Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi, I am a newbe I have had my system setup out of a bath tube and three grow beds. It has been working fine with 5 goldfish and about 15 silver perch for more that two months. last week we have had a lot of rain and the perch have started to die quickly I am loosing about three a day. They develop white fungus on their head and body. I caught 6 and setup an aquarium inside to medicate them using small amount of salt and some ickaway(aquarium fish ant-fungal) but all but one died. Can anyone help I have another 20 odd in a tank inside and 40 odd in my swimming pool. I was going to move my grow beds down to the pool with the fish but I now need to work out if the plague is in the grow beds or not.

How much was the water pH and other chemistry changed by the rain?

What's the volume of your grow beds...

Even if your filtration is sufficient.... 20 fish in a bath tub... is way too many... and your water quality probably suspect...

Combined with the rapid fluctuations in water temperature... it's not uncommon to see this happen with Silver Perch at this time of year...

I had the exact same thing happen to my SP, except that I only had one death and it was by screwdriver to the brain because it was not getting any better and I decided to end it rather than risk it dying while i was away and causing more problems.

I firmly believe that the thing that saved my fish thus far was calling Rupert(John) over here and him telling me to salt to 7ppm. I think i salted to 8 or so but no fish are dead. I would suggest to you to salt to 7ppm immediately and monitor the situation.

6ppt... is probably sufficient...

Hi guys the system has been running stably for about about two months I have had the water tested twice in this time about three weeks apart both had near no nitrate on ammonia and 7.2 ph

the grow beds are 3 cut 72 liters so is about 60 * 3 grow beds with 50lt of expanded clay balls

Salt the system and as Rupe says 6 ppt is probably more than plenty.

Get a test kit.