Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Definitely media + plants required, just like usual aquaponics. Thanks for the diagram, completely get it now. Would be nice to have the waterfall for the pond, but in reality, it would be going into gravel.
I'm not sure how citrus would go constantly flooded (for the low head required for the airlift).

We are going to drain our poor fish again today to try to fix the growbed drip. NEXT time, I would think we will install inline taps so we can isolate areas!

I'll post photos of the fish later today.

I have attached a photo of the trout. Some of them are only 7 cm long and some are 15cm or so.

We put the trout into our growbeds since we were rather unprepared. We transferred them soon after into the fish tank and started filling the growbeds with gravel with the fish in the system! I wonder if anyone else has done things so backward!

We have had the trout for over a week now, no deaths aside from the one which jumped from the tank before we put a lid on. BUT...
yesterday, I cleaned out 6 DEAD COMETS from System 1. I am uncertain whether the trout were responsible or whether the fish died from the cold snap we had two nights ago- it actually snowed here again. Nothing spectacular, but every now and then the rain changed to snow, and it was cold. So it is possible that the weaker of the new comets we bought a few weeks ago died from the shock of the cold.

I am going to put some pieces of pipe into System 1 for the comets to hide in in case the trout were responsible. The good news is that we are now closer to a good ratio for fish to growbed! Ha!

Just a quick update on the performance of System 1 since I put it in last April or whenever it was.

I have to confess, the system has been very disappointing as far as plant growth. I know that I started in autumn moving into winter, but plant growth was basically nil. The parsley kept growing new leaves which would then yellow and die. Winter lettuce seeds sprouted and died right away. Mizuna sprouted and grew well but became covered in aphids. The silverbeet didn't die but didn't do anything else, either.

I was adding seasol every week and up to twice per week. All levels were at zero- zero ammonia, zero nitrites, zero nitrates, etc. I added iron at one point- no change.

Here is what I THINK was the problem; we simply didn't have enough nutrients going into the system. 12 little goldfish in a system with 1000litres of growbed, 1000 litre fishtank, and the whole thing constantly flooded...I just don't think we ever really gave ourselves a good chance. That, combined with the fact that the days were getting shorter, the weather getting colder...

SO, this is an exciting time. The days are lengthening, the weather is warming up, and we have 50 trout fingerling in each system. If things are going to work, now is the time to see. I am hoping the within 4 weeks, I'll have a good idea if we are working or not.

Fingers crossed.

Be ready to order some Maxicrop+iron from Amazon.com or somewhere if you notice yellow leaves again. Your results sound similar to mine and probably for the same reason. The Maxicrop perked things right up but I'm approaching the end of the growing season here.

I found a leak a while back and opted for the "put a container under it" path, but it stopped leaking after a while. I'm guessing bio-gunk just clagged it up.

Gotta love the bio-gunk. Well as long as your pipes are all big enough.

The "container under the leak" option didn't work, and we needed to empty and refill the system FOUR TIMES before we finally found the culprit. That's the downside of making a system from whatever containers you have rather than custom-made ones. Still, once it is all OK, it is well worth it economy-wise.

We spent a day nailing chickenwire to the bottom of the polytunnel and digging it in as part of our ratproofing measures. It's still not perfect; we need to ratproof under the doors, but already there is a lessening in rat activity. Ha!

I added chelated iron three days ago, and its effects are starting to become apparent. Hurrah!

System 1 has noticeable plant growth now. System 2 is just sitting doing nothing much. Levels are:
System 1- ammonia almost zero, nitrates 5 ppm
System 2- ammonia .5ppm
Water temps are 10deg C in both tanks.

Sad news: the comets have almost all gone. Everyday, I take out more dead ones. I am almost certain it is indeed the trout. From 40 comets, we are down to three. We discussed netting off a separate area for them, but our inaction has resulted in the almost total annihilation of that colourful little population. Boo.

I wonder what people do when the weather is too hot for trout. Get temporary comet residents? And what do you do with 50 comets when new trout fingerlings go in? I'd better read some posts.

The trout all seem very healthy, though very obviously more active in system 1 than 2. They are very aggressive feeders, like miniature great white sharks at feeding time. I wouldn't like to be a bug. Or a comet, for that matter.

