Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I came home from work today and found one of my jade perch floating in the tank.

Here is a picture http://catprog.org/images/PB130207.JPG

Any ideas on what caused it?

Salt your system upto at lest 5ppt, check PH, what is your water temperature and has it been flucuating and start pumping more air in. What are your test results and how big a system.

A better photo against a lighter surface would help but appears to be a fair bit of damage.

2 IBC system. 49 Jade perch. a number of goldfish.

My PH pen gave me a 5.4 reading. and the test kit was yellow.

The other test were in the 2-3 bands .


Temperature was 26C (night time) (and air temp was up to 33)

PH is too low Jades prefer high 6 to mid 7 start getting your ph up and salt. You may lose the plants but a chance to save the fish, can you do a change of water. Take the PH up steady and about 0.2 per day is recommended.

How do I go about getting the PH up?

Only real source of water is our dam, and I am not sure about the quality of that water.

Builders lime and dolomite, alternate every two or three days, start with a heaped table spoon in your sump in the morning and check the PH IN THE AFTERNOON TO SEE WHAT THE LEVEL IS. YOU MAY HAVE TO ADD MORE OR REDUCE TO ACHIEVE YOUR INCREASE OF 0.2 per day. Sorry about the caps but to tired to retype.

No tank water you can use? Where abouts are you?

I'm going to err on the side of caution with salting. It may be necessary just not yet, no point in killing off many plants if you don't have to.

3ppt and everything will still happily survive, and it's enough to sort out things like ich, 5ppt and things will start dying, it might be needed, but check off other things first. It's also only one fish out of 49, the pellets could be the wrong size causing constipation and death, plenty of things could cause it, or it got stuck on a pump, or the tap got left on for too long, and added too much chlorine into the system (the gills are wide open, this might be a possibility), is there enough DO in the water?

What's your ammonia/nitrite sitting on as well?

I'd agree that you need to bring up the Ph though. I like the shell grit in a panty hose method, can just add and forget, but I don't know how effective it is, I'm still waiting for mine to go down enough to try it out.

Ammonia: is about 1
Nitrite: low.

DO: nothing to measure it with,. (Dissolved oxygen right). My air pump is 2x180L/hour outlets, one for the main fish tank and one for the goldfish in the sump. (Also two solar water pumps (one with battery backup) )




In the Brisbane city council area . (The tank water is for the house, no mains water)

Looks like it might of been too hot. 34C water temp (and another death)

It looks like something has attacked it! Fish do that, I had a gold fish with no tail for a while, the others just seamed to harass it endlessly. Just add a bit more feed, and watch them more, its not ick so no salt required. No water change either, just a bit of vigilance and maybe some extra feed. Forget the ten minute rule with feed.

34C water temp does sound pretty high and on the edge of their tolerance.
Got me thinking I should check my temps now with the weather we've had lately.

I thought Jade perch prefered the hotter temps? I don't know how high that'd be though. I know it's too cold for the in Adelaide.

Blizzard, you have Barramundi, they are a predatory fish, they will harrass and eat the goldfish and each other. Jade's aren't as aggressive I believe, unless the other fish can fit in their mouths, they'll leave it alone.

Well they are now all dead. Blackout and my backup was not good enough.