Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

As I posted in my "Catfish ill" thread, all my Channel Catfish died, but, we seem to still have at least one Bluegill. I'm going to try to see if I can spot some more at night with a flashlight. The tanks are so dark I can't see very well down there during the day.

All my water plants seem to be doing well; Variegated Cattail, Pickerel Rush, Lizard's Tail, Louisiana Iris, Tigernuts, Duck Potato, Watercress, and American Lotus. I have an Egyptian Lotus growing out for awhile in a small tub before I put it in one of the large tanks.

Silverbeet/Chard is the only vegetable I've been able to grow so far, it's in the flood and drain tank. Everything else has either not sprouted, died, or remained stunted in the floating islands. I might try buying a few veg plants and maybe some strawberry plants at the store and putting those in since seeds have done so poorly for me.

I ordered a master test kit from Tricker's but it arrived broken and missing the booklet, I called them for replacements but they have not arrived, so I still can't test the water. Mosquito fish seem to be doing well now and producing a lot of new babies, even though a huge number died during the Great Catfish Die-off.

Frogs and snakes (!) in the system....

Finally got my replacement test kit and tested the water! Tested water from the tank with the one known Bluegill (nick-named "Lumpy" because of his apparent Lymphocystis Disease).

Ammonia .6
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
pH 8

What is my next step from here if I want to add new fish to the system?

Sure would like to know what to do next.....

Any idea why your ammonia is reading 0.6??

Nope....the test seemed to indicate a color slightly not perfectly clear, so I just picked the next highest reading above 0, .6. I'll test again in another couple of days.....Is it supposed to be 0?

I ordered a test kit for dissolved oxygen.

Planted some Malabar Spinach in the floating islands.

Test kit for dissolved oxygen was discontinued, don't know where to find one which is affordable, so oh well, I guess I won't be testing for that!

Ordered another 25 Bluegill to try again.

Got a larger pump installed, and 25 new Bluegill. They are doing well and aggressively eating Red Wigglers.

One reason I stock bluegil is because they reportedly are prolific breeders even in a tank. My 80 or so bluegill are now two years old and have not breed yet. Perhaps my supplier sold me all males or a hybrid. Delivery charge is $275 so am reluctant to harvest all of them and start again. My koi have not bred either so perhaps my conditions are wrong. Any thoughts?

bluegill lay eggs in gravel, males create a depression in the gravel and guard it, until a suitably impressed female does the deed with him..
i've seen some pictures where someone was using short buckets of gravel in their tanks, but i don't know if they ever had a successful bluegill spawn..
if you were sold hybrids, there should be females with them (pond folks use hybrids, which are, or can be 90-95% male, so they don't overpopulate)

Yeah, I would give them some kind of grave substrate to work with.

They have sand and peagravel substrate and they have clear water with cattails. Water temps run in 70's F. One of the tanks is 1000 gal. A bug light gives them lots of protien but supplement with catfish pellets. Still no babies.

One of the reasons I chose Bluegill is the hope they will breed some day. I plan to put baskets of graduated gravel and sand in the tanks for them to nest in when they are mature. We had Bluegill wash down our ephemeral creek from a neighbor's pond and during the few weeks water ran in the creek, the fish were making nests. They may have even managed to raise some babies before the water dried up and everyone got eaten by varmints. The water was at most two feet deep, probably less.