Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone! Got a few questions. I made the mistake of getting some fish from Walmart and had a few fish get what I believe to be Fin Rot and also had a few that I think had Ich. Nasty stuff. Now I still have some catfish and Koi that seem to be doing well without any signs of disease, but I was wondering if the vegetables (lettuce, green beans, strawberries, and tomatoes) are safe to eat.

Should I scrap the produce or do you think its safe to eat if washed ?

To treat the system I think I'm going to salt it. should I pull some of my plants like my strawberries prior to this?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum

Your vegetables will still be good to eat. Salting to 3ppt will eventually kill the Ich, how long it takes is fairly dependent on water temperature- it takes longer at lower temps. Your strawberries will probably suffer at 3ppt, but might survive until you reduce the salinity, depending on variety, but should be fine at 1ppt salinity, which is a reasonable salinity to maintain in your system in the long term.

Use pool salt, with no other additives.

Thanks!

So to double check my math so I don't murder any fish....

I have an 80 gallon tank

3 ppm = 3 mg/L

3 mg/L * 3.78L/1gallon * 80 gallon = 907 mg

and since I don't have a scale....

1 teaspoon = 2300 mg of salt
1/2 teaspoon salt = 1150

so... basically a little less than 1/2 teaspoon of salt?

That seems like not very much..

Does this look right?

I think the math looks okay, however, you are off by a big factor here... Gordon said "ppt" not "ppm". Parts per thousand rather than parts per million. So... think in grams per liter (ppt) rather than milligrams per liter (ppm).

80 US gal = 302.8 liters
302.8 liters x 3 g/L = 908 g = 2 lbs
1 lb of table-salt is about 1.66 US cups in volume, so I think about 3 1/3 cups of fine salt

The volume to mass switchery is easy enough in metric because we can assume 1 liter of water weighs 1 kilo. So saying 3 g/L is the same for our purposes as 3 g/kilo which is still 3 ppt (1000g = 1 kilo).

Play with the math a bit to double-check me, but I think 3 1/3 cups of fine salt should be close enough.

Here's a nice article discussing salting for fish health:

SALT: CHICKEN SOUP FOR OUR FISH

--
Sam

Ha!!

I knew that didn't look right!

Thanks for the article! good stuff!

For $20 you can get a refractometerthat will help you assure correct levels and know if there are any mistakes. Also volume measure of salt as compared to weight measure will vary greatly depending on the size of the grains. I use water softener salt that has very large grains, but is affordable and can be found without additives. You can also get KCl for softeners.

16 oz per lb and 8 oz per cup. So 2 lbs = 4 cups in a perfect world.