Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ah PJ, I'm sorry to hear that. I hope some of them make it and that it's not a total loss.

Martin.

What happened? (I'm guessing your sleeping now though.

Were they are harvest size?

Hi mate are those fires near you? stay safe.

My property was untouched by fires, thanks Slowboat. They were to the NW and NE and were probably 10km or more away, although they seemed closer than that. Yesterday afternoon there was a torrential downpour which quickly turned to a thunderous hailstorm. If the fires were hit with that same storm then it would have knocked the puff out of them, well and truly.

Regarding my Rainbow Trout, as far as I know I lost all that remained when I had a big fish die off 3-4 weeks ago. The Sliver Perch and Goldfish in the same tank were unaffected. After much deep thought and analysis of possible fish kill scenarios, I finally accepted that it was the water temperature that knocked the trout. That seems straight forward enough, in retrospect, but the two previous years my trout had pushed on until the third week of December under similar conditions. Sufficiently similar that I was unsuspecting, but not quite the same since a variable had changed.

This year I had plumbed in two additional grow beds and these get more sun than the original three. This was my system's potential achilles heel. I had undermined my big tank's ability to maintain a cool temperature due to its thermal mass. I deduced that, far from being some great mystery as to why over one hundred 350-500g trout suddenly went fins up, it was a case of the FT water warming to a critical level six weeks earlier than previous years as a result of the increased thermal transfer enabled by the additional GBs.

It was a painful and expensive lesson for me to learn.

The SPs and Goldies are appreciating the extra swimming space without the pesky trout.

What was the water temp PLJ??
Been a cooler November than average so far apparently.

Bummer about the fish.

my FT is still at 20º C

sorry correction now 22.5º must be the humidity?

Sorry to hear about that PJ. It's a valuable lesson for next year (and future expansions) I am sure.

Thanks for sharing the experience.

Regards, Martin.

Thanks, Slowboat and MartinC.

Troutman, I haven't bothered with a thermometer inside the tank since 2012, the year I set it up. I thought that I knew my 'left and right of arc', as far as expected system temps were concerned. After all, 90kL of water doesn't change temperature all that quickly and a couple of hotter days won't cause a drastic swing as it might with a smaller system. Besides, this year's November temps are largely irrelevant in this case since the die off commenced on the second of the month.

Hows everything going, PJL?

Yeah, what you been up to PJ?

When my children are this quiet I know they're up to something...

Just saw your questions now.

Just about everything is going well thanks Charlie and Martin, and I have indeed been up to something... but that's another story.

Well will we see a full report with photos or will that get you banned from the forum?

No, nothing like that, Martin.

Cool.