Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm thinking it's due to the new water you added to the tank Rupe. Simulating flood or wet season conditions. Added to that the increase in temperature of late. I think they are responding to their normal migrating/spawning pattern. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong.....

That's my leaning as well Geoff... thought Trouty might have confirmed something like that...

But he hasn't logged on and read the PM yet...

I put a shade cloth cover on my tank its about 10" high and about 4" above the water line so they have a good foot clear over the water, they often jump especially in evening. Some times I see them bounce off the cover and back into the water. But your behaviour seems very migratory, maybe just the time of year.

Troutman is away currently, he returns this week aparently.

Hi RupertofOZ,

I don't believe such a small change would stimulate a spawning run.

If this was the case trout would run every time there was a influx of fresh water into their area.
The senario you created happens everytime there are summer storms, rain, water is released from a dam upstream and when lakes are filled for irrigation or drinking water.

There are other triggers including prolonged atmospheric changes that occur in autumn to stimulate trout gathering and spawning instincts.

Every autumn and winter I watch for these same patterns to predict when to hunt wild trout as they gather pre spawn.

I just think your trout were stressed with conditions that were uncomfortable for them and went looking for more suitable habitat.

God bless froggo.

Might be a "small" change in relation to a natural system Froggo...

But in terms of the system .... was a major change.... 6000L of new pristine water... 100% change...

Before hand the system was probably medium in ammonia... as I'd had the filters off-line for a day while I replumbed things.... close to 6.0 in pH...

After the change... no ammonia... pH 7.0...

Constant 5-6000L/hr of air into the tank...

Must be bloody fussy and ungrateful fish...

Went from 300mm of poor water.... with 300 fish... and near death...

Into 1000L of good water ... 200 fish... with high pure oxygen.... which turned into 1000L with ammonia 2-4 about 2 hours later...

Then back into the 6000L of new water.... all alive...

After all that.... I thought they'd be thankful...

Perhaps they just went looking for you to say thanks......... Just didn't realize you didn't live in water too

Could be right TCL... I'll withdraw my suggestion that they were "ungrateful"...

Instead.. I'll just put it down to them ... being stupid...

Hi RupertofOZ,

The small change, as in atmospheric conditions/barometric pressure, sorry should have made that clearer.

Rainbows even though they can spawn in spring with the correct water temps(normally snow melt streams), I doubt that your systems water was around 10 deg C long enought to induce the hormonal changes required to start a spawn run,
other triggers can be the length of the days.

Only trying to help, God bless froggo.

I had fish spontaneously jumping ship. it was caused by me salting to 75ppt
The healthy ones jumped, the sick ones keeled over.

I guess it fixed the problem, No more sick fish to worry about

How did you manage 75 ppt

I'm Hijacking here, so I'll direct you to my thread, however it was a specially prepared salt bath and I miscalculated. I was going for 7.5 more than AP water which is about 3-4 atm.
factor of 10 mistake.
All fish survived despite rolling onto the backs and stopping all gill movement.
Please see comment on my thread, I shouldn't have hi-jacked, sorry Rupe.

And I appreciate that Froggo.... pretty much just resigned myself to... "just one of those things"...

Was just bloody dis-heartening after having got 100% of them through what could have been a mass disaster... to see the silly b%$&d's laying on the ground the next day...

Just got back from the annual trout chasing pilgrimage in Tasssie.
I feel that the change of water parameters would have caused them to jump out. As C1 said, a few yrs back I lost around 250 fish when they did the same thing after I had moved them from the flow thru tanks into a re circ system. I left the netting off for about 2 hours and on my return the ground around the tank was covered in flipping fish!! The water parameters in the recirc tank were fine though the fish obviously prefered the flow thru system.
Definatley wouldnt be due to spawning urges as those fish at that age are sexually immature and as mentioned elsewhere water temps are too high.