Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You serious. Says who (packaging doesn't say anything about it). I have never done that .

AM - whare did you get your $25 PH tester?

VB, sorry, i would have gone into more detail, but i was in the car and i was using the GF's blackberry phone to view posts! how badly addicted am i?

Anyway, chloramine is a compbound of two chlorine atoms joined to an ammonia molecule. So you need twice the dosage of de-chlorinator to neutralise the chlorine (because there are two of them).

ALSO, and very important to know, when you de-chlorinate water that has chloramine in it your water will then have ammonia present in the same PPM that the chloramine was dosed at. So if your towns water is dosed at 2PPM chloramine then your declorinated water will immediatly have 2PPM AMMONIA.

Talk about from the frying pan to the fire! On top of this chloramine reacts with suspended organics to for many amine compounds, including nitrosamines.............carcinogenic.............thats why special mention is made to the water being relatively pure before the use chloramine.

Start collecting rain water brother.

Just an after thought, i used to see the distinction made, but i've just looked at a few bottles of water conditioner and they don't anymore.

Two possibilities one is that the recommended dosage is high enough for the chloramine, the other is that they dose chloramine at half what they did for chlorine (in essence the same amount of chlorine).

But definatly take note of the ammonia thing i mentioned



Steve

I'm going away for 3 days and don't want to leave my wife and family with the task of waterchanges etc. So in preparation, tonight I did a 30% water change on the aquarium (put in water that had been in my green barrel since yesterday and had had neutraliser added). I also have done what is effectivelly about a 40% change on my outdoor pond system. I know this is big, but to reduce the effect I blocked the hose running between the 2 ponds, all but emptied the fishless one, added water and neutraliser, put a heater and bubbler in there to operate overnight and will not remove the obstruction until just before I leave in the morning.

The water dechlorinizer (or neutraliser as I call it) was a bit of a worry when I read it. It says that it removes chlorine and amonia. It says that many towns now add amonia and chlorine to their water. I can only assume that what they are referring to is the chlorimine, after all this stuff is what is sold at major aquarium shop in Brisbane, which has chlorimine in wter supply .

BTW - fish are onto their 3rd (or 4th ) dose of metafix. I think that the fungus on the dorsal fins of the pond fish may be a bit better. The Aquarium fish have few signs of any such problem, with a couple of them having a single spot of fungus on a single spine of dorsal fin. Cross fingers that by the 7th day the ourdoor fish may be alright. Will have to get my wife to add this medication while I am away .

Sound like a good water ager VB, as i said chloramine is a compund of chlorine and ammonia.

Many water conditioners break the chlorine ammonia bond and neutralise the chlorine but leave free ammonia. Sounds like your may contain a ammonia "neutraliser" as well, something like a product called "ammolock". It inportant to be aware, that while products like these will "bind" the ammonia so that it is not harmful to the fish, many test kits will still register it as ammonia. Just a bit of info to confuse you even more. Sorry

okay, so they are 'bound'... but where do they go - can the bacteria still use them up if they are 'bound'???

short answer: yes

Posted some fish pics from the aquarium to the 'what fish' thread. Here is a pic of the little growbed that I have on top of the aquarium. The growth is good considering that the tank is salted to 2.5 - 3 ppt and the aqaurium and grow-bed are under roof cover and get no direct sunlight at all.

Here is the shot the day (or day after) I planted 2 1/2 weeks ago. I put another spinach in after the original shot.

Very nice, VB!

Try and get away with that tub on top of the aquarium if you were using gravel

Clay balls are expensive, but they serve their purpose

The purpose of the bed is just to add some extra biological filtration - water goes through cannister filter and then through bed - and to also try and get some plants to remove some nitrates. I never expected to be able to grow stuff to eat in it (not being in the sun and being so small) but the growth is certainly promising

BTW steve, my aquarium grow-bed is much smaller than yours. It is only 15litres. I have a nylex one like yours on the ponds outside.

Thought it was about time I checked to see if my fish like everday garden variety worms. Managed to dig about 20 decent sized worms from a bit of garden in about 1 minute flat - picture below. Needless to say the Jades in the aquarium as well as the silvers in the pond smashed them. Jades in teh aquarium swallowed worms 2-3 times their length.

Maybe we have found those quite friendly :lol: fish that Big Mick has been searching for .

An update on my fish health.

The perch in the aquarium seem to be pretty much better, though you never know with something like ich - could flair up again. I will keep up the salinity till this weekend - which will make it 2 weeks. The clown loaches look a bit better, but they don't seem to be feeding. Of course this may be because the 20 perch get every morsel of food put into the tank .

The 11 big silvers in the pond now number 10. Found on floating on Saturday. Had probably been dead a couple of days. It was the one that was most beaten up when I bought them. THe fungus on the rest has definitelly improved significantly and they are feeding well - though I am still giving them only a little. They smashed the 20 or so big garden worms I chucked in yesterday .

If things keep improving at this rate - we should be all clear within a couple of weeks. I'd better get my Murray grow-bed stand finished and gravel in place so I can start feeding the big perch properly and get the Jades out of the aquarium and into the ponds.

I was gonna ask you about the stand VB, sounds like it's time to get it happening!