Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Rough ol' run ahead of me in terms of keeping the tank temps down.\
Location Min Max
Canberra 20 38
22 31
20 31
21 32
21 26 (whew)


Tank temp is 25 degrees, it's 30 degrees at 9pm according to BOM. This could be the end of the 2010 Trout Season for Canberra.

Yep, end of the road up around Mittagong as well Gemmel... tank temp around 27-28 for the last few days... expecting 35+ tomorrow, and not much below 30 until next Monday...

Still 28.5 here at the moment in Gerringong... even with a slight sea breeze...

Think it might actually push toward 40 tomorrow... and will probably top 42+ up around western sydney, windsor way...

It's the night temps that do me in. We've been having some 38 degree days but it gets down to 19 at night. I only have about 20-30 fish left, so I'm going to keep my ebarra fountain onto the shade cloth happening and see whether I can pull them through.

Water temps at 9pm last night: 26, 25 this morning with another 33 degree day ahead. Topped up with nice cool town water and sprayed it all around to try and cool things down.

Fish actually seemed fine. maybe the fountain pump is enough to keep them going? It is a 7000lph ebarra (consumes 500W!!), it provides a lot of aeration (I have found if I use a pvc pipe with holes in it a-la the growbed pipes the resultant fountain is more "frothy" i.e. more air)

Will take a photo of it asap.

Ok so I ran an experiment today. My water temps are pretty consistent - 25's and 26's.

I have a 3000L tank, my otto air pump adding air, and my ebarra optima acting as a fountain.


So today I was home all day so I decided to see just how essential that ebarra optima was to my remaining fishes survival.

2 hours later, I had a dead fish on the bottom of my tank. The temperature had actually dropped due to a storm - from 26.5 to 26.1, but the fish was well and truly dead. So now I know that I have to keep my fountain pump on and it is doing an essential job!

Here's a photo I snapped of the trout:





Some trout I harvested previously:



I spose I should put up some pics of the veg too. Did I mention that I put up a shade structure? No I don't think I did. I bought a "temporary car port" for $150 from an auto shop, and bought some 50% shade cloth from a hardware store, a bunch of eyelets and some time later and I have a shade house.

So, correct me if I'm wrong... you stopped the ebara, and a fish died, even though the temp dropped... so you're suggesting that you need to run the ebara to maintain sufficient oxygenation in your tank....

Frankly, with only the two outlet Otto in a 3000L tank with that many trout... I'm surprised you've got the trout through this far at even those temps...

Correct.


I don't have 'only the two outlet Otto in a 3000L tank' - I have the ebarra as the fountain pump as well. What bit don't you understand?!

I have had the fountain pump going for most of the time that my water temps have been above 20 - just to be sure I get maximum oxygenation and a little bit of cooling (the water goes up through my shade cloth and spills back down - Coolgardie Fridge style).

I turned the pump off to see whether the otto would be enough because I was there and I could watch. A scientific experiment to see just how important it actually was.

Nice clean tank there.......

Got lost in the translation I think Simon... the point I was making was that the Otto alone IMO... was never going to be enough to maintain oxygenation for that number of trout at those temps... and that you would have already known or suspected that... (obviously you did, at least suspect that)

For some reason I also thought you were running the Ebara more for cooling reasons..

Yeh, I suspected it wasn't enough, hence the ebarra going the whole time. Now I know because I tested my hypothesis.

One thing that was interesting though is that I never saw the troutie come to the surface and show signs of struggling for air. First I saw of it's struggles where when it was dead on the bottom.

Watched that happen in front of my eyes up on the Holmes-A-Court site the other day...

Just rolled over and settled on the bottom...

You need to do some serious weed cleanup there Gemmell

Ok well the temps did get me in the end. My water was 26.5 at 10pm last night before I went to bed. THis morning, lots of dead fish, water still 26 degrees. So I added ice, hosed the hole place down and managed to get it down to 25 degrees, but still lost a couple more.

It's forecast to be 35 today. The unfortunate thing is that tomorrows forecast is 20-25 and then monday is 10-25. Yes 10.

I lost 11 total, leaving me with roughly 20.

Photos


However I did have a play around with the pump and got a shower style thing happening (edit: I previously said bakki shower, but it's really nothing like one):


And the remaining fish may just pull through.

But when do you reach the point where you just harvest the fish rather than put them through extreme temperatures? Personally I'd rather just get them out, cleaned and gutted and in the freezer.

Yeah bugger eh.... was trying to nurse the Holmes-A-Court system through the week for the same reason ... but no go... pulled the last of them the other day...

Sent them around to mates place and smoked them....


But it will help.. whatever you call it...