Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A quick fish-handling question -

My catfish are very hard to see in my blue barrel FT in the basement light. I shine a flashlight in the tank to see them better, but they hate that and quickly hide.

But because of this, I can't tell if they're healthy - if they have ICH or sores or anything. I don't have any reason to think they might be sick (the goldies are all doing great), but it makes me nervous.

I also want to get a feeling for how big they all are, so I can compare it to how much I'm feeding them, and get a rough idea of feed/weight ratio.

My netting skills are average at best. Should I just let the system work, or should I net them out occasionally to check them in better light?

And on a completely different note - who made the AP-specific smilies? They're brilliant.

Hmmm. Just took a closer look at my basement system.

I pulled out my carrots, as they were in there for over two months and weren't showing any signs of developing a root. One of them had a mushy orange thing on the end, but it was no longer a carrot, if it ever was.

I also pulled out a badly transplanted lettuce plant.

With the failure of the carrots, this is my score:
Failures:
Carrots
Strawberries
Spinach

So-so or still waiting:
basil
oregano
snow peas - I got a few flowers, and a few tiny peapods, but now I think the plants are dying off.
Green beens - look very unhealthy and lots of dying leaves, but there are a few flower buds this morning.
Soybeans - mostly unhealthy looking, and basically no growth, but there are a few healthy leaves on top.
spaghetti squash - I think I'm going to pull this soon.

Still seem good:
a cherry tom - still a seedling.
cilantro
Lettuce - but gets very, very leggy. I'm sure that's because the lights are far enough up to give the peppers some room.
Bell peppers - going gangbusters at the moment, with three plants, and two of them have buds, one has a flower! I suppose I should check their pollination needs.

I need to re-arrange my beds so all of the low plants are together, so I can put the lights really close.

Tests today:
Am: 0.25 (I had fed just an hour earlier)
Nitrites: 0.25 (first time I've had a reading here since I cycled, maybe also due to the recent feed.)
Nitrates: off the scale
pH: 6.8 - 7.0

I think I'll hold off feeding for a bit. Or test tonight before I feed.
I also planted some alfalfa today, just to get some greenery in there filtering, so I can re-arrange the rest of the beds later.
I also now have swiss chard seeds, I'll plant them when I can re-arrange the beds. Radishes too.

Enthusiasm level - low.
Definitely need to search for low-light plants. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on miner's lettuce, Winter Purslane, which has very low light needs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claytonia_perfoliata
http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com/cgi-b ... ategory=21

KS, have you added any other nutrients to the water at all?

Iron, compost tea, and worm compost tea.
I meant to get sea salt at the co-op this afternoon, but i forgot...

...and eggshells. Nearly forgot those!

Maybe put some maxicrop seaweed extract stuff in.....

yup, I'll pick some up this weekend.

I just added some compost worms into the growbeds tonight. With trepidation, it just seems unnatural. But I'm trusting you all!

They become very large worms

Karen, why not use some fluroscent globes instead of LED lights? There are a lot of indoor hydroponic people using the fluro globes which has similar running cost to LED. I cant remember which temperature of light do you need, but I think it is 5000 K.

Sasukewa, I will. I'm going to add more fixtures. Just as soon as the $$$, weather and time converge.

Added some fish emulsion to the dump tank today, so we'll see what the growth does now.
I also bought some sea salt, perhaps to add more micro-nutrients, and for emergency salting.

OBO, I hope so! I dug into the area I put them, and most were gone, but both places had one or two dead little worms. Maybe the transplant shock (I'd just gotten this bunch of worms from a friend) did them in, and not the environment. (hmmm. There doesn't seem to be a smiley for crossed fingers)

:HSM:

My fish tank leaked! I went down this morning to find water all over the floor, and the tank about 1/2 full. After checking for leaks everywhere else, I had to come to the conclusion it was the tank, but the tank was wrapped in silvered bubblewrap, so I couldn't tell for sure.



This blue barrel is one of the ones with a lid, instead of just bung holes.

So even though I siliconed the lid before adding water, it must have finally developed a leak.

Well, I was already late for work, so I sent my team a quick "plumbing emergency!" e-mail and got busy.
Netting out the fish was awful. I suck at that big time. But I pumped out a lot of the water, got them all into a small container, and then pumped the rest of the water into various holding places (the dump tank, the beds, an extra lidless barrel I have around for degassing water...)

I had an extra properly-bunged barrel that I was going to use for my second system, but I hadn't rinsed it out yet. So I cut an opening and did an emergency rinse - biodegradable soap, a good scrubbing, and then a rinse with white vinegar. Hopefully that was enough.

I plumbed the new tank, manhandled the tanks around, and got the new one hooked up to the system.
Pumped water back in, put in as much gravel as I could quickly, and dumped the fish back in. The water in the new system was probably 1/2 new water, and the new water (already degassed) was pretty cold, so if the badly cleaned tank or net-shock doesn't get them, thermal shock might.

The new tank isn't insulated, so I turned up the heater, and I had salted the tank just a bit a few days ago (only 1 lb for ~60gal of water, I did it for trace minerals, not for fish health), so we'll see how all these factors interact.

I sure hope I have a few live fish when I get home from work! I ran out the door soaking wet, and am sitting at my work desk, shivering...

Aquaponics make you do crazy things....good luck

Come on, you should be home about now! What is happening?!?

"And now, for the exciting conclusion.....!"

Well?

So far, it looks like I've gotten extraordinarily lucky . When I checked an hour ago, there were no fatalities.

The new tank is a white barrel, and I didn't have time to paint it black or anything, so the water is much brighter than it was. Since I have catfish, that's a bit of a problem.

The catfish were all clustered in the PVC hides, and seemed pretty panicky, so I added a bunch more hides to give them a bit more room to recover. I also draped the tank with various things to try to help insulate and block more light.

I'll let them relax and recover tonight, and maybe tomorrow. And feed tomorrow night.

It's so hard not to go check on them! But I want to just leave them alone...

In truth, the so-far-good-outcome is due to this forum and the barrelponics list. I've learned so much here.

THANK YOU.

18 hrs later, everyone is still alive (although I didn't check the hides).