Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Can you please post some pics Kirk?
When you say pruned the tomatoes did you alter the root zone and disturb the bed, or just remove dead/old foliage?

did not disturb the roots, just pruned 60% of foliage off. THere still dying even the new ones after the water change and new food

It cost me $80 to get my water tested for heavy metals. Might be worth the investment.

The Ag Dept goy got back to me today. The trout showed callouses on the gills, indicating a water quality problem. This causes the gills to work less effectivly. They will recover if they dont die.
It could be caused by: ammonia, irritating silt, pesticide, herbicide, toxic algae, pH.
This rules out disease and bad food.

It could be that the first fish deaths were one problem and the second fish deaths another, they can only look at the fish i brought in.

The suggestion was to restock with a few fish and wait and see. Test the water more often and record results. If fish look sick again bring them in for further tests.

Not conclusive, but rules out some issues

It might rule out bad food as a direct cause of death but it sounds like poor water quality might be the actual cause of death and bad food usually does cause water quality problems more than any other problems.

Is that bad food as in gone bad before adding it to the water or bad food that was good but sat at the bottom for too long and rotted?

I am wondering if the Irritating silt could be the cause, I recon with all that aeration you had going it may have kept the solids/uneaten food in continual suspension rather than being transfered to your growbeds. How clear did the water look??
But that dosent explain the more recent deaths does it??

OK we can rule out Chloramine poisoning :

Just got a call back from the water corporation and the guy said the only water around here thats got Chloramine in it is from the main pipe that heads out to Kal - They put Chloramine in it cause it makes the chlorine last longer , so according to the guy at the water corp - almost NO Perth water has Chloramine in it ( which is good )

the water was quite murky, no fish have died lately. I am awa for a few days, when i get back i will restock and get serious about water quality

You could try using aquarium filter wool or something to remove some of the silt from the system. I'm thinking that even if the suspendid solids are pretty bad, if you're turning over your water regularly then not many suspended solids are going to get through your beds and back down to the tank again..... filter wool will catch the real fine stuff (e.g. scoria dust).

I have particularly bad water clarity problems at the moment too, I can hardly see anything.