Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is my first system and although I read a fair amount on your forum before diving in, I also felt it was time to simply build it and begin the learning experience hands on.

CHIFT PIST
50 gallon blue barrel fish tank & 100 gallons of filtration in 4 half barrels
Scoria media (which did clean up just fine after a lot of washing)
I built the greenhouse framing and the GB frames out of EMT (electrical conduit) and canopy fittings which worked out really nicely and was simple & cheap.

Days 1-5: Cycled the system to ensure siphons were working - no fish & no plants
Day 6: Introduced several seedlings from my garden (washed off roots and stuck 'em in)
Day 8: Introduced 20 cheap goldfish per suggestion of local PETCO fish guy - He told me to get the nitrification system started, if the goldfish die which they most likely will, leave them in the tank to decompose.
Day 9: pH 8.2 Ammonia 0.25ppm Nitrite 0ppm Water temp 65F
Day 10: same
Day 11: goldfish starting to die - no changes in chemistry
Day 14: lost about 1/3rd of goldies - no changes in chemistry
Day 15: Added another GB of scoria which meant new water was introduced which had not been dechlorinated but risked it anyway.
Day 16-18: losing maybe one goldie/day
Day 20: Tried bringing pH down using Apple Cider Vinegar, which worked but then came right back up the next day.

Current: Goldies are still dying off slowly. I'm down to maybe 8 now although they do seem healthy and feed well. None are gasping for air. The floaters are pretty gross although I'm starting to get used to seeing them. The first to die have pretty much completely decomposed now. The GBs are filling and draining nicely. The plants have both started new leaves as well as lost some. I assume this is because there's nothing for them to eat, only drinking now. There's a scum starting to develop and little bubbles on the surface of GBs when full.

Chemistry is the same: pH 8.2 ammonia 0.25 nitrite 0 water temp up to 70F

So... should I just hang in there?
Thanks so much for this forum!
(P.S. I'm already wanting a bigger system... ha!)

I am extremely new to the AP system too but I can say that is early intro to fish IMO. You need to get water and plants stabilized first from all that I have read. I just introduced my gold fish after a month of the plants producing fantastic results and they are happy. Just a real newbies two cents..

I wouldn't leave the dead fish in there to decompose.

Your pH isn't ideal but it's not a problem. Trying to bring it down and having it return to 8.2 is going to cause you more problems. Once your system I established the pH will come down naturally depending of how buffered the water is.

Your media shouldn't be increasing your pH but I would suggest that you test your a sample of your media in vinegar to see if it reacts (produces bubbles). I would also suggest that you test a sample if your source water both immediately after collection as well as after a couple of days.

Add some sea salt to help protect your fish for when the nitrite spike comes - add about 1kg per 1000 litres of water (2.2 pounds per 264 gallons).

Then I would suggest just sitting back and watching while keeping an eye on your levels. Trying to adjust then is going to cause more trouble than it solves.

Remove the dead fish, there are enough living fish to produce ammonia and having rotting carcasses is going to exacerbate a bad situation.

As ArBe suggests, check your media by doing the vinegar test. If the solution doesn't bubble, then do another test by sticking some media in a clean bucket filled with distilled water (or water with a known pH) and after a period (day, week, fortnight) see if the pH changes. When the system is fully cycled and finally stocked at the right density, the pH will stabilise at its own level. Manually adjusting pH can cause instability in the system and the effort has to be maintained a regular close intervals else the constant changing of pH up and down can adversely affect the fish; you can buffer against pH drops in systems with pH<7 using shell grit or similar, but there are any products I know of which can buffer against caustic pH.

If you've got scum and bubble forming on the surface of your GB then your flooding the GB too high; the water in the GB should not see the light of day so only flood to about 1" below the surface of the media. If your plants are "growing" but also shedding their leaves this could be a nutrient deficiency so give them a spruce up with some (ammonia free) seaweed extract which will provide essential minerals and trace elements.

If your fish were gasping at the surface, there is insufficient DO in the water. Add an air pump or increase your pumping to oxygenate the water. If you've struggling now to provide DO to goldies, the system is really going to struggle with "proper" fish and as the water temperatures increase.

How are you filling 100 gallons of GB from 50 gallons of FT? If we assume "very efficient" media, this might take 30 or more gallons of water to simultaneously flood the beds which only leaves 20 gallons or less in the FT? The "tidal" range might be too severe? You might need to remove a bed, sequence the flooding of the beds or add a sump. Lowering the flooding level in the GBs will give the fish a little more water, but you might still have to reconsider your design. You could also consider constant flow?



Scott

To solve the ph problem just put a bunch of sea shells from the poultry section of your hardware store, or some limestone rocks into the tank. When it depletes add more. Take the dead fish out of there, they are diseases waiting to happen. Stop feeding for a week or so and basically leave it alone after that.
I have found that the more I mess with a system the worse it gets. I also do not test water any more, just observe the fish and the plants. When the water is clear, tea colored, fish eating every few days, stable system, leave it alone
John Fenn
York WA

Dead goldies are now in the flower bed... done. (I thought that was a bit odd when the fish store guy told me leave them in there.)

