Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Whisper, I'm only very new to all of this, but I'd think as your fish are in a bath the heating side of things would be easy enough with a 300w submersible aquarium heater. and at night you can chuck a blanket of bubble wrap over the bathtub to hold the heat in - much akin to a pool blanket?

As for the extra heat also helping Ich and other nasty's - well I for one, don't know enough about that side of it.

Good luck though

I just checked my hospital tank after working late for 3 days and I had a dead fish.
Checked the pump and it had failed, checked the ammo and it was 1.
Changed pump and changed some water will check again tomorrow and hope all is ok.

Need to wait another week before I can put them back in the bath.
Then I will see how things go.

Let us know how you go Whispers

So far so good with the fish in the hospital tank.
I need to change some water every third day to keep the ammonia levels down but other than that all is well. Fish look good so hopefully I have eradicated the disease and all will be good once I get them back in the bath on the weekend.
By the way bath and plants going OK while running fishless.
I will get some more photo's up soon although nothing very impressive happening at this stage.
Still waiting for the warmer weather to get here.

I am hoping for some more good advice from the gurus.

I am planning on moving the fish from the hospital tank back into the bath on the weekend.
Is it OK for the fish to go from approx 4ppt of salt back to 1ppt of salt in the bath.

Or do I need to have the levels the same and then dilute the bath water over time.
All coments will be appreciated.

Moving them back into 1ppt... will be fine Whispers... you're just bringing your dilution forward a bit...

Went out this morning to transfer fish back into the bath and found one sinker and another stuck under the pump.
I am really not having much luck with the fish.
I moved the 14 I have left back to the bath and all lasted the day OK.
I hope they will still all be alive in the morning.

I am really starting to think that all of these fish are doomed.
I don't want to lose them all so I am trying my best.

Ahhh... Fishes dying again.

Well I am going to ask a question which I may be told that I am wrong or crazy or whatever but I am going to ask anyway.

Your stainless steel growbed. Where did you get it? I have heard that in some cases after fabrication, the stainless steel is treated with some pretty harmful chemical to clean and protect the stainless steel surface. I remember this because I was walking through the workshop once and I was told to go around because they were applying that chemical onto some stainless steel panel.

Is it possible for the chemical to be still present on the stainless steel surface since it is applied for improved corrosion resistance??

i think your on to something ivansng, a friend of mine is a ss fabricator and i remember him using some kind of acid on stainless to clean the welds, and i think some grades of stainless will leach some chemicals into water especially salt water as i have found some stainless aint stainless!

I am thinking you are all certainly onto something.
I spent a few hours at the BYAP shop today and the same thing was mentioned down there.
So it looks like my fish are all doomed. Just have to wait and see if any of them do survive.

I am now going to get all of the media out of the beds and put a liner in them.
Unfortunately at this point in time I don't have the money to purchase anything new.
I have some good pond liner already so will try that and hopefully will have more luck.

Thanks to everyone who has tried to help over the past few weeks. I seem to have an answer now so can start to eliminate this and see how the future goes.

I really liked the rectangular 2000ltr insulated tanks at BYAP. Will look into one of these when and if I ever have the money.

I think you can get 200L plastic drums for $15 - $20 from the Quokka. Not sure if these are the ones commonly referred to as blue barrels. If they are, and get those that DO NOT have a screw top lid, cut them into half and they might just fit where your current SS growbeds are. Just a suggestion.

Thanks Ivan I will be looking into all of the options.
I need to have a good look through the quokka this week and see whats around.

You could always go and get your water tested for heavy metals. Ecowise does it down my way, not sure who will do it where you are.

You could always line tanks/beds with something, pond liner, concrete etc. Of course going the BYAP beds and tanks often saves a lot of hassle and dissapointment.

I think at this stage I will get some plastic and line the grow beds.
That way I can do one at a time and keep the system and Bacteria going.
Once both the beds are done I will do some small water changes to dilute or remove
any possible poisons in the water then add some more fish.

I am still waiting to get an IBC or two, when I get these I will be starting a new system with
new grow beds. I would like to keep the bathtub system as a quarantine system in the future
so may eventually find something else for the grow beds and totally remove the S/S just in case.

I am not finding much time to do anything on the system at the moment.
Just managed to remove all the clay from 1 of the beds today and now I need to find some
plastic that is as cheap as possible. I will go out looking at lunch time tomorrow.
Hopefully will find some time on Thursday after work to put it in.

Luckily though I haven't had anymore deaths, I am supprised. I would have thought that if there was poison in the water from the grow beds that it would still be there. Unless all the rain we are having at the moment is keeping the levels down.

If I am lucky I will have the beds lined and back in operation before the rain stops then hopefully manage to keep the rest of the fish alive.

Just have to wait and see. At least the system has cycled properly now. No ammonia no nitrite and 30ppm nitrates. Plants starting to grow nicely. Have added some Chelated Iron which seams to have really helped the spinach and parsley.