Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Bummer!

The water in my barrel is getting cleaner and I was able to see the fish that are left. I have counted at least height of them. I should have seen 10. Maybe I just missed a couple. They all stay at the bottom except for one who seems to like the middle of the barrel.

They don't seem to want to eat. When I drop the flakes in the water nobody seems to care. Mind you, maybe the height have eaten the missing two


These fish look heathy but lonely in this big tank. I am resisting the temptation to buy other fish. The garage is 10C. It will take time before the system cycles.

This week-end I will analyze the water for the first time.

At 10C/50F, your fish won't be eating much, and in fact, should not be fed. Their metabolism is so slow at that temperature that they won't digest their food, and it will just rot in their gut. They are resting and conserving their energy right now.

Go ahead and test the water, but stop feeding until your temperature comes up a few degrees.

That makes sens. They are being smart by not eating.

When will I know that it is time to feed them?

What's fish for "give me food"?

when they wave a little sign at you that reads "please Dad may we have some food" You must make sure they are polite about it!

Probably when the temp goes up

When the temperature comes up, they will be ready for food. Even a few degrees will make a difference. If they are feed-trained, they will come to the surface with open mouths when they see you. Then feed them.

Water analysis results:

PH : 7.5
Amonia : not measurable
GH : 120 mg/L
KH : 70 mg/L

Nitrite and Nitrate were skipped since no amonia was detected.

I definitively saw what looked like poo floating in the water. The only
thing that concerns me is that the poo won't be sucked up and moved to the grow bed because I had to put a filter in front of the pomp water intake to prevent the pomp from eating the fish.

I should also add that at the rate that things are going it will take forever for the system to cycle. The temptation is big to buy a 300w water heater. Hmm... At that price it better be darn good spinash ...

Sorry about the double post. better be more carefull with that back button!

no stress Julien, taken care of

The poo will eventually break down into smaller pieces that the pump can move. Numbers look good.

Right now, I am going to be eating $100 salads for a long time. However, I am looking at this as a learning experience, not a profit-center. For now.

I keep telling my customers to NEVER EVER test in production.

Well I have discovered that this applies to AP too.

Last Sunday I built a nice bucket and punched holes into it, then I put sand in the bucket and let the water coming from the grow bed go through it "as an extra filter". It did this for all of 30 seconds and found my barrel full of sand. It is STILL full of sand.

It would have been so much easier on the fish if I had tested this idea before hand. GRRR!!!!

Well this is a learning project. Better mess up a 200 l barrel and 10 fish than 4000l and hundreds of fish. I have not seen any floater yet.

you won't....fish like sand. Good luck cleaning it up

Note to self: don't do that.

Thanks for sharing, Julien. We all learn from others' mistakes.

You may be able to siphon the sand out if you can get the other end of the siphon hose lower than the bottom of your tank. I've been known to siphon with one end of the hose out the door, trailing down the steps. Think creatively. It's also pretty hard to mouth-start a siphon in a garden hose. However, if you have a hand-held sprayer to attach the hose, you can work with that. (Bear with me...) Attach the hose to the spigot, and put the hand-held sprayer on the other end of it. Place the sprayer end of the hose at the lowest point you can. Turn the water on at the spigot, and let it run until the hose is full of water. The sprayer is off. Turn the spigot off. Put on your raincoat. Un-screw the hose from the spigot as quickly as you can, trying not to let any more of the water out than you have to. Quickly plunge that end of the hose in to the bottom of your tank. Go to the sprayer, and unscrew it. Ta-Da! The siphon should start.

OR put the whole hose in the water, cover one end with thumb, pull hose out of water (still covering with thumb) walk to exit point ,lower hose, release thumb.
Make sure other end of hose is still in water tho

Its good that there is no ammonia, means that your system has at least started cucling (unless changed lots of water after cutting back/stopping feeding because of low temp). Ammonia is the most deadliest, followed by nitrite and then nitrate. If there is Nitrites but no nitrates, your system has probably only half cycled, but if there are no nitrites and nitrates then its completely cycled....