Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Matt.. You read the whole thing . Did you learn anything

I can learn from anybody's thread. all are different and produce different challenges.
I do remember reading the start of your thread 12 months ago, just glad I got to finish it..

Regards
Matt

Having a real solids issue.. Need to employ a lot more worms. I have now locked up the chooks which where wreaking havoc scratching for worms. Think they ate them all...

Ok guys.... MAJOR disaster!

Came out to the ap on Saturday morning to discover ALL my trout bar one or two dead on the bottom of the tank.

Now I wish I could say that it was due to some kind of technical failure of some sort, but sadly all it was was a failure of the brain.. my brain.

On Friday evening I was fiddling around feeding the trout and doing some maintenance on the tank and unplugged the timer to stop the pump and forgot to plug it back in.

Yes I know, classic example of sheer stupidity

Was about 25kg of trout in total...

Thing is, most of the fish where already plate size at around 250 to 350 grams (although there where a few runts). So myself and two staff set about gutting the whole lot. Now they are in the freezer. Whether for human consumption or conversion to maggot is the question. My staff seemingly unconcerned by me saying i was unsure if it was ok, feasted on all the small ones which I gave them and they all seem to be alive and well, no stomach issues or anything. They said they tasted good...

Can fish that die of lack of oxygen be eaten if they are still fresh? or

Uhh 25kgs of trought

Yip... really makes me .

I am going to invent a new type of ap device. The idiot strap... it is a stout cable tie that goes around the timer so that it cannot be unplugged.

I guess this is a wake up call for me. I have no backup solutions... if my pump/timer/non return valve/elec supply or even the earth leakage goes I will lose all my fish.

Bassmonster and his gsm command sim card device that can both control the system and send me a message if anything goes wrong has moved up on my wish list...

Brian,

I'm real sad to hear of your Loss.... and can feel your Pain......

A few Mo's ago, had a GFI breaker trip, and lost about 90 3" to 5" tilapia...... I promptly froze them, and the Catfish get 5-6 of them, 2 times a week, so they did not go to waste....

Back up systems and alarm systems are a must.... I am slowly gathering up parts and building up several different Backup and Alarm systems for the various parts of my AP system, but have not finalized any of them as of yet....

Bummer Brian when i was a kid [ yea that was a while ago ] we would go fishing usualy catch some fish leave them in your fishing bag maybee 3 to4 hrs when you got home clean them
I think they died of lack of oxygen

Sorry to hear about the fish Brian. It sure is easy to forget when you get busy on something else. I think just about everyone on this forum has done this at one point or another sometimes you're lucky.... sometimes not.

Yea Ive been on 3-4 day fishing trips and the fish stay on ice till we get home, no probs.
I could only see it being an issue if they were left around for a while without cold water or ice. Id be even more convinced if your FT was out of sunlight.

p.s sorry for your loss

Thanks all... I had a trout for lunch today. Stuffed with parsley and butter and salt and pepper and baked it on the fire in foil. Tasted good and I feel fine. So I guess I have just harvested all my trout a little sooner than I had hoped and they are a lot smaller than they should be. Still it is better than losing them all for nothing. The tank is well shaded and besides it happened at night and it is freezing cold here at night and I found the fish quite early in the morning so they are still good.

I am going to need to get another air pump for the greenhouse and move the big air pump to the outdoor system. At least then if the pump/non return valve/timer bombs I will still have air in the water. Another back up plan for pump failure would be to have a barrel bio filter running from a small pump in the fish tank and returning to the fish tank to provide some filtration and aeration even if the main pump bombs out.

Ugh, sorry to hear about the loss.
But I guess you can't be a fish farmer without killing some fish. I'm glad you were still able to eat some of them. Yea with cold water and fresh deaths you are not the first person to have eaten oxygen deprived fish.

Damm....

sorry to here about the lost

Regards
Matt

The bloke who hasn't made a mistake hasn't made anything

been there