Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a few channel cats myself and I've found them to be pretty easy to keep. I have had them in the winter while the tank had 2 inches of ice on top, and in the summer with up to 90 degree water. They are pretty tough, but you MUST get a test kit and find out what your ammonia levels are. As tough as they are, ammonia at hight levels is toxic. Go ahead and test that water and let us know what you find

how many fish do you have? how much filtration? As bull said a freshwater master test kit will let you know if your system is out of balance.

Looks like a total loss. Guess I'd better (belatedly) get that test kit if I want to try again.

Sorry to hear it Ludi

Thanks! I guess I'll need to read up on what to do if the system is out of balance. My plants in floating islands never did well, so I figured there probably weren't too many fish for the filtration, but, apparently there were or something else went bad. I chose Channel Cats and Bluegill because I thought they would be forgiving of imperfect conditions. And everything did look great for a few days there....

There 3 still living but looking poorly. I cleaned to the two catfish tanks and replaced the water and I guess if anyone is still alive by the time the tanks are refilled and filtered a bit, I'll put them back, but I expect them to all be dead by morning. We never did know if any Bluegill survived.

No idea, my ph is a little high, but lower than it has been 7.6. Ammonia is 0, water temp is 68F. Don't have any ideas, but as long as my tilapia are okay I am not going to freak out.

Hi Ludi, keep at it, it does get easier. When you get the test kit take some readings and let up know what you find. Any idea what your water temp has been running?

I hadn't taken the water temp but we have moved quickly into warm weather. This morning I started to clean out the Bluegill tanks and netted out a healthy-looking Bluegill! I was stunned, immediately put him back and stopped messing with it. The Bluegill tanks hadn't shown any signs of illness recently, so there may be more fish in there. These tanks are smaller so get a larger volume of water moving through them than the large Catfish tanks, so I think that might be the main issue in those bigger tanks. If I decide to replace the Catfish or put Bluegill in those tanks, I think I'm going to have to get more aeration in there.