Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am new to aquaponics, but already I love it. I started my system about four months back in April (I think), there is still much for me to learn and I will gladly accept tips, hints instructions, or corrections. My current system is in a 100 gallon tank with a grow bed on top using a bell siphon. I am using just plain old river rock. As you can see, my grow bed is bowing out quite alarmingly. Still it holds though.

I seem to have trouble keeping fish alive. With my first batch of ten channel catfish I had 7 of them die. I have no idea why. The last three lived fine for about three months. When I decided to get ten more Chanel catfish, six of those and the original three died. Still have no idea why. The temperature fluctuates between 75 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. My PH is about 7.6. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates are all at zero (I need more fish, can you tell?). I have only been feeding them dog food for lack of other food sources (current project). They also seem to be ignoring the food. A few bites disappear, but I don't know if the food is sinking or if the fish are actually eating it. It might be not enough oxygen in the water, but I do not know how to test it. I could not see the fish because my water has been quite green.

If something like this is mentioned in the forums somewhere, I would be glad if someone would point the way for me.

If anyone is in Tennessee with a working aquaponics system I would love to come see it and ask questions. Also does anyone know where I can get some more fish? I am near Lewisburg.

Welcome to the forum.

Maybe lack of oxygen? Are you using any aerators?

Ammonium, nitrites and nitrates all zero could be a sign for a well cycled system and the plants are growing, so there must be nutrients in the water.

For the dog food, I was looking for food for crayfish and got told I could use chicken pellets, the downside is that the leftovers foul the water. Maybe it's the same with dog food?

Cheers

Oliver

About a week ago I found an aerator, which I had bought previously, hidden beneath some parts. The air pump is rated for 50 gallons, but with this low stocked tank, I figure it won't matter yet. That is now connected to the system, to late for the dead fish though.

I know I am not getting enough nutrients for my plants because the are yellowing throughout the leaves while the edges are almost a pure yellow. I am thinking of pulling out one or two of my plants so that they will stop being a drain on the nutrient supply. Unless I can find some more fish soon (that will live), pulling a plant is what I will have to do. As much as I dislike the idea, those are my two current options.

I might try to build a minnow trap and take that down to Duck River and catch me little fishies. I do not know if that is a good idea though. I might introduce something from the river into my system. Oh well, live and learn. I wonder what do minnows eat? But more than that, if I put some minnows into the the tank, will my catfish eat them?

If anyone knows of a good reference book of fish diseases/parasites and their symptoms and how to cure it, please let me know. Or point me to the correct forum.

i wouldnt pull any plants out of the system yet. they look great. The yellow on the leaves and fish deaths could be two totally different things. Give the aerator a chance. How often are you pumping your water through your gb?

I have an ECO396 submersible pump (396 Gallons per hour) pumping into the one grow bed. Most of the water is being diverted back into the tank without going through the bed. I have a bell siphon in the bed. I have not timed it, but I would guess that it does it's cycle once every five minutes. Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates are all at zero and has been for a while. I'll get some better pictures later (raining now) to show the setup better. I still have the problem of not knowing where to go to get more fish besides Walmart or a pet store. That would get expensive fast. Where I have been getting my fish was from the Fish Wagon.
http://www.fishwagon.com/Fish_Wagon/Home.html

They only come through once every six weeks or so. I also do not know if they are coming back, I have not been able to find out when they are coming again.

You can keep a system going indefinitely using fishless cycling methods and that can keep your system ready to get more fish when the wagon does come around again.

Good thing too, cause I've got some bad news. I went outside to take some pictures of my system and I noticed that the water no longer pumped up to my grow bed. Odd I thought, maybe the pump filter got clogged again with grass that sometimes gets thrown in there by the mower. So I reached into the water to pop off the filter and my fingers sunk into some kind of mush. Some of you may be able to guess what that was and you would be correct. At least two of my fish were dead and had got sucked up against the pump where they promptly rotted. Which I then had stuck my fingers into. *Sigh* At least I think it was two fish. Not sure because of the way how the corpses where kind of... bones... and rotted flesh at this point. So I may or may not have two fish left, I doubt I have any left. Should I just restart the system and scrub everything out, or should I put salt in and try to catch some minnows? I have never put salt into this system, because I did not know I was supposed to. At least I know what is wrong with my plants, no nutrients for a while. I hate finding dead fish, it kind of ruins the day.


That is the main pipe. If you look closely you can see a frog.

