Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

regarding the 50 trout in the 200L maybe, but with HEAVY aeration 24/7. air stops = fish die

I would leave the fish in your main system now that you have changed the water and added some cycled gravel. 200l of water with 50 (you actually got 77) fish will get you into even more trouble I recon. Whats your water temp?? Remember that fish can tolerate higher ammonia levels in cooler water.
Hows Boris going?? He got even more fish per volume of water than you did.

hmmm , now youve got ME worried duckie

my modems busted , got zapped in a lightning storm ,so no internet thus no posting in my own thread , stealing parents net to read if youre fish are doing ok

mine went in 15 minutes before yours , 1500L water 350L growbed 4 handfulls of gravel from the old cycled system half a day after the 60 trout went in just incase

I thought my system had cycled in the 2 months the goldfish had been in it , but Troutman took one look and said the bacteria had probably died from starvation

my pH is steady leaning toward 7 in the morning , towards 7.5 at night . nitrite / nitrate at 0 , but theres ammonia - 0.25 - 0.50 , the fish have been in for 4 days now , I was expecting either an ammonia spike and a 25 - 50% water change , or a complete drop off in ammonia . Maybe I need to stop feeding the small amount that I was just to be safe . Continuing with 3x a day water checks all across the board and writing it all down . The veggie gardens gonna love the water change Im dreading

trout man may be right.

the bacterial colony will adjust in size in response to food source (ammonia)

checked again thismorning , another 12 hours in , the ammonia is still tending towards the colour of the 0.25 indicator rather than the 0.50 indicator , its somewhere inbetween by the looks of it

hows your levels duckie ?

Bit up and down duckie... but I get through the day, thanks for asking

so long as temps and pH are low and aeration high, you shouldn't have to many drama's. just feed them according to the bacteria's capacity to convert waste. the colour of the water seems to be a pretty good indicator.

here's what i was running my bara tank at for a number of months.

the only time i have had a problem is when my DO is low, or i do a water change greater then 25%. the reason being that my tap water is pH 8+ and my tank 6. the pH spike increases the TAN level. i would have greater problems if i was refilling tanks directly from the main as it would lower DO levels and alter tank temp. i use an ibc for off gassing tap water.

this is certainly not an ideal situation but they won't die in such conditions. i believe the reason the ammonia reading was so high was due to over stocking and lack of bacteria. i fed real low the whole time. once i have the rest of the beds going ammonia should clear up.

having said this i don't know about the stress resistance of trout fingerlings. barra seem extremely hardy.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I don't believe in miracles ... but, did you say your Barra didn't die!? Amazing!

hijacking duckponds thread here ...

I just checked again , 5 in the afternoon , pH at its highest of the day supposedly

pH 7.5 ( just barely )
ammonia 0.25 - 0.50
nitrite & nitrate 0
temp 12 degrees or so

Im wondering now - was there ALREADY an ammonia spike , and then because Ive got such a small ratio of growbed the conversion to nitrite / nitrate is barely keeping up , thus a constant level of ammonia ...
The only thing making me think thats not the case is that no new seeds have sprouted and all the seedlings still show signs of nutrient deficiency

DO is high I assume due to the in-tank pump , 1400 lph with built in venturi sucking air from the surface through a tube

so ... how long does ammonia take to spike and drop off in a totally uncycled system ?

Really depends on the temperature Boris.... and 12 degrees is pretty cold....

There's a chart on the forum somewhere showing cycling times in relation to temperature ... think Steve knows where

i believe that ammonia increases overnight, and dropps off during the day. i could be wrong someone correct me if i am.

I swapped the water from the duckpond to the fishpond, and swapped about 50 lt gravel as well last night.
I also topped up the tank with tap water this morning as my ammonia level had spiked to 1.0 but my pH was down to 7.4

this evening my ammonia was back down to .5 but my pH was up to 8.8

i put my bag of peatmoss back in the tank to buffer the pH.

I dont think i have lost any fish, because none have floated, but i dont know if they have died and are sitting on the bottom

found some literature that may come in handy next week , just need to add a kettle element to our systems to boil the water

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/2775/se ... illabaisse ......

DP, moved any of that gravel over yet? please?

about 50lt in the dark last night. I did not get home till 7.30 today, and was not up for it. Hopefully an earlier finish tommorow. Will have the propper grow bed frames done by next weekend, so one extra gb if i can hang on till then