Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Phew! Was worried big time!!! Definately oxygen ok, and ammonia 0

Yep, just let it go

Thanks for the help guys

I have been testing every day and the nitrate / nitrite are still high. What should happen from here? I do think I need more grow beds, which I will do on the weekend. I only have 3 half blue barrels to about 1500 L, and 70, 100mm Barra.

Can you post all the details ?
i.e
Water temp:
pH:
Ammonia:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
Fish behavior:

70 Barra once @ 1/2kg will need around 8 - 10 x 1/2 barrels of media to be stable.

I hope you have quite a bit of aeration happening for that sort of density.

Water temp: 27
pH: 7.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: .5
Nitrate: 5
Fish behavior: eating well, have seen a couple of flashes - not alot.
Aeration: Frikin heaps!
Pumping: 15mins on, 15mins off 24/7

I am hoping to have at least another 600L worth of grow beds hooked up by the end of this long weekend. Maybe even 900 if I can manage it. Have all the materials, just a matter of building the frames / supports for the beds and plumbing them up.

So how long should it take to balance out - with more grow beds added?

Thanks again guys

It seems like the price has gone down. Last year they were charging twice that amount for fish half the size. Well done.

Snakes
I wouldn't get to fused about those levels. In fact they are good for such a young system.
Go easy on the feed, keep an eye on the Nitrite. If it continues or increases you might want to add some salt to offset the Nitrite toxicity.
More grow beds will help and they should not take long to cycle at 27C

I thought that was pretty cheap too

Thanks Scott! I should be able to get a 300L grow bed going by tomorrow arvo, but it is really hard to go easy on the feed! It's just too much fun to watch!!!

New beds cycle pretty quickly.

HSM this morning!!! Went out first thing (6:30am) to check temp and feed the fish, and the water temp was 19! Holy crap!!! The plug to the heaters had come undone! I hooked the hose to the hot water tap in the house and added some hot water. Got the temp up to 23.

What effects do you think this will have on the fish? Stress? Disease? They look fine?

Well, the temp is 25 now, and they seem happy enough. Feeding well. I would still like to know if there might be any implications from the temp drop?

Watch for any signs of disease Snake... particularly fungus... stress is the number one factor that leads to secondary infections through fungi and bacteria.....

Sudden temperature drops are a stress factor... although you've probably caught it in time... just be prepared to salt the system if they show any signs...

Excellent, thanks Rupret! I will look into the salt dosing methods ...... unless you can tell me how many grams of salt per 1000L of water?

3ppt is standard Snake.... that's 3kg/1000ltr ....

Don't use table or iodised salt... pool salt, sea salt, rock salt OK.... just check that any pool salt does'nt contain any extra additives etc...