Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That would be handy VB... as soon as I ask the question again... they'll no doubt ask what sort of reading you have....

Astronomical... from memory 1000+....

Nah - wouldn't be that high. I haven't been feeding them too much.

The aquaculture bloke I spoke to had a theory (or maybe it was mine ops) - can't remember) that the tollerance to nitrates would depend upon where the breeders had come from - ie whether they had adapted to these types of conditions.

Oh - said a while back that I'd post a pic of the Barra that I ate when he got this float on back thing going.

Mmm... a dead fish

Only died after I slit his throat

I only knew it was dead because it's tummy was gone
...and it had a saw neck

Muscles were still contracting as I cut the fillets off. You know it's dead, but is still a bit disconcerting. My boy was asking me why the fish was moving

serious ? I givem a poke in the back of the head
one at a time, soon as it take them out of the water,
so they are all ready for the clean, all rested and stuff

My trout still wriggle until the spine is cut - missus wont even hold the camera or the hose

The technique I've always used is to pull the head back and break the neck. Use this while fishing also.

Thats what Gnash does

I just take mine out of the freezer and remove the plastic. Whats this fishing you speak of.

Asked Glen... he thought it strange that it was just now and then with a few fish...

He asked how old is the feed???

Said some feeds ... loss their vitamin and mineral constituency over time....

And some brnads of feed and some strains of fish are more susceptible than others... thinks it might be a vitamin problem...

His suggestion.... get 2-5ml of Codliver oil.... and roll each feed ration in it... and give to the fish....

We too were hit by the big storm that hit Brisbane on Sunday afternoon. We live very close to the worst hit areas. We had heaps of trees and powerlines down everywhere around the streets of our suburb. Luckily no trees hit our house and the biggest tree that fell (a big gum that was planted 5cm from our fenceline - on our neighbours property) fell the right way (ie onto the neighbourd property. If it had fallent he other way, it would have been goodby our pool, pool deck and probably the 22,500 litre rain tank (that despite Les' aspertions is intalled and chockas with water).

Power went out at about 4.30 Sunday afternoon and came back on just after 11am this morning (Tuesday). It was therefore off for a little over 43 hours - a bit longer than you anticipate when setting up your aquaponics backup power supply .

Fortunately my backup power system is located in the shed with the fish tank, so it went on fine. It comprises a 70AH deep cycle battery which is kept charged up at all times. It is connected to a 12V bilge pump that is in the fish tank. The pump is for aeration only and pumps the water from the bottom opf the tank and splashes it back into the tank at the surface.

This kept the fish going during the night (Sunday). At about 10am on Monday morning, when it was evident that power would not return anytime soon, I hopped up a 12V bilge pump to one of the lines running from my sump to my fish tank and therefore started to run the grow-beds (albeit a lot more slowly than normal). For this I initially used a 7AH battery that I use for pumping water out of my canoe and for running my crappy old fish finder. Of course it had been many months since I last charged this, so it only ran for a couple of hours. The big deep cycle would have still had plenty of charge at this time, but I was conserving it. I then replaced the 7AH with the battery from a car we have which we no longer drive and are trying to get rid of. At about 5pm on Monday night - when it was still clear that power was a long way away, I left the car battery running the system, put my Boyu air pump on for peace of mind in case the battery ran out, and hopped it to my parents place to give the 70AH battery a top up. The olds had lost power also, but it had been restored at about midday on Monday. I also took with me the battery from my ride on, to give that some charge as extra backup, and the 7AH that I had used upo earlier that morning.

It took about 5-6 hours to top up the 70AH battery and I had it back on the tank (just running the in tank bilge pump) at 11pm Monday night (30 hours into the blackout), turning the car battery and boyu off. I ran like this until about 9am this morning, at which time having tested the tank and registered close to 2 for ammonia and .5 for nitrite, I moved the 70AH to the sump to run the pump from the sump to the fish tank (bringing the beds back into operation again). I also added 1ppt salt, due to the expected rise in nitrite as the ammonia was processed through.

At this time, the first fish deaths/sicknesses were starting to show, with a couple of fish on the bottom and a couple floating.

Due to reports that the power could be out for another 24 hours, I grabbed the car battery and the boyu and hopped it to mum and dads to charge. At around 11am (Tuesday), I received news that the power was on and returned home to restore operation to the electric pumps.

I'm leaving the fish alone for a few hours hoping they will destress a little and will then check for casualties. There will be a few I suspect and I'd expect to lose more over the next few days.

43 hour power out - HSM big time.

Couldn't have done anymore than you did VB....

And thanks for the step by step run down.... it could prove to be invaluable to others in the future...

Sorry to hear about the fish though.... but glad to hear that you've got plenty of water...