Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Lippy, I have read a lot of debate in the timing for lights. A lot of plants use the dark period for various aspects of their growth cycle and it is important that they get 6 hours or so without the lights on. What kind of light are you running? My experience is with HPS and MH.

Thanks again knowmore! I took a Powerade bottle (plastic sports drink bottle), stabbed a bunch of holes in it and then put that over my drain tube. Works great now! Its nice too because the water drains out faster so I can turn my pump up. The fish seem to really like to play in the current that the water re-entering the tank makes. . Also starting to see my first sprout popping up!

Here's a pic of how i fixed my drain problem.

Just tested my water and my ammonia spiked to 3.0. Guess I'll back off feeding for a day or two and that should hopefully make the ammonia level decrease right?

Did a 20% water change because I was scared about losing fishies with the 3.0 ammonia level. Will check it again in the morning. Hopefully it will go down. Still going to lay off feeding for a day or 2.

Glad I could be of help. Your ammonia is high because the bacteria that converts Ammonia into Nitrite hasn't colonised yet in the gravel bed. This takes a little bit of time. Or you can kickstart that with some sludge from someone else's aquarium filter mixed into the gravel bed (if you don't have access to that don't worry - the bacteria will come by on their own!) You will know that once some nitrites start showing up on the tests.

Once you have nitrites in the system, another set of bacteria will start getting colonised that will convert nitrite into nitrate. Again tests for nitrates will show evidence of that.

Till then patience is the only answer! Don't worry too much about the fishies. Them goldies are pretty hardy fish.

Cheers,
KM

But you are right that when cycling with fish, you don't want to feed too much. I would not feed them anything till the ammonia is well below 1.

Do you have salt in the system. 1 ppt of salt (that would be 1 gram of salt per liter of water) will help protect the fish from the nitrite spike when it happens. Of course if you do water changes that will dilute the salt and you will have to add more.
Don't use table salt though (the iodine and anti caking agents are bad for the fish and bacteria) solar pool salt or solar water softener salt come in big bags for pretty cheap and they are usually the ones to use. Just dehydrated sea water. Dissolve the salt crystals in a bucket of water before it add it back into the system. large salt crystals in a fish tank can burn the fish if they rest against it.

Woke up this morning to an empty fish tank and a very wet floor. I apparently didn't have the tube from my pump secured well enough to my grow bed. It fell off and ended up on the floor. The fish tank was empty but the fish were still alive in small pools in the bottom of the tank. I took them out and put them in a large bowl while I fixed my problem and filled the tank back up. But when I put the fish back into the tank they all died. I'm guessing it was shock but I'm not sure. Guess its back to the pet store for some new goldies today. Lesson learned.

Bummer, sorry for the loss. and the wet floor. it is always a good idea to make sure all pipes from the pump can't be bumped loose easily and also any pipes leading from a grow bed back to the fish tank can't come loose too easily and dump their water all over the floor instead of into the fish tank.

When you move fish from one container to another with completely new water, there can be all sorts of variations that could shock them.

Temperature
pH
and
water treatment chemicals
are just the first three major ones.

Probably would have been better off leaving the fish in place and adding water to the tank but that still would probably shock them due to the little pools of water being warm and the fish already being stressed big time.

Many people raise their pump up off the bottom of the fish tank to make sure that if something like this happens, the fish will still have a little water to hopefully survive in.

excellent tip about moving the pump up. moved to about 3 inches off the bottom now. thanks a bunch!

The drawback of having the pump up off the bottom is it can't suck up all the solids quite as well but for a system the size of yours, I think you can cope with making sure the solids get stirred along to the pump regularly so they don't build up. There are other methods of lifting the pump but still picking up most of the solids that work for larger set ups but I personally like CHIFT PIST for larger set ups (heck, I'm rather fond of CHIFT PIST not matter what.)

Yes now wheres that sticker chift pist or bust

I think its right here

jt

Sorry for the set-back. A friend at work that runs a lot of salt water tanks mentioned the leave some room for problems, do not put the pump on the bottom. I never thought about it. If you leave a little extra hose, you could always put the pump on the bottom while you are around to monitor it and then move it higher in the tank to avoid draining it. Interesting stuff drilling some holes for my drain etc, for my grow bed tonight.

dont leave the light on 24/7 lippy its not good for the plants! if you have to leave it on for maybe 16-20hrs to grow then they need some darkness.