Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I found some remains of a yabbie or 2, and missus fished out a couple of claws 2 days ago, water appears to be getting clearer, from experience in the past of have found dead yabbies /marron due to the smell of the water, but no smell, things living in the other tank seem fine, I have about 8 trout left that seem to be perking up and still spook quite easily, the whole thing has me completely stumped and confused, rupe say's with the pH so low that fish are burning and joel and gavin say they have put trout in to low water pH before, I suppose with this one I have to go with EB and TM as they have grown more trout than anyone, I have around 5000lts of water, I think my pH is well under 6 and maybe 5, I would like to hope that not being acclimatised caused the problem, as then it would be an easy fix, because of the marron I don't want to change heaps of water because of the chlorine, the strange thing is marron are bigger sooks than trout and they seem fine but in the other tank, the only other thing is a virus carried by the reddies which I'm not sure is that much of a possibility, again will see how the remaining fish go maybe a combo of low pH and dead yabbies, ammonia .5 all others 0 and pH to low to read, water 12-15c

What about tomato leaves hanging in the tank?

Mate, the tomato leaves shouldn't be a problem - if you had SPs they'd probably eat them. I threw a couple of large lettuce leaves in last night and they were gone in about 20 mins.

Tomatoe leaves are poisones - and from what I have read are water soluble.

Yeah ? Well, they are a member of the Solanum family, i.e. deadly nightshade

Have read that leaves are poisonous, but I wouldn't have thought that bad, one plant had leaves hanging in tank and maybe a couple floating

Wowha. This is unusual because I just pulled out a whole bunch of Tomato's in my system. Other tomatos are dying off (end of the season). Maybe my problem is related to end of season tomatos?

I have tomato leaves hanging down into my sump in the aquaponics system and havent experienced any trout deaths in that system.
Redfin can carry the EHN virus but I am pretty sure that it isnt present in WA, also the fact that you had dead fish the day after stocking them to me indicates that it is a water quality problem and not a disease.

Yes Gav, like gemmell I am clutching at straws and still think it is the dead meat, see how the others go that are living, very depressing though

Well at least if those left now live ok then you can feel pretty confident in getting a few more soon..... Hopefully....

Joel, they are fit but haven't eaten for a week, unless they are eating algae, Gemmell I doubt the Tom's are the cause, I am almost convinced the dead meat was the source, have cleaned everything out and water seems to be clearing also, from what I have read the dead meat and or uneaten food can lower pH, I have 2 big air pumps and increased cycles so see what happens

Definitely not toms as everyone's grown tommies in their systems!!!!
Do you have enough oxygen in there?
AP being a natural system I wouldn't want it to be too squeaky clean... there's got to be some micro and macro nutrients as well as phytoplankton and etc. You definitely don't have some sort of metal in there do you?

and mum made a point last year when I had weird readings at one point... do birds drop poop in your water or the garden? because if they do, they can carry all sorts of things..... if you get my drift.

Yes Jen have more oxygen than there is on the planet, got back from Margaret River trip (gout again ) and 4 more dead but they haven't eaten for 10 days will wait 2 weeks and access the situation, water clearing a bit so I will see what's lurking in the dark depths

Maybe try egg whites to clear the water quicker.

Do the bubbles stay?! i.e. does it have a kind of "protein slick"?

You been eating Marron again ??

Gemmell I have a white ring around the tank that I have NFI where it came from,
No CD not Marron, maybe the surf and turf with creamy garlic sauce, 2 x bottles of red, port and creamy vintage cheese may have had something to do with it though