running fine and then the water goes dark and all the fish start dying and then it clears up again....

The leaks in the barrels are unsealable, I shall be throwing this system out the window and staring again. Down to about a dozen fish from 50. Heart breaking stuff.

I've thought it could be water hardness. Because I lose a couple of hundred litres a week, I keep having to top it up with water from the tank. The tank is high PH and probably very soft, so maybe it's water hardness. I just need to start again with the lessons learned.

Have had two power outs which means my pump doesn't kick in which means I lose about half the water in the system. So twice over the last two days I've lost 50% of my water. Fish don't like this very much and turn up their tails.

All the grow beds leak and one leaks so badly that we've had to turn the hose off to it.

It sounds like it's RIP for aquaponics mark I. A good experiment, I'm going to move it to my house so I can monitor it more closely and set it up differently. It will be much more robust and hopefully successful.

So next system (based on VB's system):
* Bigger sump
* Continuously on pump in the sump, pumping up to main tank
* Main tank overflows into beds
* Bung barrels instead of screw top barrels

So this is better because:
* Water level fluctuations happen in the sump, not in the main tank
* If the power goes out, I may lose a little bit from the sump, but the main tank water level stays constant.
* Not relying on siphons to get water to my beds (which were stopping mysteriously)
* No leaks with blue (bung) barrels

I shall start another thread when I get around to doing it. Won't be for a few weekends though as I'm damn busy.