Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is in the old system, total water volume of about 1400L.

New inhabitants for the old system:

~125 silver perch
~10 golden perch

I received them on Tuesday, roughly 20 SP DOA, with about another 3 dying soon after. Then 1 this morning and 1 this arvo. Not real happy with that, but I guess that's what you get when you get live fish couriered to you. Salted to 3ppt immediately, and isolated the bed with strawberry's in it (so it's only running through the one bed now).

Photos to come. The SP are weeny little things, the GP are much bigger, which could pose a problem.

Not COULD but is certain to pose a problem ..... well just consider the silvers as live food and it will no longer be a problem.

Not too sure what to do about it at the moment. The GP are the bigger ones, the SP are smaller.

Another interesting thing: when I put the fish in the tank was absolutely chockers with blood worms. The very next morning the tank was clean of any algae and bloodworms. Cleanest it's ever been.

Fish enjoyed the worms! Always nice to have them enjoy their new home's treats.

As far as mismatched fish, can you put the SP in a net containment area and feed them extra to try to equalize growth? Or perhaps add a blue barrel inline for the silvers (and maybe feed the silvers first and let the GPs get whatever flows through to them..)

I think the SP are going to outgrow the GP by quite a bit, and I'm leaning towards just "leaving it" to see what happens. I really should have had a blue barrel in it like you say, but they were supposed to be all the same size.

No deaths this morning, hopefully they're settled in.

Here's something interesting that I want the more experienced AP'ers to confirm. Have you ever noticed a "slick" that forms on the system just before a HSM? Well I noticed this and thought "oh dear".






Further investigation showed that there was lots of uneaten food on the bottom of the tank. So tip for newb's - if your water is looking like this, be afraid (and clean your tank and stop feeding so much). The slick was gone the next morning after I'd cleaned the bottom.

Yup, thats the 'overload of protein' slick. Followed by the overload of ammonia, then etc etc

Another nearly moment:

Went to feed the 60 odd trout I saved from the other system which are living in my sump.



Ooh and that doesn't look good. So I look for uneaten food and dead fish in the tanks. None to be seen. So I start to investigate the pipes.



He'd gone into the pipes when I'd knocked my chift pist overflow pipe off in the fish tank. Perished, got stuck near the outlets and voila. Cleared him out and the water is now fine again. Phew. +1 for my old system rocking because it has very little pipe work.

Hey Gemmell, what didn't look good that made you start investigating the pipes?

You see how there is a "foam" on top of the water - basically the bubbles are not popping. This means the surface tension of the water has changed (I think it's gone down (pls correct if you know for sure)). This is a sign of a protein build up, after you've seen it for yourself a couple of times you'll know exactly what to look for. The photos I posted further up are another example - a kind of scum forms which is basically small air bubbles not popping.

I see. Well spotted.
Another little indicator to watch for.

yeah, its a very bad sign in a mature system, but very rarely happens. Mostly a problem in <= 6 month old systems.

hey G, -5 tonight hey? Must be time for some more of them frozen water pictures

Good to see things are clearing up, my water now is crystal clear and trout eat 3 times a day on small pellets, will soon put them on 5mm ones once a day, but the slick is a good indicator that something isn't quite right