Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Great to hear that lessons learned will be incorporated into the next design; so the new/remodelled system will be (more) bullet-proof.

What are your eventual specifications and design: FT, GB, pump, flow etc?

Well it will be simple. The sump which becomes the FT is about 800 liters and then I will put in as many barrels as possible which looks to be 11 half barrels, or 12 if I can squeeze them in.

The pump is 85 watts and will probably pump about 1800 liters per hour at the 1 meter head, but I will bleed some off for aeration and will run it constant flood. No timers to go wrong.

just a really simple system.

nice...

Its a shame its come to this Brian but I think you will be a lot less stressed once all done, its fun to re-design anyway

Got a new test kit today. Woohoo... can test just about everything.

So guess what??? My pH is not actually that high. Only about 8. It was the other pH test kit misreading! What a relief. All other readings are fine although not enough Fe, and the phosphates are lower than they could be. I thought there was something that seemed strange because if my pH was 10 I would have had yellow plants and they are actually quite nice and green.

I have the greenhouse cleared out . Now I am wondering what to use for sterilizing the tank and growbeds and all thg other stuff... Just miltons or something like that??? Chlorine perhaps?

Also wondering if there is some way to eradicate snails from the system. I see if the copper levels reach a certain level the snails all die. can one purposefully add copper and then remove it again?

Getting rid of an infection from an AP system can be problematic if you don't want to completely kill the beneficial bacteria that have been supporting the system and killing any remaining plants. I would never use copper (sulphate or otherwise) in an AP system as you'd never be sure to flush all of it and this could lead to copper poisoning for the fish and/or their consumers i.e. you!

As I've never had any infections in my systems (touch wood) I am drawing on some old aquarium days for this: Being wary of any remaining plants which you want to keep which might not be that salt tolerant, salt to 8-10ppt (8-10kg per 1000L), then with the pump running slowly add enough potassium permanganate (Condy's crystals) to turn all of the water light purple (about 1 tablespoon per 100L) and then add Melafix (any aquarium shop will stock this) in accordance with manufacturer's directions. Leave circulating for 24 hours then flush the system with clean water, refill and repeat. Killing the strep should only require one application so do two for safety; but the snails might require more, so repeat the process daily until there are no more snails, then give the system a REALLY good flush before refilling.

The salt and potassium permanganate should kill the snails, the potassium permanganate and the Melafix should deal with the infection; Melafix and potassium permanganate work best in an alkaline solution (pH 8.2 with KH 100-200 is allegedly optimum?) NEVER add potassium permanganate to acids. ALWAYS wear PPE.

Although we've tried our best to minimise the impact on the nitrifying bacteria, consider the system as a brand-new system, so complete an initial (fish-less) cycle to rebuild the bacteria colonies.


Scott

Thanks Bunson. That's a great help. I had thought of salting it really heavily for the snails. Problem is I have 8000 liters of water. I am wondering if the strep is even in the big system. There is the last surviving koi in there along with many mosquito fish that seem to be surviving. The greenhouse system was the one I suspected of being infected with strep as all the Tilapia died. This could also have been cold or electrocution (from the faulty pump), that made them susceptible to infection. The greenhouse system is currently dismantled so it is its tank and sump, gravel and growbeds I want to disinfect. So I will be able to flush them out properly afterwards.

Basically what i want to know is can I use a normal disinfectant to do the tanks and growbeds, given that I can rinse them really well afterwards prior to re-assembling the system?

These are the test results
KH 6
pH 8
gH 16 '0'dGH
ammoniac/ammonium 0
CU 0,0
Fe 0
PO4 2.0 mg/l
nitrite 0.0
nitrate 0.0

"Normal disinfectant"? I've never tried using Dettol or Domestos! It would probably work?

You can use sodium hypochlorite (find this at home brewing suppliers) or even bleach as a strong disinfenctant, it will kill just about everything! Find an unperfumed and uncoloured, detergent free, basic household bleach and dilute 100ml to 1L and give everything a thorough wash, you can soak items, noting the solution is corrosive so DO NOT walk away if washing your pump or anything "sensitive"! "Robust" items can be soaked for up to 4-6 hours, sensitive things 15 minutes. Rinse really well with lots of clean water, then leave all parts outside in the sun (where possible) to air dry.

If you're going to bleach the media, you'll probably want to add an aquarium chlorine removing agent, just to be sure, or, fill the system with clean water and have that water circulating for 48 hours to off-gas the chlorine.

Yep, plain chlorine bleach can be used as a disinfectant. Do like bunson says for things like the pump. And yea if you bleach the system you will then want to run and aerate the system for a few days to let all the chlorine off-gas before starting to cycle up the bio-filter again or adding any fish.

Ok Great! Thanks guys. I'll just use bleach. I will probably build the system up again and then cycle for 6 weeks on humonia and then add the fishies when its all good and proper again. I have faith that this greenhouse will be much more productive with more than double the growing area and the beds lower so that tall tomatoes and cucumber vines can fit in there properly.

I used bleach for my aquariums and they came up good as new. Just gave them a real good rinse and let them dry in the sun.

I hope it does the trick for you mate. Good news about not having the infection in the big system

Well its been a while since I posted here as I have had little to say. Not much progress in the greenhouse, but I have started welding up the growbed stands.

Getting trout for the season has become tricky... There is now a whole bunch of red tape to slice through. Previously they just let me come and buy the fish. No questions asked. Now it suddenly requires a permit. Supposedly the permit, which costs 30 ZAR, would take 3 days to acquire. Well it has been three weeks now and still no go. There does not seem to be a problem, it is just that it is a government dept.... in Africa....

Hmm, this sounds familiar, hope you get them soon Brian.