Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

just checked Nitrate , its at 30 .
Thats probably from the Thrive though , soI'll know if things are going well once it goes above that / nitrite starts dropping

Nitrite is at 1 still , Im assuming Nitrate is slowly climbing ( I'll check it again tomorrow )
Ammonia is on the way down

theres 17ppm salt in the system to help detoxify the 1 nitrite , but Im going to check it 3x a day and do water changes as necessary , because .....

theres now 150 happy silver perch fingerlings swimming in my system wooooooo !

50 are being held for Duckpond , the other are being held for my stomach

Ive got a 2400LPH pump submerged in the water at zero head with a venturi , blasting oxygen into the water & along the length of the pond . Lets see if they survive the night ...

got no modem , so heres some water tests for the last few days while Im sneaking onto someone elses computer

2 days ago
ammonia 0
nitrite 1
nitrate 30
temp 12.00 21degrees
pH 7.6

yesterday
ammonia 0.25 ( or less )
nitrite 1 ( its gone down slightly though )
nitrate 30 - 40
temp 12.00 18 degrees
pH 7.4 - 7.6

All the 100 silvers have got the abbrasion marks the same as OBO's & Duckponds , a few are even missing the tops of their tails . Theres 26 grams or so of salt in the 1600L of water ( I think thats 17ppt , mot 17 ppm like I wrote above . too lazy to work it out now ) . Theyre not showing any signs of it bothering them , no worsening of the rub marks

Nitrite is still high , but with the constant aeration from the pump cycles ( the one 600L GB takes almost the whole "Off" time to empty and theres a 2400LPH pump constantly moving water across the surface . Im gonna see if theses supposedly tough fish can survive till the bacteria kicks in properly and starts reducing that nitrite

The Silvers are having a go at the trout pellets ( the trout sure as hell wont be needing it anymore .. ) and the bream in the blue barrel are tearing through the small pellets we got with them . The bream sit at near the surface waiting for food now , they know what Im there for and arent scared. The silvers swim around like mad , hiding under anything they can find .
Once the other system has had a few of the solids removed from the tank through the GBs , I'll move 50 silvers in there to protect against another disaster ( not that this systems had a disaster yet . apart from the wine barrel not being able to hold water . I need to line it with something like pond liner or fibreglass )

I had thought that this system would eventually be able to hold trout , but given the black coating on the inside , the black plastic around the growbed , and the ( eventual ) 3 square metres of gravel surface , I reckon the water temp will be too high for trout long before the other system , so I guess this is the Perch system from now on , just need to find a way to increase the poop amount in winter while theyre being lazy .
Its possible I could run a hose all the way across the back yard from the other ( higher up ) system and do my water changes in THAT system in winter by dumping filthy water from the trout into this sytem to keep the nutrients coming in . I suppose I'll have to rig up some sort of permanent plumbing for that though ...

So , Im doing good with the silvers so far , no deaths & theyre eating , but Ive made up for that by having to bury 12 fat trout that suffocated or something overnight

sometimes I wish I'd taken up homebrewing or bowling or something instead...

Boris, considering the nitrite reading ... and the stress to the Silver Perch... I'd normally salt to at least 1ppt... just to mitigate the nitrite reading...

Given the physical damage to the Silver Perch.... and consequently their heightened suseptibility to secondary infection .... I'd suggest salting to 3ppt... wont hurt your trout either...

3ppt in 1600ltr is 4.8kg of salt....

Your current 26gms in 1600ltr.... isn't even worth trying to work out interms of ppm...

4.8kg of salt... immediately IMO.... if you're worried about the veges... then at the very least halve it.... but I'd go the lot....

Same goes for Ducky and OBO... if you haven't already done so...

i dont salt i use Seasol and it has already cleared up the marks on my Perch's heads

WOOO !!

Nitrite is dropping , Silver perch are eating , Watermelon / cucumber / rockmelon / lettuce / herbs are alol sprouting from seed

The garlic I planted that started to sprout in the cupboard are a bit hit & miss - some are grwoing well , some are doing nothing and some are going moldy ( like the ones I pulled out today that smelt like steak ... )

With the pH now stabilised, the plants in the top ( Old ) GB above the blue barrel are taking off - spring onions that looked like they were dormant or something for 6 months are now going great , theres flowers & small fruit on the yellow wonder capsicum already & more seedlings coming up

a nice accidental bit on the way I made the standpipe / drain :
With the lid over the outer pipe fitting really snugly , the pump pushes fast enough to create a siphon for about a minute ( the inflow into the outer pipe / gravel guards start below the gravel level ) , this dumps about a fifth of the water in the 600L growbed straight down into the tank REALLY aerating it ( as if the 2400LPH pump with venturi at zero head wasnt enough aeration ...)

The silvers wont touch the small food that I got with the bream , but some of them really go for the trout pellets . The smaller ones try the pellets but theyre too big , so I crush most of it in a mortar & pestle

the 7 tiny black bream arent scared of me at all ( the silvers still are ) and they eat like crazy , but theres an long hair-like algae problem in the blue barrel that theyre in . I dumped about 20 little water snail things in there to eat it ( and in the other tanks too , from the sump in the other system ) but the bream ate them all before they hit the bottom

Looks like Yates Thrive works GREAT if you calculate exactly and measure correct amount - 5 more grams and I reckon my fish would be dead . It'd be safer to do it without fish I suppose ( and no - the trout deaths in the other tank werent from Thrive - I didnt add any to that tank , but now Im tempted to so the plants get a little boost - theres no Seasol left anywhere around here , Duckpond bought all the stock from every shop I went to ... _

Pics????

camera batteries dead , again ...

tests thismorning :
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
pH 7.6 - 7.8

moved more silvers into the other system , theres 50 in each now

wow , havent tested the water in this system for 3 or 4 days ...
pH is up to 8.5+ .. no wonder the plants arent looking too good

algae is going wild , I suppose the fish are eating that .
Added some Potassium sulphosomething that Duckpond gave me , expecting a drop in pH gradually as I add more over the next few days

talked to one of my best mates father today , his work puts him in touch with a guy who has a barra farm 3 hours from here - might be putting an order in soon if the stars align correctly

oh -the reason for the constant upward swing of pH :

I think its the bitumous sealer thats coating the whole tank , if so , I'll just keep dosing every few days till it stops pushing the pH up ( forever ? ) , I suppose the plants will like it

im in for barra, and we should post some to OBO to make up for th silvers he lost.

I wonder what the post office will think , maybe theyve got fish-shaped packages we can use

Do you have any spares Boris?

spare barra ?
I havent got any yet

WAAAA !!

The pH in this new black pond system is going crazy
Back up to 8.4 this afternoon , after being at 7.4 midnight - thismorning

I figure its either the black bitumous sealer causing it , or the three bloody coats that I did on top of the render wasnt enough and now the cement is leeching into the water

either that or the excessive algae growth is causing it ?

Ive run out of potassium sulphate or whatever it was that I was using to lower the pH , I suppose its just going to keep going up now and Im gonna be in for more dead fish