Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Not sure. Something that grows slower. Don't eat a lot of fish so koi or somthing with a little color.

My fish dont grow fast enough. I do eat them

Well, today I moved the pond pump to the cycle timer, put up some shade, and planted some seeds.

The shade was needed. The algae seemed to be getting out of control. The humonia must have just broken down.

Nice fish tent.

The Algae is still getting out of control. Do these blue tarps block sun light well enough or can algae still grow with the blue light that comes through?

The sun hits the water a couple hours morning and evening. I guess that may be enough sun to make to grow.

Any suggestions on getting this algae under control? Its pushing my pH up.

Blue light goes the deepest through water. Don't know if that helps. Think it is why the sea is blue. Or is that the sky.

Maybe just wait for the big bed to come online? "P"?

Very pretty new fish.

I understand why you would consider eating algae now... What did you do to get it to grow so much? The humonia you speak of? Is it a tilapia tank?

I added about 60 ounces of humonia. Once it started to break down the algae come on quick. Now I wish I had of waited. Oh well. Now I am having high pH because of it. Which is not such a problem. Its the pH swing from morning to evening that's bad. It has killed off 30+ fish. I think these were the weak lethargic fish. At lease I hope that's all.

Sorry to hear about the fish DDM. Hope it was the weak ones... usually do die off first.

What if you had added say just 10oz every week or so? You think that could have prevented this? Enough to cause a bloom?

Is the pH swing morning to night caused by DO... or lack of it .... you think?

I suspect its the pH but it could be DO. I dont know, but I have not seen any of the other fish at the surface other than coming up to eat a bug.

As to the amount of humonia.. I started to do fishless cycling. Then I changed my mind because I wanted to start growing on time this year. My current readings are 0,0,0. I guess the algae used it all up. I do have 400 gallon of gravel from last years system in there as well as 400+ gallons of water from the other part of the system.

Are you getting enough o2 into the water. And is it salted.

Uncontrolled algal blooms cause O2 HAVOCK,, so you have PH and O2 probs.
Back off all nutrient inputs ,, add oxygen as best you can and wait.

If that tarp is translucent, which it looks to be, it is not a good cover. Blue and red light are used to grow plants (PAR) and algae photosynthesize.
IMHO green would be your best bet if you have one.

You think that running a continuous waterfall or fountain would pre-empt such problems Chappo? I really want to use algae and zooplankton as my main source of nutrition for my tilapia. Growth rates are secondary to a high quality product.... and I read that algae and plankton are the primary sources of Omega 3.