Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I wouldn't mind the recipe if you can, thanks a lot for the website, I will have a few hours to spend there.
Another question: You say you're fish swim funny, do they get rounder like if the were filling with water?
I have thought of two possible reasons:
It could be a genetic issue, quite rare at the age of your fish.
It could be a CO2 issue in the water due to over population of fish and an insufficient biofilter and water movement.
It can cause kidney stones and then deregulate the water excretion and they swell up and finish by swimming in circles on the back as if they had a air bladder problem. We have this kind of problem here to.
Maybe you could find a way of testing CO2, some intensive fish farmer usally have the gear for it. Otherwise take the pH of the tank and compare with a sample of tank water well oxygenated first and left to wait a moment, if the pH is much higher in the oxygenated sample it could tell you that you have degased the water of the CO2.
The best for fish farming is to stay underneath 20 mg/l, and the best degasing technique is to break a main flow of water into the maximum and smallest flows possible.
Maybe by putting some sort of a grid under the water return in the fish tank.
Sorry if I'm going a bit to far with all this but I've found so much infos on the forum that I really appreciate bringing my small stone to the building

Hope it helps

Amacafish

Good idea on helping the CO2 offgas, Amaca. It's a good idea in general, even if there is not a CO2 problem. More oxygen is always good.

On your ammonia spike, I'd guess you either uped your feed or there is a dead fish on the bottom. Is your pump still going strong or have you noticed a decreased flow? Any dead fish I have had end up at the pump so that should be a noticable thing even if you cant see the bottom.
Great info Amacafish!

In fact you can have an O2 injection in water that is highly saturated in CO2 without offgasing it, it's quite weird but we have this kind of problem on the fish farm I work on.
We have a 300 or 400 % O2 saturation on each side of the pond by pure O2 injection and degasing CO2 in the middle (around 45 mg/l minimum in the pond water)
But I think that with a sufficient water fall coming from the growbeds to the sump the CO2 shouldn't be to much of a problem in aquaponics
Thanks and I'm happy to actually communicate with people i've been following for a while now.
Amacafish

The fish that was displaying the swim bladder problems is OK. Well, I don't really know with so many of them. Do you think he died and sank? Don't they float? The tank is 1.2m deep and I can't see the bottom. Do you think I should put the old snorkle and goggles on and dive down and see? I don't particularly want to stress the fish out more with fishing around with a net or draining the tank. Maybe I'll stress them out even more swimiing around in the tank. HELP !!

Gotfish, I did up the feed a bit because the water tests were looking so good. My pump is not in my tank, it's down at the bottom of my system pumping up from my sump. The flow has dropped a bit however.

Dead fish will sink first, then as the body decomposes and gasses build up in the tissues, it will float. It's probably just a day or two until it floats.

Of course, if the other fish eat their dead companion, you'll never know unless you find little fish bones stuck in the pump intake. (Hmmm... a reason for the decrease in flow?)

Yes, there's a reason I know little fish bones can be in the pump intake.

The dead fish will come up to the surface in a few days anyway, needs at least three days for the digestion process to make him float, maybe you could slowly scrape the bottom of your tank with a scoop net, it wouldn't stress the fish to much as long as you go slow enough not to catch the live ones.
Usually on fish farms we pick up the fish before they die, as soon as you see a really sick fish take him out and eat him, fish can't transmit a disease to men if they are cooked. Otherwise bury it under a fruiting plant and it will bloom.
good luck
amacafish

I'll try the net and see what comes up. Damn I felt like a swim, it's hot here.

You're lucky it has been cold, windy and rainy here today at least I was inside

amacafish

LOL, just pictured you in a speedo with snorkel and fins! Don't you ever do that to me again! Please? ....shudder.... LOL

Scooping produced nothing unusual from the bottom of the tank. I decided against taking the plunge in all fairness to the Tilapia and the other members of this forum :shock:

Anyway all well with the system. I have just attached some updates of the plant growth. They really seemed to enjoy the Iron Chelate and nothing in the grow beds (except maybe the Rosemary) is struggling at all.

Looking gr8. See if u can beat Jaymie's 42 days from seed to picking her beans!

6 weeks is the time for maturation I would be surprised if you could acheive better!

Checked my diary again. Planted bean seed 11/12/2007. Started flowering 13/01/2008. Naghh, don't think I'll make 42 days, but I'm quite happy anyway. What do you think the timing will be on the tomatoes?

Pictures attached of the mystery butternuts.