Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Message to everyone doing aquaponics DO NOT use chemicals to treat algae or anything else. It WILL KILL your fish. After treating as detailed in my post re algae growth in IBC I have lost all my fish. Sure the algae went but that is little constellation if you have nothing in tank.

So I have to remove water, clean tanks out and get new fish after water cycles. As trout need to be harvested by November in this part of the world I will have to source larger ones (Summer and hot weather means they don't survive beyond November)

I am devastated. But it is my fault. So careful planning is essential if you are to have a good setup

I have learn't a valuable lesson. I am now debating whether to restock with medium sized trout to get a good feed around November or do I restock with native fish (silver perch and Tandanus catfish and get a feed in a year or so, but of course will get good vegetable growth/??

If anyone has an opinion about that I'd be interested. Also could I get away with say 20 silver perch and 10 catfish in a 1000 litre IBC?

Hiya mate, was the chemical added copper based? I hear you drained your system however I'd be concerned with the chemical still being in the grow beds and may take a while before it all leaches out.
Maybe it was best the fish died as if they survived, once you ate them you would have digested the chemical...
As for restocking, I would go for some cheap fish to prove the water quality. Something tough like perch. Tandanus seem temperamental.
Losing fish is never good and we've all done it more often than not operator error....
Probably a good time to get some paint onto that tank too.

Myself, I'd give the system the flush and refill you are planning, then feed the plants with a mixture of both standard Seasol and Seasol Powerfeed, probs at a 2:1 ratio. I'd start with the three capfuls (2:1) per 500L per week and see how the plants respond. I continue with that until the water starts to warm up, then I'd add Silvers. They are a much better tasting fish than Trout IMO, plus extremely high in omega oils.

With Silvers, from when you first start harvesting them, which could be in 18 months if you get them in early in spring (ie: 2x spring/summer seasons), you can then continually replace the harvested ones with fingerlings and progressively harvest forever in a day... You can have a feed at any time of year.


Absolutely, with good aeration and clean water, but that's provided you have sufficient bio-filtration capacity in the system.

Thanks all who responded, I have listed the contents of the treatment used which is marketed as ALGAEFIX Aquarium Algaeside by API

POLY (oxyethylene)
DIMETHYLIMINIO
ETHYLENE DICHLORIDE
nasty sounding.

So I will use a new tank I have, Thoroughly clean with soapy water and good old elbow grease the present one as well as the sump tank, Add another grow bed (which I was going to do anyway) and add silver perch and catfish (after about 2 to 3 weeks) which I can have freighted to me for the low price of $40 from one end of the state (Victoria) to the other, plus the cost of fish

I am starting to clad the timber frames with new palings that I have purchased and cut to length and will spray the tanks with black satin paint (2 to 3 coats usually does it in my experience.

So the main tank will have a SLO that feed two grow beds (after running through a swirl bio filter on the way) by gravity and a pump in the sump that returns the water to the tank
That's the plan. I have plastic bio media that I purchased some years back, so I may as well use that in the BIO filter

Sorry to hear about your fish

As above fill and flush the system to reduce residue

I Lost all my fish a few years ago to insecticide spray drift

I filled and flushed my system a couple of times

I restarted with a few yabbies I caught in a dam and a couple of hundred tadpoles

Supplemented with seasol

Plants went great

I have had Silvers and Tandanus in the same tank the Catfish roam around and keep the floor of the tank clean

Silvers are Omnivores so will eat a bit of everything I used to hang a bit of lettuce in the tank during the cold season sometimes they would eat sometimes not

Its no consolation but most of us have had a "holy smoke" moment at some time

One of the biggest problems I think in aquaponics is uneaten feed my advice to everyone is really watch for this.

Cheers Terra

Sad to hear Ozzyrod.
I had some problems with stringy algae in my greenhouse system's sump tank. I solved the problem using a few grains of humic acid. This darkened the water so the algae was getting restricted light and I also added some duckweed which eventually covered the water and cut out the rest of the light.
The water still has a slight brownish tinge after about a month so don't know how long the colouration will last. Fish (SP's) and plants are all thriving.
I had previously tried using glass shrimp but without much success (too few?? I put in about 20 for a 700L sump).