Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just a thought - has anyone tried using a bacterial additive sold in aquarium shops to "seed" the system with the necessary bacteria and in so doing speed up the cycling of the system? Or is it generally accepted that when ammonia levels are high enough the bacteria will naturally populate ("if you build it, they will come" etc)?

Wot a lot of us do is get some gunk out of an aquarium filter (either our own or somebody we know) to seed the beds and speed up cycling. Other people just put a few goldies in for cycling. THe stuff you are talking about should help - but provided you watch what you are doing with your 20 silvers (ie make sure the ammonia and nitrite levels don't get too high while waiting for cycling - do water chnages if required) then cycling should happen naturally, though as pointed out the temps currently might make it a bit slower than if doing in summer.

So, given that this bacterial additive would be unlikely to kill the fish, and given that it appears we may have an ammonia problem at present, it might be a good idea to give the system a dose in order to kick-start the cycle?

As suggested on the other post.
Could it be tooling oil?

I'd put in the bacteria additive after a couple heavy water changes, and removal of every scrap of un-eaten food. If you have any contamination or ammonia that is higher than you think, the water changes will help dilute it.

Hi there Jimmy,

Sorry to hear about your fish losses, I have lost a batch over summer so I know it isn't much fun. Mine died due to wetting agent (surfactant from firefighting foam, long story) rather than ammonia, but still took a while to figure out what went wrong.

As has been said already, if you can find someone with an aquarium and get some gunk from their filter (squeeze out the water from the foam filter bit) and add to your water or even pinch some gravel from the bottom of their tank and add it to your gravel this will give you a bacteria "kick start". It will still take time you the bacteria to build up, but will be quicker than waiting for them to appear naturally.

Also, I think I know you, does Thrash Bus mean anything to you?

Cheers,
Nova

Okay, today I bought some stuff for Dad:
a 7.4-8.8 pH test kit
a bottle of bacteria (at least I think it's bacteria)
an automatic fish feeder

The bacteria is sold as a total ammonia neutraliser - i.e. it's highly concentrated (apparently) and you put it in to completely remove ammonia almost instantly. If that is to be believed, then we should find that we don't need to empty the tank. This would be preferred as the household runs entirely on rainwater (no mains, no bore) and on the sharp end of a drought 1500 litres would be a lot to waste.

In future I'm going to suggest growing the fingerlings in, say, a large aquarium for a couple of months (something where we can see what's going on, especially see how much they are eating which is almost impossible in a galv rainwater tank) and then when the fish get to a larger size (say 50-100grams) they can be transferred out to the larger tank.

And re: Thrash Bus... Small world, ain't it? :-) Scott, I presume?

jimmy, may also have been some unknown contaminant as well.

Janets advice was prudent, by doing a water change you reduce any ammonia you may have had (not that it was a concern if you test kit is right) AND more importantly dilute any chemical contaminant that may have hurt your fishies.

That's me.

The ammonia neutraliser you bought is probably not bacteria, it is most likely a chemical that removes the ammonia present in tap water (mains). The bacteria that you want would be sold as some sort of fish tank starter (not sure of any product names).

Nova

This is the one used in hydro-systems.... reckon it would be OK for AP as well...

http://www.microbial.com.au/

Has a link to product MSDS.

http://www.microbial.com.au/data.html

Edited :

Opps, sorry this is a system startup product... to add ammonia and promote bacteria..... my bad... sorry

Edited Again :

Just re-read, was getting confused, yep the one you got Jimmy will probaly "condition" the water... remove all/most ammonia....

If you want to seed the system and promote bacteria/ammonia this is one!

As is pure ammonia... can't remember wether you use "cloudy" ammonia or not???

Use clear (as in non cloudy) ammonia

nope, CLEAR ammonia, but have to do research to make sure there is NOTHING else (suractants have a way of sneaking in)

What's wrong with good old yellow ammonia (aka piss).

I haven't heard from Dad how the system is going (not since Wednesday). If the 20 survivors are still going strong I think we can go ahead without the water change (like I said, 1500 litres is a large amount to waste when you've got nothing but rainwater to deal with). If those 20 are dead, I'll recommend that we change the water and install some cheap goldfish for a while.

From what I could gather (no longer having it in front of me) this product I bought provides an absolutely massive hit of bacteria to eat up the ammonia in the tank, although I must admit I don't know how they survive in the bottle if that's the case - unless it has a really short shelf life.

Will check back with Dad and report on the status of the system...

jimmy, did your dad acclimatise the fish to the tank before releasing them.

What I mean by this is that the bag with the fish should be floated in the tank for about 30 minutes - this equalizes the temp of the fish water to the tank water so that there is not a dramatic temp change.

The next step should be to stabilise the PH - this can be done by adding some of the fish tank water to the plastic bag holding the fish (say about 25% tank water to bag water and do 4 doses in 30 minutes)

The fish should be ready for release then and the death toll should be minimal - I did it this way and didn't lose any SP.

Of course, your father might have done this and I have egg on my face, but some would say that would only improve my appearance