Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I liked your video BB! Nice tight setup!

Looks great. You really like basil eh

Basil each day keeps the doctor away....

Anyway, the little silver fishies are going well but i noticed the water quality seemed a little cloudy - not algal bloom like but lots of particles in the water. I have been upping the feed a little and maybe I'm overfeeding,,,Had a look in the sump and found these little goldfish friends not coping so well

CONCERN: Judging by the decomp i have lost one a week for the last few weeks. This roughly coencides with adding small amounts of iron and or dash of fish emulsion. Might be the mains top up i did direct in the sump... NOt really sure but the silvers seem healthy....
Good: Levels are all steady with only nitrates going large so i guess my system is easily absorbing 3 dead fish at once without ammo or nitrate spikes. Good right?
Anyway, after a day with no feed the silvers were crowding the opening keen on afeed so they are looking and acting healthy. When i open the lid there is a section if light through the water column and they swim to the edge of it waitig to see if food will appear then jump it when it comes down. Cute little buggers.

Hi mate, how do you have the FT and sump setup? Do you use 2 pumps in your system?

Those goldfish look like they have been attacked , but cloudy water is not good. So constant pumping for a few days might help

Hi Zman - They are buried 50cm down next to one another. They are connected by a venturi drain so the tank is constant @950litres. The one pump is in the sump and all beds gravity feed back to the FT. The barrels sit on top of the FT and sump. Its a bit backwards from some but works for the compact space i need

Ben

MMM, not attacked but rotten - so sitting at the bottom for a while. I have found that holding off the feed for a day and then a bigger feed less often has cleared the water - its getting more floating solids than cloudy. I might need to think about a solids filter as the fish grow. Killed another goldfish over the weekend - looks fine apart from being dead! I but a dash of chelate and a dash a seasol in Saturday - leaves showing a little yellow. Not sure if its related might also be the rain? PH of the rain is 6.2 while tank PH is 7.2

More a curiosity as long as my silvers remin ok. Tank temp down to @17 but Silvers still feeeding happily....

Well the plot thickens...saw a goldfish - nice fan tail swimming around - when it stopped swimming, it floated to the surface, rested for a while then bolted when I tried to touch it. Doing some reading on the web suggesting its over feeding. Maybe a coincidence and a bit more feed than usual washed into the sump so it ate itself silly....not too sure..soon will not have any goldfish in the sump to create the distraction...

Yep.. that'll do it...

If its floating sideways and at the surface that means it got gill bladder disorder. Feed it more fiber and it will be fine, peas are good for this. Fish can live for a long time with this disorder.

hey Abdul.. don't tell that to the other fish..

Yeah it was on the side, looks quite funny actually, boor fish...will give the pease a go!

bonsaibelly how did you clean the IBC with that small hole

Hi Zman, actually the swiril action of my return water seems to keep it pretty clean, even though I only have a 50mm SLO. My sytem cycles in around 8-10 mins but I leave it running till 15mins, to get maxinmum water transfer. My SLO drain extends along the bottom to the middle of my swirling tank in an attempt to suck up any solids that go to the middle. Seems to work for the most part. I have a pool skimmer on a 1.2m pole that i run across the bottom from time to time and every few months if i think i need it i sweep the bottom to dislodge the solids. Havent done it for a while but i do take out the SLO from time to time to check and keep things clearing.

The small opening is a bit inconvenient but for the use of space and the piece of mind with the kids running around I'm happy with it. Having said that, the opening is about 25cm, I might in time move the barrels forward to allow around 50cm. That said, it works, its compact and the kids are safe...I'd rather spend the energy making some strawberry towers so I can keep my 100 silvers