Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

well I figure we are all freinds here and there is no judgement so I thought I would post my most recent and largest to date F*#k up. Yesterday I disconnected my main pump so I could use the power point for something else and in my stupidity managed to leave it disconnected all night. So this morning i go down and find all of my goldfish in my large tank at the surface gulpingfor air. My first thought is "why are they gulping?" and then I remember, so I turn the pump back on and because I can't see the silvers that are in the same tank I figure they are fine. So I recheck five minutes later and I see all of these still figures at the bottom of the tank. In with the net and out with dead fish. So I do this 7-12 times and realise all of the silvers in the tank are dead, not very happy!!!!

any way as is the tradition I took photos and added an item for comparison but there were large medium and small silvers al of the dead. I have baged them up and frozen them if anyone is interested in making homemade pellets PM me and they are all yours.

So back to the drawing board for me.

awe shit, sorry for your loss-- geez, one small error and one large heart ache.
feel for you nick.
But if the fish died of loss of DO then why not eat them?
Is that calous(sp?)

Man, that's crook...I feel for you. A well known business motivation author and speaker, John Maxwell, has written a book "Failing Forward" in which he stresses the importance of accepting setback, learning from it and moving forward. It seems that the lesson we can all take from this is the need for a backup power system for the pumps...in this case the outage was an oversight (and aren't we all guilty of that!), but the power grid is not guaranteed, and with the present upsurge in the frequency of thunderstorms is quite likely to go out. I for one will be spending much time in thought to design in reserve power in my about-to-be-built system/s. It is great to have the tremendour resource of this forum, thank you all for having the guts to try new ideas and then making the results public for all to learn by.

Ouch! Nice sizes too.

BUMMER get back on your bike and away [ my crash done in 70]

Man, that's awful! I bet you're more than a little annoyed.

Yup, back on the bike.

feel for ya Nick. Hope you can get some more fish soon.

Thanks for letting us know, so that we can all learn from your [s]absolute stupidity[/s] mistakes.

Bugger !!!

On a more positive note Nick, the perch had obviously been growing well.... so at least you know that your system(s) are working just fine.

How long had you had the perch for?

Yep at high stocking levels you don't have long without a filter. I had a mate who rewired all his lights in his fish room so they could be turned on or off with one switch. Could not work out why he was losing african cichlids. Came over water tested everything, cut a fish up and scoped it, looked at food, heaters..... everything!
Anyway went back in the house for a beer and came out later to look at his catfish display with torches, low and behold half the filters on the african rack were off! The dork had included filter power on the light boards meaning every night he turned out lights he turned out some filters as well.
Would not have been a problem if each tank had a secondary air powered filter on it but ya lesson learnt.
One day we will all have computers on our fish tanks/ponds that will auto test and sms ya when theres a problem. Until then ya jus gotta try be a switched on fish pond god.
Ya not alone tho, we managed to kill our little octopus just by overfeeding the feeders in the aquarium for it at a partee.... ammonia spike and ya
Have done so well with them last few times it's deadset embarrassing.
They were some nice sized fish ya lost mate, cryin shame eh

ouch, use them to make fiush food if you['re not keen on eating them

It is for that very reason I have a large yellow label on the power cord.... Saying DO NOT TURN OFF! I have learn't that lesson before... I suggest you do the same...

These things happen... but I bet your not gonna let it happen again...

I say eat them Nick.... then it wasn't a fish kill at all.....

It was a harvest ....

oh, these fish