Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey guys over the last couple of days I have had several goldfish die. It began when I brought home some new goldfish (little guys) and placed them in with the 5 larger goldfish that I already had. About a week went by and everything seemed great.

We have been having some really hot days here and I saw that I was feeding them a little to much because I could see pellets still floating in the water when I would get home from work. So I pulled out as much of them as I could get to and stopped feeding for a day or two.

Since then (last Wednesday) I have lost a total of 5 fish, and 4 of them have been my big goldfish that were doing fine till the little ones came along.

My ammonia is .25 and everything else is 0 except ph which is 7.6 or above. I found out last week I have lime in my gravel. But I have been having good luck with my fish all summer long till now. This is a barrel ponics setup. I have one 55 gallon barrel that is the fish tank, it is filled about 3/4 full of water. I figure its got at least 30 gallons in it but probably closer to 40.

I added 1lb of salt last night because I thought that would be the thing to take care of all the deaths but when I got up this morning I had lost another big fish.

These fish haven't been fed since Friday either. Because I was worried that I had to much ammonia or something in the system but the tests say otherwise. So now I have 1 big fish (5in) and 12 small goldfish ( 2in) in the system. Am I overstocked?

Any help would be appreciated.

I had 9 gold fish in my indoor aquarium. Had been there for months then 5 died over a few weeks for no apparent reason.

Some research suggest they get bound up and that you should feed them peas.

Well had another small one kick it this morning. Is that frozen peas or thawed, or does it really matter?

I have used frozen ones but I don't think it matters.