Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Why is that Jackie? We have got a lot of fish over the years. These days we always transport them in a higher salt bath than what is in our AP systems and haven't lost any fish. It helps reduce the stress they suffer in being relocated and activates their slime coat in order to help them heal.

I have had mine for about 6 weeks. Fed violently from day one. They stopped feeding last week and some developed white stripes. Ammonia had registered to .25-.5. Topped up and stopped feeding as there was a lot of food on the bottom. All clear now but barra still don't feed. Also they used to come greet me but now they just hide. Tank temp down to 22 this morning.

They were doing so well too....

That's what the Ammonia reading was once your fish had already showed signs of stress and stopped feeding, it may well have been higher prior to that.

You say the water is down to 22 deg now, what were your max temps prior to your fish going off their feed. Also, you say that water temp reading was taken in the morning, what is the water temp at about 3pm.

What is the system pH?

Just as an example, water with a temp of say 24 deg and a pH of 7.8 only needs 0.6 Ammonia for it to start becoming toxic to fish.

At 26 deg (which it may well have got to with the two stinking hot spells we had) and a pH of 7.8, the Amm only needs get to 0.5 to become toxic.

Thanks mr damage. My temps during the hot spell were up to 29 and my ph was very high. Could have been as high as 8 and your right the ammonia could have spiked as I was boring the food into them and I had an auto feeder as well. I think I broke them....

Also I had my salt levels wrong. Thought I had 3 ppt but only had just over 1ppt. All up, a recipe for barratrauma!

Anyway ammonia diluted out now, PH down to 7.4 and temps at 15:00 were 30c, salting up to 3ppt as well. I would like to take the salt higher for the barra but don't want to nuke the plants. What's the highest level you can safely go on salt? I don't have strawberries but we'd like to have cucumbers

have a look here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15022

I think much above 3 PPT may start to affect the cuc's

With the water temps and pH that you had, Ammonia would've started to become toxic to your fish at probably around 0.25 - 0.3, anything over that would've been harming the fish, especially if it was over an extended period. Depending how much higher it got and over what period, it may have done irreversible damage to the fishes gills... hopefully you caught it before that occurred.

Salting to 1ppt is probably good practice for Barramundi, but anything higher is unnecessary, even during a Nitrite spike 1ppt is all that's recommended. The only time you would need to salt to 3ppt, or higher, is if your fish have an infection.

well my barra are doing really well, some of them are way above plate size, wouldn't even fit on a plate!

I posted these in my sys build but not sure if anyone saw them , was testing out how good i could use the camera under water

Should be eating one in the next day or two. Like others said on here mine started feeding at night and I put shadecloth and weedmat over the top to give them some cover, they became much more adventurous after that, now I lift it up and they come right up to the surface to be, even will pop their heads out the water to get some food, one of the buggers grabbed my finger the other week. If someone they are not familiar with looks in there they will go shy and hide in the corner near the SLO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg3JX9OX4BM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbOk8CW1k0s