Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Returning water is often sufficient, especially for goldies, and gaping mouth at death doesn't necessarily mean lack of oxygen.

"some antibiotics"?

And you added shell grit when your pH was 8.8?

I'd drain the system, fill it again and leave it running without fish till your silvers arrive. When they arrive make sure your salted to about 3 parts and leave everything along feeding only an absolute minimum for the first couple of weeks.

Also if you want to salt you want to salt in large jumps. People often salt to a certain level but do so gradually to be gentle on the fish. Fish can handle relatively large changes in salt content without a problem where as sudden changes in pH can kill them.

The reason you dose to create a jump in salinity is that while fish can handle sudden changes in salinity the beasties you are trying to get rid of can't.

I do wonder about panic water changes and then having to use so called "AGERS", as there is supposed to be two types of basic water purification, and the aftermath varies...

But irrespective those two fish were showing classic signs of stress, being the reddening..

and I wonder what adding Anti-Biotics would kill, if not BACTERIA..
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i assumed that meant he moved the fish to a hospital tank where he carried out the anti-biotics and salt treatments.

if not then thats a whole different kettle of fish.

hahah yes, totally different tank for the 6ppt salt LOL and yes 4 air stones in the FT going 24/7.....
I made a video last night just for you guys 10 mins, very long sorry.....

http://youtu.be/FxnVrhQWb-c

Oh and yes I did salt in large jumps.
I did add shell grit, as I wanted to increase the KH of the water, as to stabilize the PH at 7.4-7.6. My understanding is the "buffer" only will slowly degrade in low PH's, so I kn ow I was protecting my water from a PH drop, but my main goal was to increase KH to stabilise the water from spiking...low or high...not sure if that worked yet. The KH still reads like 1 Deg of hardness

oh and paints were bunning spray paint, and I painted grey primer first the green, but only when the IBC's were intact. I cut them and built everything after painting.....I didn;t paint them in place LOL

Great video.

to me your problem seems to be a problem with fish disease.

I would address it by having the pump run 24/7 and any excess water that the growbeds cant use is either taken back to the sump via an overflow or a tap fitted and pump choked back to a level where the growbeds can use all the water supplied.

i believe this will greatly improve your fish health. i know the air pump will be providing aeration and turning the water over but i think moving that water down to the sump and through the growbeds as much as possible can only be beneficial.

if i were you id throw a few rainbow trout in there and feed them like crazy with a good aquaculture diet to get the system cranking ready for the silvers you have coming.

There arent a great deal of diseases that affect rainbows. i believe there is a couple of fish farms not far from your part of vic.

the only issue is the upcoming warmer weather but with your insulation and whatnot you may be able to get them through summer, if not they would be good sacrificial fish to get your system going and cycled properly.

thats my 2c.

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Silly question re vid .. if splashing caused waves, why not extend pipe under water .... no waves...
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We did not understand that what we saw was the SUMP, and that the FT was inside..
Gee it is Hard getting to the facts ..
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Silly question we vid .. if splashing caused waves, why not extend pipe under water .... no waves...
..
.
We did not understand that what we saw was the SUMP, and that the FT was inside..
Gee it is Hard getting to the facts ..
..
.

I think disease is probably what's getting the fish in the end but it may just be the end result not the initial cause. With a pH of 8.8 and a high temp in the treatment tank, no mention of filtration for this, I'm inclined to think stress and ammonia played a role in finishing some of these fish. Tough to say though. I'd do what EarthBound mentioned. Make sure there is no food debris or litter left in the tank but don't get too neat and scrape the bio-film off. I would also adjust the pH down while you don't have any fish in the system but do it over a few days. The following is for Top up water to help pull the pH of a system down. You can have the pH a bit higher because eventually the bacteria will start pulling the pH down. Try 6.8 to 7.2 - If your media pulls it back up then adjust it down before adding the fish.

Hydrochloric acid (HCl)(aka muriatic acid) - Add to topup water - adjust this to 6.0 to 6.5 and let stand several hours before adding to system (sometimes there is bounce back of the pH and you can readjust).

When the pH eventually starts dropping if you use Potassium Bicarbonate to adjust the pH back up you'll be adding some carbonate buffering and Potassium as well. This will help stabilize the pH for a time and then it will start falling again and you'll eventually adjust it back up. Next time you have to adjust the pH up, you may want to use Calcium carbonate so you don't wind up with too much Potassium. Many of the ions like Potassium and Calcium compete for uptake by plants so best not to favor one over the others too much. You might get some benefit from watching Nate Storey's videos on YouTube about some of the elements for additional details.

Make certain when you add the fish that you give them time to adjust to the pH and temp difference between the water they are in and the water in your system. If they've been in transit a long time you may have to cut it a bit shorter on this because of conditions in the transport water but do the best you can.

Cheers