I had already put the media in vinegar and didn't see any reaction. I did not however put the media in pH neutral water and test the pH after a day. I understand the logic in this.

I tested the house water and found it to be at 8.2 but have since read on this forum the need to let the water sit for a day and then test it. I'll do that tomorrow.

After I had built the GBs and installed the standpipes I read about the water height reaching 1" below the surface of the rock. It would be very difficult for me to change the standpipe height now, but I'll do it one grow bed at a time after things have settled down.

As to the tidal range being too high, maybe I used the term "CHIFT PIST" incorrectly because I've got a large sump tank so the fish are not seeing a tide.

Bottom line, it's still not clear what's killing the goldies other than leaving the floaters in the tank may have already set up a disease. It doesn't sound like the 8.2 pH is what's killing them. If there is a disease, do I need to start over again or will the disease eliminate itself if the fish are removed and revert to fishless cycling?

Do a close inspection of a recently dead fish. Do you see any spots, sores, any discolouration? Check the gills and fins too. Now check a living fish (it's better for the fish if you just take a photo and analyse this for as long as you need, instead of over-stressing during a prolonged examination). pH on its own wont kill fish, but if you've got "high" pH and temperature, then even small parts of ammonia can be toxic to fish (check the IBC of AP for a TAN chart, it's in the last few pages, from memory).

Assuming there is a disease present (even if you cannot any sign of it on any fish) replace 1/3 water per day and salt to 3ppt (3kg per 1000L of water), although any action taken now could be too late?

Take out 15 gallons of water from the FT first, and dispose of this properly.

So, 50 - 15 = 35 gallons (130 litres)

Take a little more water from the FT and add 0.87 lbs (390 grams) of pool salt to this and mix well to dissolve. Slowly add this back into the FT. The 35 gallons in the FT should now have 3ppt of salt added.

Then, dissolve 0.37lbs (170 grams) of pool salt in 15 gallons of clean water, mix well, and slowly add this to the FT.

Each day, take out 15 gallons and replace it with appropriately salted water. Repeat this step each day for a week. The aim here is to replace any disease carrying water with fresh water, and maintain 3ppt of salt as a disinfectant.

I cannot see any mention of CHIFT PIST? How big is the sump? You'll need adjust any figures above for salting the total water volume in your system, including any sumps.


Scott

P.S. Check my maths for imperial measurements.

Thanks for all your input. My sump is quite large, about 200 gallons, so I will adjust the salt calculations accordingly. The last goldie to land in the flower bed did have black spots, and one living goldie still in the FT is losing his scales. All other goldies seem active and healthy.

Doing all this water changing sounds like a LOT of time and work. Am I doing this only to save a few goldfish, or do I need to do this to purify the system? Point being, if I were to remove the remaining goldfish and start fishless cycling, would any disease in the FT die off on its own with there not being live fish for the disease to feed on?

If you don't want to change out the water, at least give the surviving fish a chance and salt the system to 3ppt; after all, it's not their fault.


Scott

That reminds me of funny t-shirt I once saw. It was a cartoon of a commercial fisherman dreaming of the millions and millions of fish he's murdered over the years haunting him in his sleep. We like to think that at least those fish went to a worthy cause, feeding people, but I'm not so certain of how worthy the lives of some of those people really are.

OK... I'll make the hour long trip to the store to buy salt in hopes of saving a few goldfish. You've shamed me now.

Make sure to get pool salt, not table salt...

Doing the right thing is the right thing to do.



Scott

Yikes... I already put in 1/2 lb of non-iodized sea salt bought at a health food grocery. Isn't that OK?

Also, it does appear that the scoria media is alkaline. I put distilled water in my test kit vile and as expected, it read 7.0 pH. I then dropped a few pebbles of scoria into the vile and watched the color change to 8.4 pH. I've now got a secondary test running where I've put distilled water in a test vile, added a few pebbles and scoria and I'm letting it sit. I'll add the pH test chemicals this evening although I certainly expect it to be 8.4 as well.

So.... does this mean I have to dump all that lava rock or might I be able to neutralize it.

The sodium chloride (NaCl) part of salt is the same in pool salt and table salt; but table salt usually has a whole pile of additives such as iodine, anti-caking agents, bleaching agents etc which can be harmful to fish (but not always).

In order to neutralise the media, your going to have to soak it in an acid until the acid vs. base reaction is complete. That could require substantial amounts of acid and time, and at the end when all of the alkaline material in the media has reacted with the acid, you might not have any solid media left over, or its integrity could be compromised which means the structure of the media could collapse under its own weight and you would end up with something akin to sand which will clog and restrict water flow.


Scott

P.S. Vile = horrible. Vial = test tube

Since there are no plants that thrive in soil as alkaline as 8.2, even if the goldfish were tolerant, no plants would thrive. Right? This all sounds far too vile.

I guess I'll give the system another week to stabilize .... just in case there's some slim chance of recovery.

My pH started at 8.2. Over time as the system matured the pH has come down. I now keep a couple of kgs of shell grit in my sump to keep it at 7.6.

As your media will be buffering it up, it may take longer, but it will come down naturally.

Your plants should still do ok.