Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey guys
First let me say this is my first system. I just put in fish into my system a week ago. 50 channel cat fingerlings and about 100 bream. So for i have lost about 7 catfish and about 15 bream. and i noticed that my catfish have white spots and their fines are chew up and they are rubbing the bottom of my ICB system. I went to the pet store they told me to use this ick x stuff. But my bream also have the white spots and a few of them looks like their mouths are swollen and few of them are much lighter in color compared to the others. I check the system ph is about 7.6 ammo is at 0 nitrite is at about .50 nitrate is about 10 ppm and i live in louisiana so the water is fairly warm in day and cool at night. tomorrow im doing a 50% water change and dossing them again with the ick x. if that doesnt work what should i do next befor all of them die off

You've got 150 fish in an IBC system? That sounds like a lot, what filtration do you have going on?

And lots of the pet store medications aren't good for edible fish, they'll leave nasty stuff in the flesh for the life of the animal. Salting is what's usually recommended, up to 6ppt in one go to kill off the ick.

i have a swirl filter, i just finish building it. ok so i shouldnt have used this stuff. well that great. so will catfish do fine in salt water. so how much salt would i need for about 400 gal

It's about 1.5kg of salt for that much water.

But you are going to run into trouble, even with a swirl filter with that many fish, unless you have a very high turn over of water, and lots of filtration (bacteria to convert the ammonia to nitrates). I imagine they are small at the moment, very small, but that'll change.

You'll need 3750L of wet media to support that many fish.

so i should take out the bream? i want the catfish the most. right now my ammonia is at 0 and nitrates is at 10 ppm ok so 1.5kg of salt and would keep the water at 80 degrees to help keep kill it

hey bubba you got ick
I had the same problem last year I ended up over salting so be careful not to do the same you can find salt calculators on line. and make sure you use food grade salt without iodine.

yea i got the ick. and i am hoping my fish make it throught this cause well i bought some thing from a pet shop but im going tomorrow to petsmart to buy a take warmer and some salt

i just used a food grade pool salt.and i don't use a tank warmer either but thats me you do want to be careful using chemicals for taks because it might kill your plants or bacteria.

how long did it take to kill it off for you. i guess ill do a large water change tomorrow and use salt instead

well when i salted i over did it and it killed about everthing in my beds but its a learning process. you can check out some of my earlier posts and it will show you. i think you only need like 3 or 4 ppm and i ended up doing like 10 so it was like bam!!!! ick was dead and so were my plants. except the tomatoes they did just fine. ill try to find the link and put it on here

here is the link hope it helps
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=22055

ok man yea it helped a little im going tomorrow to go get salt and doing a big water change tomorrow. to get those chems out of the tank.just hope they can make it that long. how can i tell when the water is at 4 ppm is there a tester for it

about how much salt should i put for 6ppm

PPT or PPM?


1ppt = 1KG per 1000L or 1gm per L

Nitrite issues - 1ppt
Parasites - 3-6ppt
Dip for parasites - 30ppt - .5 to 10 minutes. Remove fish showing signs of distress immediately (laying on side or erratic behavior for example)

yea i mean ppt