Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I use a elemental 975mph off eBay

Okay guys, I thought that my air pump stopped working and i thought may be that's why my Koi were dying. But the Aquarium shop owner said that since i have 2 power filters with venturis so evenif my air pumps stopped working I will still have enough DO in my system.

Anyways I installed not 1 or 2 but 5 Air Pumps 4 days ago and i see all the surface with Air bubbles.

The milky Koi who stopped eating 2 weeks ago and started eating again when i shifted her to my home Aquarium is dead today. I moved her back in my aquaponics fish tank a week ago and she was eating till tomorrow. However she was looking very lazy and very shy at the same time but I saw her eating some food.

And today I saw my cute and beautiful white milky dead.

Both my milky stopped eating after their leader died. They were not interested in food at all. I waited for 3 days but no one touched food. I thought may be they were feeling lonely so.......

i introduced 2 ID sharks (Small) as I had only one. So they are now 3. And 2 gourami also as they are tropical fish. They are looking fine. gourami were really taking interest in milky kois. Do you think that they killed my Koi?

Anyways after adding these new fish I saw that both my Koi started eating again. But they were looking very very tired all the time. They wanted to swim as less as possible.

I am going crazy over this heck. I have lost my 8 Koi so far one by one and i don't know how to stop it all.

I have 4 Koi in my small aquarium and they are all fine. In fact they are growing really fast and I see that they are always busy looking for food in gravel. And I see them performing acrobatic maneuver when i throw food in. But fish in my fishtank were not as much active and were not as much hungry too.

Was she already too weak to be saved? Or do I have some sort of bacteria in my tank water which is killing all my Koi one by one.

One more thing I noticed today. I have shifted my last milky Koi to my aquarium now where I have 4 more koi. this milky used to stay to top of my fish tank all the time. But everytime I shift her to my aquarium she stops staying at top and looks very happy and healthy again. She too is searching food in gravels. i don't have gravels in my fish tank however to keep it clean. I have large size stones in my fish tank.

She is eating again just like my other koi. may be she likes to stay in company of other koi.

i have just one Air pump in my aquarium and she is not staying at top but I installed 5 air pumps in my fish tank and I saw her on top all the time. She used to go down only after seeing me for sometime and then again on top. But not this case in my aquarium.

I'm not sure what's happening now. Those ones don't look like they are starving.

We'll need to sort out some variables between your indoor system, and outdoor.

Just to double check anything, is the temperature much lower in the indoor system? Or have there been much fluctuations between temperature that the indoor system doesn't get?

Is there any metal in the system? Like copper piping or something?

Is there anything that's leeching into the system? Or a neighbour that loves spraying chemicals?

Is there anything in the media that could be causing the issues?

And as a last option, I'd say take your fish inside, chlorinate the heck out of it, dump all the water, cycle it again, and try with a fresh system.

Okay, so here are the points.

Indoor system.

1. It's an aquarium 120 litres with a wooden hood with gravels inside. it looks awesome.

2. I change 20% water every week and also syphon the gravels.

3. Since i use RO purified water so i don't add any medicine or any conditioner.

4. Water stays 31 - 32 C at all times.

5. pH stays at 7.4 at all times.

6. it has one air pump and one power filter.

Outdoor system.

1. It's 750 litres very wide tank with plastic HDPE tarpaulin pond liner.

2. It has aquaponic PVC pipes and DWC tub fitted with it.

3. I don't have much growing media as i have no grow beds. I have 2 power filters which clean the ammonia and nitrites.

4. I see no spikes of ammonia or nitrites at all.

5. Plants are growing really really well. in fact they are growing faster than plants in garden.

6. I have added sea weed (100 ml) and it says it's organic with no chemicals involved.

7. I have added 2 PPT rock salt 2 months ago. Some spinach plants became dry after that but now all the plants are doing fine.

8. After adding rock salt and sea weed I noticed white salt deposits on my hydroton.

9. All the fish were doing fine when the temperature was low.

10. As temperature started rising and my air pump stopped working, I saw less activity in fish.

11. Slowly they started dying one at a time. Not all at the same time.

12. Area is closed by high walls no one can enter from outside. And no one can spray anything as I also have a roof above the tank.

13. I have also attached a flexible water pipe to take water from DWC tank back to fish tank which gets sun light so I am not sure if that pipe is leaching something. I will try to cover it to avoid heat on it.

14. i have no metal pipes. in fact there are no metals at all in the system.

15. i checked pH and temperature in different times and I saw 30 - 31 C in afternoon and 28 - 29 C at night. As I have so much water I can see that there are no temperature fluctuations at all.

16. I have now took out my last milky koi from fish tank and have shifted her to my aquarium. And to my surprise she is acting okay again.

17. I have put 2 Gourami Fish and 3 ID sharks in my fish tank as they are tropical fish and now i want to see if they do okay or not. If I see problems in them too then I will have no choice but to throw away 100 % water and clean the whole system and start afresh.

18. i am pretty upset as due to high temperature my tomato plants are aborting it's flowers and I see no fruits at all.

Give the tomatoes time, they'll sort themselves out.

If the koi are recovering when they are going into the aquarium, then there is something we're missing.

When you have 5 air pumps, what air stones are you using? And how deep are the stones?

I am using air stones made from pumice stone, they are 2 ft deep in water. I am using same air stone in my aquarium too. I think due to lack of DO my koi have got a very weak immune system now and that's why they are not able to recover from shock. I think this last koi will too die soon in my aquarium if her immune system has weaken too much already.

I have added Rid-All medicine in my aquarium just in case she is infected by bacteria.

As of now all the ID sharks and Gourami are looking perfectly normal and eating really well, swimming really fast and looking very very active. If they too die then I will change 100% water in FT.

I'm not sure after all binge reading past few days, but it might be J.T. who warned against using garden hoses (if that's what you mean by 'flexible pipe'), 'cause they are leaking some toxins, especially if exposed to sun and/or high temps...

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31 Dec C.... what are the basics for DO at that temperature ..
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Big Thanks to All of you, I fixed the problem a few months back and It was indeed low DO. I installed 4 new Air pumps and then upon comparing I noticed that my old air pumps were not working with full efficiency.

Once I installed new air pumps All my fish got well. They are all healthy and hearty.

I have now one more 1000 GPH pump which circulates water and make a water fall to aerate water even further. Never lost another fish again.