I expect the remains of those two rotting fish probably have been supplying some nutrients for the plants. I probably wouldn't go emptying and scrubbing/sterilizing things since it would mean starting to cycle all over from scratch. I would say clean out as much gunk as you can. Get some ammonia source or some fish emulsion and some maxicrop and keep your system and bacteria going that way until you can get some new fish. Be sure when you get new fish, you stop dosing the ammonia or fish emulsion a couple days ahead if you can time it so or make sure your dosing is small enough that if fish arrive the next day that the ammonia will be gone before you put them in.

Also, from that picture it kinda looks to me like you only have one small grow bed for a 100 gallon stock tank. That is a rather small system and not much filtration so be sure you don't get many fish. Is there more to the system than can be seen in the picture?
If that is all there is, I would say 2 fish would have been all I would have started with in the first place.

Also, remove the filter from your pump. Use seaweed concentrate like maxicrop +iron to assist your plants

yea, remove the sponge, keep the grill.

All you see in the picture is what there is to the system. I planed on starting small, then adding mare grow beds while using the same fish tank. I left room for me to expand. What I am wondering is whatever had killed my fish is still in the system and if salt would kill it. The fish I had been getting were 3'' to 4''. by now the plants in the grow bed are quite big. I have one melon plant that is about 6' long. That is not counting the cucumbers, other melons, and the one squash plant. How many minnows would I need to keep these plants growing? A lot I imagine. Where would I go to get Maxicrop, short of ordering it off the internet?

Thanks for all of your help. I like getting a second (or third) opinion on these types of things. Time to go build that minnow trap. This was the movie where I had gotten the idea, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVZBtLCLQ-I

Well, I met with failure. I used my minnow catcher and caught only water. I can only assume that the water was flowing to fast for them. We had gotten a lot of rain here in the past few days, so the river was higher than normal. I know they are there because I see them in the river often. I still have not been able to find out when the Fish Wagon comes again. So all I can do now is wait.

I don't know if any of your local landscaping stores or nurseries would carry seaweed extract or maxicrop, I know it isn't a common retail item around here so it may be easiest to order it online.

Now lowes or home depot or ace hardware will probably all have some sort of fish emulsion that you might use to keep your system going fishless till you can get new fish.

There are some diseases of fish that are likely to be common in the water but will only make the fish sick if the fish get stressed out or the water quality is bad or you have too many fish causing both of those problems. Then there are parasites like Ick that will only survive a limited time with a salted system during warm weather. Then I'm sure there are other illnesses that might be worth pulling everything out of the system, washing and sterilizing everything and starting all over from scratch. I've personally only had to deal with collumnaris disease which I believe is one of those opportunistic infections that is likely to get into the water no matter what you do but it will only sicken and kill fish that are stressed, injured or suffering from poor water quality, over feeding or over crowding. I have had fish recover from collumnaris if they were not too far gone and stocked new fish into a system that had suffered a previous collumnaris outbreak in the past and the new fish were fine and I have never sterilized a system and started over from scratch.

Channel catfish are especially prone to collumnaris infections.

When I had cleaned my sump of all of the left over fish gunk, I left it there for a day or so (unplugged), and yesterday I thought that even though there are no fish left I might as well keep the system running. So I set it all back up. Usually I have to divert most of the water back into the tank without it going through the grow bed, but yesterday I had to send the entire flow to the grow bed just to get the bell siphon to start. I thought that maybe the motor got partially burned out from the restricted flow of the water. I was a bit bummed about that, I would have to buy a new pump along with fish. However, when I went out today to check on it, the pump was at full blast. So I had to restrict it back to usual. Does anyone have an idea why it was barely pumping one day and at full blast the next? I know it did not need to "warm up" because it was at full blast when I plugged it in for the first time.

Got back from Ace with some fish emulsion. Now to try and figure out how much to stick into the system. I also got some more parts for my solar water heater. Not using solar panels, just having the sun heat up the water itself. Had some confusion with my family about that. This was the movie where I got the idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkRCVd5yCEM
I am going to follow the general idea of the plans here. I know for sure that my own will not look as good as his, but as long as it works I will be happy. I'll take some pictures later.

Thanks for the information TCLynx. I told my father about what you said about Ick and how it can only survive a limited time with a salted system. He has had a fish tank for years (just a fish tank, not aquaponics). He told me that he had to treat the fish whom had gotten infected with drops of some kind. He was interested that only adding some salt would have fixed the problem.

There are lots of threads about ick and salt and temperature, I've never personally had to treat it. The only fish disease I've regularly had to contend with has been collumnaris.

As to the pump, if there was something perhaps partially blocking the pump flow it might not have had enough flow when you turned it on but if the thing blocking the pump flow was kinda soft, like a leaf or something, it might have eventually broken up and gone through the pump letting the flow be back to normal. If you turn on your pump and find the flow is restricted, first thing to do is check to make sure there isn't something clogging the pump.