Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just had my first HSM got a call from my house mate saying he had found a floating Barra and couldnt see as many as normal, so i went home at lunch to investigate, 12 Barra 1 Goldfish dead, 3 Barra and 1 Goldfish rescued, 4 Barra and 2 Goldfish unaccounted for,

Water temp >21C
PH 8
Amm 0.50
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
Salt 2ppt

Not sure what killed the first fish but im assuming Amm killed the rest found one dead one that looked rather sad stuck in some string algue about half way up the tank ( explains why i didnt find him earlier ), did a 20% water change but didn't have time to do anymore as i had to get back to work.

Will do another round of testing and see if i can find anymore hopefully alive fish when i get home, SP seem unaffected

Your ammo readings aren't that high...

But at that combination of pH and temperature.. are certainly becoming toxic...

Cheers Rupert,

I found the other 4 Barra, all dead, pumped the tank down and no Goldfish, hoping the Barra ate them.

Got on gum tree this afternoon and got a 200L tank for $50, 300w heater from the pet shop for $25 and using an old pump and small air pump i already had am making a setup for the three remaining Barra inside.

The Amm has come down slightly i can see the difference between the photo i took of the readings today and the current color, I am just going to leave it to run, although i have gone back to 15/45 24/7 now that I'm not worried about the temp for the Barra.

1 more Barra down from the tank inside, 9 silvers dead in the system outside, just did a 50% water change and will try and ride it out again.

Salt? Are adding more salt when you do the water changes? You should keep it @3 ppt with the trouble you are having.

Yep salt was bumped back up as i topped the water back up, a further 8 SP dead this morning. At this point if the remaining 7-8 SP are still alive when i get home from work i will try and catch them and move them to the tank inside, at least i will be able to see whats going on with them then, then leave the outside system to do its thing for a while and run off some Charlie Carp. am at a loss as to what else there could be, unless i brought in some pest with the Barra.

Readings yesterday arvo Before Change
PH 8.2
Amm 0.25
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
Salt 3ppt
Temp 20

Readings after change
PH 8.3
Amm <0.25
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
Salt 2.5ppt
Temp 17

the other thing that is bothering me is i thought if it was a toxicity issue that the small fish would die first. Is that correct?

So all of these problems started when you introduced more fish? It is very likely they introduced something. Maybe you need to set up a hospital tank salted to like 12 ppt. Rupert could give more definitive numbers.

I set up the tank inside at 6ppt but hasn't helped i set up another one up last night at about 10ppt and am just giving it 24hours to stabilize as i used mostly tap water for this one to try and reduce the posibility of contamination, all surviving fish currently 1 Barra and 3 SP will be bathed in the second tank when i get home from work.

Got home and put the remaining fish (1 Barra and 2 SP) into the hospital tank for 30mins, the Barra is covered in white fuzz around fins and one eye. what is the best course of action for this? continue with the hospital tank trips or whack it on the head?

hey Brad just an observation.. What size is the link pipe from tank to tank..?

From the Pic's it looks to be 20-25mm..

Personally I would of gone 50mm as it gives you a chance at a better flow Rate..

It flows better..

In my system I have a 100mm slow..[Airlift] and the bottom of my tank is spotless..

Juergen

SLO in the first tank in 20mm and the other two are 25mm but i was thinking of upping them to 32mm and also running each tank back to the sump directly to allow me to run the pump on a longer cycle and have a better flow through the SLO. would going bigger than 32mm be necessary 6000LPH pump split 4 ways.thinking of upping from 15/45 to 30/60 or 30/30.

If your pump is able to overflow a fish tank simply by running too long, then you need bigger drain pipe (what happens if the timer malfunctions and the pump just keeps running?)
I like to have my Fish tank drains big enough that I could run the pump to them 24/7 if I felt constantly circulation was necessary because of some problem. (Keep in mind most of my systems are over 1000 liters for each fish tank) I usually use 3" drain plumbing on the smaller fish tanks like IBCs and then I use 4" plumbing for the bigger systems. The only place I might use 20 or 25 mm drain pipes might be the little 5-10 gallon aquarium demo systems that are really only big enough for growing guppies and stunted gold fish.

As to the sick fish. At this point it might not be worth all the effort trying to save a single fish when the treatments of catching and dipping bathing in the salt bath are probably rather stressful to the fish. I don't have any personal experience with barra or SP since I'm in the USA but when I've tried to safe a terribly sick tilapia it usually just meant watching them die slowly. Catfish are so easily traumatized and injured in handling that we simply cull sick fish if we are able to easily catch them without stressing or injuring other fish with the net.

I have come to the conclusion that if there is not marked improvement tomorrow arvo it will be more humane to end it, i will use to time between now and the new year to upgrade the SLO's and make them direct drain to the sump tank also to paint the IBC's. I will use Charlie Carp to feed the system till that time, then i will add some Koi to the sump tank and start again.

Thank everyone for the advice and input.

So it appears my math is out, i found a floater in the AP system this arvo and also found what i assume to be parasites attached to it. Anyone know what these are?