Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well, crisis averted, I think.

Yesterday I was seeing signs of iron deficiencies in my brand new bean plants, so I figured I'd put in a little kelp tea. So last night, I brewed up a batch, let it cool, poured it in, refilled the jar with the kelp sludge, swirled it around, poured that tea in too. All told, maybe 3-4 liters/quarts of tea went in (but no sludge). This morning when I went to feed the fishies, no one came to breakfast. Eeeek. Quick water test, everything was fine, although the pH might have been a touch lower. The fish were sluggish and breathing hard. The larger ones were resting on the bottom. Double Eeeek. On the flip side, I think the radish plants got greener overnight.

I cranked up all the pumps to run more water through the beds to give the plants one last shot at the kelp tea, and started pumping out water. Time for a fast water change. All told, I probably did a 60% water change. Almost as soon as the new water started going in, the fish started perking up. They're still not back up to regular behavior (ie, always cruising for food), but they are looking better.

I think I just put too much kelp tea in. I had never made kelp tea before, and it looked really healthy, but my theory is that it gummed up gills or something. I may do another water change if they aren't up to snuff later today.

Humm, kinda sounds like maybe it was lower DO???? don't know why the tea mix would do that though??

I'm a bit puzzled, ROZ. There was no gulping at the surface, yet breathing was obviously hard. The only other odd behavior I saw was that the second largest fish did the whale-breach bit a few times. The largest one did it a time or two after I started adding the new water (perhaps after he got up enough strength?). I think it was an irritant in the water more than DO, although maybe a combination. What really puzzles me is that fish eat kelp...so what could the harm be?

Fishie update: Swimming motions are now not labored. They are fluid and lazy--not fully up to speed, but so much better. Best of all, they are now grazing on the duckweed I tossed in for them.

too much caffine?

It was only boiled kelp, honest. No Lipton's, no chocolate, nuttin'

Interesting. I'm thinking the kelp tea released too much nutrients and the osmoregulation of the fishies was compromised. I always put nutrient additives in the bed or planter side of my systems, and start at 1/40th strength of what's recommended were it the only nutrient source.

I've never needed to go stronger than that as AP has most everything anyway, just needs a wee tweak now and then.

I think that's a good point, AA. The kelp is actually marketed as an organic soil amendment. There are not instructions on making tea out of it. I bought it to experiment with, and I think I just found one of the test boundaries! So I will go with much weaker tea dribbled lightly over the beds if needed.

Good to see your sacrifises for the good of the AP cause Janet (Les breathes heavy sigh of relief knowing that even experts can stuff up just as easy as he )

What I am learning is the immediate action taken to remedy the situations - this is where us "mere mortals" are getting the value from these admissions, thanks Janet for sharing it with us

Qick Fishie update: Good energy feeding-frenzy at dinner time. All happy.

So I've been wanting my own duckweed for the fishies since finding out what a wonderful food it would be for tilapia. I did some reading here/surfing in general and found that it needed a protected place with calm water. My main tank is not calm and doesn't get direct sunlight. Hmmm. So I created the Duckweed Detour.

Water is pumped up from the tank to the Duckweed Detour, and then proceeds to growbed #3. The bulkhead fitting on the outflow is larger than the one bringing water into the 'DD' so it drains more quickly than it fills. (There's a reason I know this is needed. ) I baffled the water movement with a little PVC collar around the bulkhead fittings. The Duckweed pool itself is a small cat litter box (brand new and unused, thank you.) I added a piece of angle iron for support underneath, and I'm pretty pleased with how it is working. The tough part was getting the inflow and outflow bulkheads to be the same height so that when the water stopped flowing, the 'DD' didn't partially drain and stick all my duckweed to the sides of the litter box. I'll run this one for a while, and if the duckweed does well for me, I have another place where I can put a 'DD' for growbed #1.

Well done Janet, you have a good coverage of the duckweed there - found out SP love the stuff also, seems to disappear quickly enough

i've seen this "heavy breathing" when my nitrate levels are WAY up. i can tell when to do a water change with out the nitrite test now, in my indoor aquariums

Nitrates were only 40. I'm sticking with 'Kelp Tea Poisoning'. No doubt I should write up a scientific discertation on that now.

cool, meant nitrates as indication of excess nutes.

Love the "DD"...
Can you get a couple more pics on that, or mayhaps a schematic of sorts? Not quite sure what you mean by the description, as far as flow goes.
You pump-up to the left inside the bulkhead, is that right? Did you drill the heads at a certain height to let water flow through?

My apologies if I'm being dense...

Hi bhsx,

Yes, water flows in from the left, and out to the right. Here are some more pics for you.

I could have drilled the threaded part of the bulkhead fitting, but actually, I just glued a short length of tubing into the shorter bulkhead fitting to bring it up to the height of the taller one. I also could have cut off the taller one. Mostly I used the tubing because it was lowest risk of really messing things up.

I wouldn't have had a height problem if I used the same bulkhead fitting for inflow and outflow, but when I did that, I ran in to problems with the DD threatening to overflow. The outflow just wasn't quite fast enough since it is only gravity-pulled, not propelled by a pump.