Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

TCLynx, I luckily don't have any signs of deficiency. (Maybe one - not an explosive growth rate yet. But not bad either. That was when I had only 3 goldfish. Let's see the growth with 7 goldfish that I have now.)

As far as iron is concerned, I have a moringa tree in my house and I already have tried blending it with wheat for feed. They ate well. I fed them this though I never had an iron deficiency (new system).

The region I'm in has irony soil. I remember running a magnet through dry mud and getting lots of particles stuck onto the magnet. This works in most places in south India I think. I could in the extreme case put some of this mud solution into the growbed. (Oh dear, not a true APer then!)

As far as potassium is concerned, I shall go for bananas.
(maybe even blend that into the feed instead of burying in the growbed.)

Psst: Here is a secret: This might be bad to do. I once long ago added half of a human-mineral-supplement tablet to the growbed. But after an algae bloom, some HSMs, I think it is all flushed out with the water changes.
You know, it had molybdenum and other rare stuff oh my god. Iron, potassium, phosphorous, zinc, you name it. Fairly cheap (at least half a tablet is cheap). The scary part was it also had small amounts of copper.
Isn't it a nice way to eat mineral supplement tablets? Put it in a closed AP system, and finally the plants have to take it up. Eat the tasty plants, why gulp tablets.
I won't be trying this again in the near future however.

I don't know how good it is to do but I've placed worm castings into my grow beds since they are supposed to be a good way to seed good bacteria. I've also sometimes set potted plants (planted in compost) down into the gravel so that the plant gets watered every so often from the bottom. I suspect that some of the compost leaches into the system. (Just avoid doing this with anything that could leach non-fishsafe chemical into the system. Most potting mixes have fertilizer in them that could be bad for the system.)

So, I don't see why a little bit of mud would be bad so long as you are reasonably sure it isn't tainted with dangerous chemicals. So long as your pH is close to neutral, the iron is probably not such a big problem. If you do have trouble with iron deficiency, it might help to spray the plants with the supplement rather than putting it into the system.

The supplement probably contains stuff that you don't want in the system as well as some things you do. Most fish food will have trace amounts of the copper/zinc and other things we all need to survive. Where these metals become dangerous is if they are in the water building up, instead of in the food. So, it probably is a good idea to avoid doing that one again.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks

And I have always been itching to add a small earthworm or two (not to the fish, to the gravel bed). I am waiting for things to settle down as I don't want to put the worms through any ammonia/nitrite/bad ph discomforts.

Why earthworms? They are easiest for me to identify in the mud around my house and I've seen quite a few of them outside.

Do any of you know how to find earthworms in soil? Any technique of collecting them?

The worms I've added were from my composting worm bin. I usually find good composting worms under piles of mulch where they find food and a moist environment.

The batch of 4 that I recently introduced was pathetic, (now they look fine). One of them had an oval translucent 3mm thing attached to the dorsal fin af a goldfish. On close examination it had lots of (6?) little legs moving about and two little eye-like things at the front of the oval. It was stuck onto the edge of the fin.

At first (2 days ago I think) before introducing all the fish I treated them with a strong salt dose for a short while.
Then I changed the water and that parasite was nowhere to be seen, I thought it was gone with the washed away salt water.

Now, (an hour ago) I saw this thing stuck onto the edge of the dorsal fin of another goldfish.
I used google of course. It is supposed to be a fish louse or argulus. It doesn't go away with salt. You could pull an adult away with tweezers.

So thats what I did.

It was really hard. I first immediately isolated the fish. Then I thought of anasthetizing it with clove... I didn't have clove oil, but this being India, there was cloves on the kitchen shelf and I powdered them, made a water solution and poured slowly.
But the fish never went to sleep!
Then I gently restricted the fish using a plastic bag as a barrier in shallow water. Finally after effort I have the louse.

I have it(the louse) on a glass sheet with some water. I shall observe it for a while and then ... terminate it. (gasp!)

It swims really fast. Its like a 3mm oval disc.

I don't have a digital camera, so here are some drawings I made

Nice drawings!

I used the GIMP on linux. You can get it free, even Windows versions. (I like to promote open/free software, linux, electric vehicles and aquaponics whenever I get a chance, forgive me for this)

I used a brush with different colours, with generous use of the smudge tool that's all.

Yeterday I felt uncomfortable, as I thought the sealant that leaked out from the old pump that died put bad chemicals in the water. So I did a 60% water change.

Now everything is going to start fresh.

The plants are stalled in growth, frozen in time.

I shall wait for nitrates to build up.
Ah the irritation of not possessing a test kit! If only I could test for nitrates now.

I am feeding 50% moringa with 50% wheat, hand-rolled into 'noodles' and slightly blanched.

Maybe the weight of the feed (wet not dry weight) is about 15g a day. (Note - this is a guess work. I feed 1.5 inch pieces of the 'noodles', 3 times a day. The diameter of the handrolled noodles is ... ok four of them bunched may form the thickness of your finger.)

I hope I don't have to wait long for the plants to get 'un-stalled' again.

I quote myself:I noticed the goldfish at times exhibited signs of ammonia/nitrite stress yesterday night. They were near the surface and under the spray head (when I sneaked upon them, they slipped down.) The spike after I started feeding could be because I had stopped feeding and was hand-watering the growbed when the pump was dead.

Now it is fine, the fish are happy. (They still sometimes swim near the surface, but this time they are happy. How do I make this out? When the fish swim near the surface such that their mouths nearly come above the surface, making sounds as they breath, its ammonia/nitrite stress. When they swim an inch or two under the surface, pecking at algae on the walls, they are happy.)

I reduced the feed at the time of stress, now back to normal.

well spotted Gokul

Good to learn it with goldies instead of trout

hehe yes.

I am still waiting for the plants to pick up from the stall.