Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The Jades are in the aquarium Steve, so now have 20 jades and 1 silver perch in the aquarium. The aquarium is at 25 degrees and will stay there through the night. I think the pond was about 15 degrees today before I did anything. It has been overcast so not much heat got into it today - meaning it would normally get quite cold tonight. Will see what the heaters do to help and my attempt to provide a bit of insulation to the top. Will take a picture later so you can all have a laugh.

Now Steve - better give me the O2 warning.

Firstly 17C in the pond is fine for the silvers, i had mine at that tempwith one airstone for the better part of a year, no deaths. They started dying when it dropped to 10C and that was in 1000L. I can't believe you're maintaining 17C in what 500lt, lucky Bstd

Ok, how many L/min is your air pump rated at?

Watch your fish VERY closely tonight. If they seem to be sticking to the top strata of the aquarium and/or breathing from the surface then you need extra air, and i mean PRONTO! The warm water only makes this worse

Steve - 17 degrees was at the end of the day, it only goes downhill from there, with the temperature here at night often going below 0.

I don't have an airpump going into the outdoor pond at present. Till now I have been relying on the return from the grow-bed providing enough oxygen. I guess I should whip out there and put an airpump in there. I have a couple of old aquarium ones from years ago, hope they still work and that I have an airstone. I have taken a picture of the return in the outdoor pond - have a look at it for me and tell me whether you think it would provide much oxygen.

The return from the new grow-bed I have put on my aquarium is amazing. I changed the drain to a 25mm straight pieced today and the larger size seems to have the effect of making a venturi type action. It makes a hollow cylinder of water, which I have shown in a picutre and just look at the resultant bucbles going into the tank. I'm pretty sure I don't have to supplement this one with an air pump - what do you reckon.

I have also taken a couple of pictures of my makeshift pond top insulation. Ont he grey pond I have put an old inflatable pool. Fits excellently and would IMHO provide great insulation for the top. Shame about the sides . On the black pond I have put the top of an old glass table over part of it and some thick plastic on some more. I have left quite a bit of it open as it was just too hard to cover due to the grow-bed and return (and also did not want to stop oxygen from getting in.

The rest of the pics:

Threw some plants in the new aquarium top grow-bed.

Dug out all the old aquarium air pumps. They are dead set rooted. Looked for airstones, but had none.

Rigged 2 pumps up to a piece of my leakky hose (recycled car tyre) irigation pipe and am managing to supply some supplemental air to the fish. Will want to buy an air pump as I don't want to just rely on the return in the pond because the grow-bed grid only has small holes at present and could clog and reduce flow.

I am thinking of getting one from ageofaquariums as I want to get some other stuff as well and they have a single $7.50 postage rate. This is the one I'm thinking of, only 40lpm but I think that should be ample (Steve, can you help out here).

40lpm pump.

Also, I am thinking of getting some Melafix pond treatment at the same time. It is all natural, so I don't see why I couldn't use it (opinions anybody). My fish have been knocked aroung a bit at the fish farm, so I reckon it would be worth giving them some treatment up front.

Here is the link:

Melafix

VB, 40lpm is huge, mine is 30 lpm and i consider it a nice pump keep in mind that a large twin outlet normal aquarium pump like i have on the tropical tank is only 4.5lpm

I like melafix personally. though if you think its a fungal problem pimafix is probably the best bet, i haven't used the latter.

I know there is much debate about it, but i LOVE salt treatment. i added 1/2 cup of calcium chloride and a tablespoon of sodium chloride to my 200lt tank becasue the perch seemed to have funny growths on their fins. there has been a visible improvement in the past 3 days. they will tolerate this level even though it is quite high, but plants might not do so well. shouldn't kill them short term though, they probably just won't grow too much.

Which ever treatment you decide to use maintaining a high water quality and stable temps and PH is the best way to ensure a healthy immune system.

I like AOA, nice shipping price and product prices too. I bought by 30l/min pump about 3 yars ago and it was over $80. Man i have treated this pump like hell, subjected it to operating ambients of over 50C and run it 24/7 for about 3 years, and its still kicking

Steve

VB, for what it is worth, I was at the "B" shop yesterday and they have small 240 volt air compressors that give enough air (7 cfm) complete with regulator for 99.00 ... Change the sump oil in the compressor for a vege oil and you will have enough air to supply 10 fish tanks and the compressor will have other uses like spray painting etc. Not only that if the power goes off there will be enough air in the reservoir to last for around an hour before it runs out
Just a thought.
Muzza

That is a thought Murray. I wonder how reliable these $99 jobs are if you are running them continuously (obviously they come on and off - but you know what I mean. Did you ever try the leaky hose Murray. I am using it hooked up to just a old small aquarium pump that would pump bugger all lpm - but I am getting good bubles. When I get a decent pump I will probably run a ring of the stuff around my pond .

Solar pond
Murray - did you see my post where I state that what I had bought as silvers from the aquarium shop are actually Jades. Being small and having no spot or Jade colour I just assumed what they had said was correct - and I had never seen a small silver perch before either. So here I was comparing my silvers to your Jades, when in fact I had Jades also and you had one big silver .

Yes VB I read your post, those blokes at that Hatchery are not to careful in what they give you that's for sure. Still, the fish are cheap enough.
I would imagine that the compressor from that B place would be fine. I buy the same brand of power tools all the time now and for the price I reckon they are good value. A compressor, any compressor for 99.00 is good value....they have a 12 months warranty. And I have found that the B shop is not too bad at honoring warranty.
Currently I have air coming from an old 14 cfm compressor that goes into a short length of 3/4 pvc pipe with 1/8 holes drilled in it, bit rough but it works fine. Every night I switch the tower pump off and rely on the compressor for aeration and it is good even though the bubbles produced are large, not fine like you would get from an air stone.
The good part about the compressor is that I have air going into the fish tank for almost 3 hours after the compressor is turned off. I tried it one day just to see how long the air will keep going in the case of a power outage, and I reckon I would get more than that if I hooked everything up a bit better so as not to loose air at hose connections etc.
I am going to get one of those 99.00 jobs just to have as a backup for my big fish system, just in case my 20 year + old 14 cfm compressor takes a heart attack some time.
Mojo

Hook the leakky hose up as your airstone Murray - will get much better bubles than what you are getting now.

I just spoke with someone yesterday who was using leaky hose for an airstone type application, he was using about a metre of it, and swore by it...

Your temps sound fine VB, my silver perch are going a little off their food at the moment but thats because they have had water temps ranging between 9 and 11. They stilll look fine and some are feeding, but they just aren't going on the boil at feeding time..

might try some of that hose. From memory it doesn't have holes as such, it more of a "sintered" style, should get very fine bubbles?

and as it rated at water mains pressure it will be suitable for the 400kpa from a compressor.

Nice find VB

Steve I know you are joking about the compressor, but leakky hose is not rated at mains pressure. It is normally operated a quite a low pressure, in fact can use a 30metre run in the garden with 1 metre head of gravity feed. This is the attraction. Having said that it can handle some pressure and would be fine hooked up to a decent size pump I am sure - just vary the length used to suit the pressure.