Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All, need a little advice.

We are supposed to collect our trout tomorrow. However, we have just tested the water again and it appears we have an ammonia spike. it's up to 4.0 maybe a little higher.

Should we put off collecting the fish for another week or should we do a 1/2 half water change and hope for the best.

all ideas are welcome.

Could try running the water through some zeolite, only do it until ammonia drops to safe levels, better than water changes. Imho think it would be better to hold off a week till water is stabilised. If you're still using urea there is often a delay between adding it and ammonia registering.

Did you end up pick up some trout?

No not yet. The plan is to pick them up this sunday. Tooperang were quiet happy to hold them for a week to save killing them.

How did your ammonia spike? Did you already have fish in there or were you throwing in urea/humonia?

we did a complete clean out. so we are back at the cycling stage. This time however i did put some urea in when we first refilled the tank (3 wks ago maybe) to help keep the beans growing. havent put in any more. Could have been my big mistake (not like me at all)

havent checked the water today as yet, so we could be emptying out half tomorrow.

have just checked the water......yes we have a 0 ammonia so will definitely be picking up the trout this weekend

Just don't feed them over the weekend... or you'll spike again...

Here are the new babies, yes they are doing fine.

We lost one on the first day that we picked them up. Pure and simply stress of the trip we think.
The rest are feeding fine.

They look cool!

they would be, it has turned into winter again.

Just a quick update, the fish are doing really well, you can see them growing every day. Only lost the one fish which of cause the cat thoroughly enjoyed. The mussels appear to move around the bottom of the tank, although you dont get to see them unless you are out there at night with the torch.

We have some vege in, but admittedly not much. There are 3 different types of beans, the lazy housewife, general climbing beans and a bush bean. Snow peas, chives, kale, Russian tomatoes, lettuce and we do have cauli seeds in.

We have been picking the hydroponic lettuce leaves for about 6 weeks now. Nearly ready to change over to some fresh plants.

Your peas do way better than mine ever do

That maybe due to the maidenwell trying to keep our ph at a lower level. We have found the best level for fish and plants to be 6.8, this level is easiest for us to maintain. We dont usually have any issue with fish disease, or plant nutrient lock out.

Constant 7.6 here, its never gonna go down lol.