Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So last night I had left the garden hose in the sump after topping it up some. Fish were lively this morning and ate well. I was not able to make it home at lunnh time to feed them - so I was excited to go feed them before dinner. Came home from work to see the backyard flooded. The spicket is up near the house so I turned it off and went running for the fish tank. All the fish were at the bottom and not moving. Started fishing them out...I have one tilapia that might make it - but doubtful...he is sitting at the bottom but still breathing. As you can see the rest are goners. Tilapia are not so tough they can withstand choramines in the water.

DéjàVoodoo,

so sorry to hear of the fish loss,

a Activated Charcoal Filter on city water is recomended....

and run the water through it very slow, so that it has pleanty of dwell time in the filter, so that it removes almost all the Chlor, and the filter will last a long time this way......

a filter would have kept the Chlor from killing them, even with the all day over flow.........

a FT top up valve helps too....

Choramine doesn't gas out like chlorine, besides being toxic to fish according to what I have read it would also kill off your bacteria in the growbeds etc.
Even addition of chlorine is supposed to do the same which is why most let it degas before adding to aquariums.

Seriously, I have to cycle it again?

Activated Charcoal can be quite effective at removing chlorine... if the charcoal is kept "fresh", regularly "re-activated"... and with a very slow flow as RS says...

But it's much easier and quicker to off-gas it by bubbling and exposure to sunlight...

Activated Charcoal is said to only remove 50-60% of chloromines.... by the same slow flow process.... and by breaking the bond between the chlorine and ammonia ions... will result in some level of ammonia in your tank...

Activated charcoal filters are primarily utilised as "pre-filters" to RO units... where the chlorine can breakdown the RO membranes/compounds...

Most activated charcoal filters are useless after about a week at best... unless they're "re-activated"...

Yes and no... shouldn't have to ....

Large doses of chlorine... will act similar to bleach... and can impact your bacterial colony...

Whereas chloromine breaks into chlorine and ammonia... with the ammonia actually feeding your normal nitrification processes...

Yes, you would have also added a large amount of chlorine to your system... but exposure to sunlight... and bubbling by increased aeration and water turnover... should dissipate it rapidly....

If you really wanted to you could do a 50% water change with de-chlorinated water...

But as you've no fish at the moment.... just treat the system as if you're "fishless cycling".... give it a boost of an ammonia source... and you should cycle back rapidly...

Oh crumbs

I like the plastic stock tank top up valves installed in such a manner that they will only top up when the water level starts getting lower than normal. I have one in my sump on the main system and will be installing one for the new 300 gallon system tomorrow.

Another handy item if the top up valve isn't possible is one of those cheap automatic shut off timers for the hose. They are cheap so ya don't want to leave the tap on with the timer keeping it shut off when you go out of town but they are great for adding water to a tank for a certain amount of time and it will automatically shut off the hose even if you forget.

Sorry for the loss there. I think you might have to cycle a little but it won't take nearly as long as the first time.

Bugger..........

It's so easy to do, I've done it a couple of times but luckily it hasn't caused any deaths, everyone should a tap timer, that should be down as an essential piece of aquaponics equipment, very cheap insurance.

I think it is called a float valve....(in reference to TCL)
The float shuts off the water when full and fills when the level drops.
(like the one in the dunny[Dunny = toilet])

Or do what I do and have a "fill tank" (no fish in it!) which sits above the level of the fish tank. You pump the water into it, if it overflows, oh well, the ground gets wet. You leave it for a day and then you turn a tap at the base and that water goes into the fish tank.

Very safe.

So sorry DejaVoodoo
You aren't the first and probably won't be the last to suffer this way.

I have done a similar thing leaving the hose running, fortunately without fish losses, but they did turn upside down in front of my eyes.
I put this down to a couple of factors which conclude that fish do not like sudden changes of things including temperature and Ph also the water that I added may have been extremely low in dissolved oxygen.
For future topups i recommend little and often, also a timer on the tap is mandatory, I learnt that after the second time, but at least I learnt!

My city water activated charcoal filter is a 4" x 10' long PVC pipe, and is still working after 9 mo or so, with only a trace of chlorine showing on a test, after the water has ran for 10 min or longer.......
it's doing it's job so far, and i am told, that doing the slow flow, that it will last a long time before the charcoal needs replaced, because of the volume of charcoal in the filter.....

a timer on the input is a good idea too.....

All good advice...my problem though is that the Kidds thought it would be fun to help out and as kids do, forgot to turn it off. I cannot blame them, they are just kids. Mother though who could have noticed the flooded back yard though....well let's just say she is not high on the books right now. Really though it is my fault - I should never have left the hose in the sump after turning it off. It never occured to me someone would turn it on and leave it on for 12 hours.

BUGGA that's tough.

You never know what's going to come out of a tap from one day to the next. That's why my supply tank is 22,500 litres of RAINWATER.

May even be an idea if you are adding water often is to grab something like a 500 gal (~2000 litre) tank, fill it with tap water, and drop a large air stone in it for a couple of days to boil off any nasties before topping up the AP system.

Mal