Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

I finally got everything settled, and am now a happy father to 30 1 inch to 2 inch tilapia, who seem to be doing well. I got over the algae problem, the water is now clear, very little solids are visible, etc etc all good.

Now I start to worry. I';ve read lots of posts of reacting to certain problems, but with everything going well at the moment (touch wood), what sort of maintenance should I doing with the fish? What kind of regular checks do people do, beyond the usual ammonia / N tests?

I'm imagining things like checking for pregnant / in heat fish, checking weight / growth, etc. Should I occasionally catch a few fish and take a close look? I don't want to wait to find someone floating upside down.

In summary: everything's good, and I'm too paranoid to just let it sit. What should I be doing?

details: 30 1-2 inch tilapia in an IBC, it's early summer in Texas, water temp around 83, should be increasing soon.

If a seasoned pro posts "just ignore em!" then that would be awesome, but I'd be fairly surprised

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnuT9hIwM_A[/youtube]

Water checks and watching them is all I do. If they look good, are active, and eating good, and water checks out good, they are usually fine. They're very hardy fish.

I've had my tilapia for a year and a half. I rarely do water parameter checks. I feed them several times a day every day and watch their behavior. If their behavior changes, I look into the why. Different behaviors indicate different issues. You'll learn those with time.

If everything is set up correctly in the first place, and you keep contaminates from the water, it's just let them do their thing. So don't overfeed them, and let feed go bad at the bottom of the tank, make sure there is enough media for the fish, and then let it do it's thing.

The things that generally go wrong, are people overstock, something gets into the water (pestacides, copper from something), a fish with ich or a bacterial or something gets in there and wasn't salt bathed, infecting other fish, too much algae causing DO issues, or not enough water movement, causing DO issues.

The last issue is generally man made, and most of the time from tinkerers, they turn the pump off to do something, leave the hose on too long, or something along those lines, and the fish suffer.

If you're in an area that has sketchy power supply, make sure you have a backup air pump, and buy a backup water pump in six months or so, and if your current one dies, you don't need to wait for a replacement to arrive.

As above

thank you all v. much!