What are your nitrite levels?

some people might just run fishless for a time, others may have multiple tanks so they can keep silvers or some other multi year for to keep the system going through the summer.

Hi, everyone!

I wrote a post a few days ago, but I think BA were having issues with the site and when I tried to post, it was all deleted!! Grrr!!!

SO, sadly, I may have missed out on your awesomely great advice.

System 1- still all fabulous, no issues at all, plants going gangbusters, YAY!

System 2...WELL!!
Since System 1 happened so slowly with so few fish, I guess it almost cycled fishlessly. I never saw a nitrite spike ever, it just always and boringly tested pale blue. I was starting to think that maybe our systems would always be different, using creek water or something...
BIG INCORRECT ASSUMPTION!
About a week ago, when I tested System 2, the ammonia was very high- between 1 and 2ppm
Nitrites were off the chart, and nitrates were still low.
I did a 15% water change two days in a row (should have been more, but I was doing it by hand).
Then I did a 40% change. Ammonia was dropping, but nitrites still really high.
Today, our first dead trout, the littlest one. Poor thing. I think we may have more deaths coming up. Todays's results were:
ammonia- 0.25ppm
nitrites- off the chart
nitrates- between 5 and 10ppm
Ammonia is clearly dropping, nitrates clearly rising.

I did another water change, maybe 60%+.

Now I am wondering if I should add salt, wait and do another water change tomorrow, move the trout into system 1 (which would temporarily overload the system, but weight-wise, the fish are still well under half the max allowable amount, so maybe OK?) or a combination of the above.

I have already put System 1's air bubblers into System 2, since System 1 seems to be going fine.
My only issue with adding salt is that if I do another water change tomorrow, it will dilute the salt...
I am putting another post up on General System Discussions, so I might hold off until tonight to add salt.

And yes, I KNOW this is the risk of cycling with fish, but here was our situation: we had way more fish than we needed, and the only other option was to put them in our dam which we don't want to do. Other people in the area speak of how they used to have frogs until they introduced trout, and we have a LOT of frogs and want to keep it that way.
In the future, I think we would cycle fishlessly, but in our usual reactive way, we did what we had to.

Thoughts?

If you can move the fish into another system, and you wont overload it, I think that would be the better option.

Water changes will slow the cycling as you need those nitrites to feed the beasties that make nitrates.

The numbers of fish are not as important as the total mass of the fish.

If you do move them into the other system, don't feed anyone anything at all. They will be fine without food. (given that they haven't already been injured)

See this reply to your other thread... viewtopic.php?p=353811&sid=dcd08ceae8ebb1b51787b901e1a6a32b#p353811

Rupe, thanks SO much for your advice. I love your contributions in other people's threads, and I was really hoping you'd reply. I really, really appreciate it.

Hi, Bullwinkle! Great to see your squiggly cartoon face! I might move the fish tomorrow...I need to get a bigger net first...
I think some may die. A couple were swimming up higher in the tank today, which they don't usually do. They all seem to be at the bottom now (hopefully not DEAD at the bottom...)

My guess would be that if 1 fish has died, the others must be injured to some extent, too. Can they recover if nitrites decrease soon enough, or would the damage be permanent?

I'm annoyed with myself for not searching for this info earlier, but my kids monopolise the computer these days...Minecraft, for those that understand the phenomenon...

The chloride ion... from salting.... rights the osmotic blood balance rapidly... and should rectify the situation... at least for those that haven't suffer too much...

The nitrite exposure may have damaged their gills... and/or caused damage to their internal organs...

If so... time will tell... and you may lose them... but I think you'll be OK having salted....

Fingers crossed...

Hi Blythe

Id recommend not moving fish at this stage. I understand Bull's thoughts in splitting the load but I think with nitrite levels high extra stress through catching/moving fish might compound issues.

Dont stress yourself and dont beat yourself up. Its common to see high nitrite spikes with large fish loads on virgin systems and many pull out just fine. As Rupe has stated, and I second it, is that salt will be your savour here.

Ive seen a multitude of systems cycled with fish that are exposed to similar readings to yours and quite often a very small percentage.. if any.. are lost. Quite often you see these results in a low stocked new system aswell and deaths are often just a result of the transportation stress.

Salt, dont feed.... relax.