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Apollo
01-05-2014, 03:30 PM
Sorry, guys I had posted information about what I thought was a great deal on a pump. Not sure how much damage that it has done to my AP System. The supply pump was from Harbor Freight, made by PACIFICHYDROSTAR 1/4 HP, submersible, 2800 GPH, 1.5 IN NPT, with 22 ft of head pressure.

ATTENTION ! ! ! I just found out that the pump mention in the paragraph above has the main core made out of metal not, plastic / PVC. I pull the pump to clean my filter netting from debris when I notice what looks like pot metal corroded with acid. Even though the pump was just over its 90 day warranty I took it back. I told them it must have been corroding for sometime...so it became defeated while still under warranty. Got my money returned on this pump and pickup as smaller hopefully a better one.

The new pumped drop my 2,800 GPH down to 2,110 GPH. Wasn't sure if my Pipe Siphon would still function as needed with a flow rate drop of 690 GPH. It takes longer to fill but still cycles on and off like clock work...with no tinkering, not BAD.

Any advice as to how to get the metal toxins out of my system, I'm doing water exchanges. Is there anything else that may needed to be added to my water?

_________________________________________
I HAVE NOT FAILED. I'VE JUST FOUND 10,000 WAYS THAT WON'T WORK. Thomas A Edison

Roger L.
01-05-2014, 10:15 PM
I hope that no harm have come to the fish throughout your ordeal. I have no answer for you but would hate for anyone to lose part of their project that they have worked so hard to perfect. Best of luck. I will be following this post to see both the answers to your questions and what your outcome is.

foodchain
01-06-2014, 10:53 AM
Just water changes, and vaccume the bottom of the pond. That's where the heavier particulates will sink to. Once drained, a wet/dry shop vac works good for this. Drain the water first. Trying to vaccume large volumes of water will burn your motor out otherwise.

dead_sled
01-06-2014, 12:55 PM
Not sure how to clean the system. I would guess that the metal is in everything (plants, media, water, fish, etc.).

topz
01-06-2014, 10:54 PM
Any way to figure out what metals were leaching into your system? Determining what it is was would help figure out how involved your abating needs to be.

Apollo
01-07-2014, 07:26 PM
I got a hold of the manufacture on the pump...main core is aluminum. Last month when I clean my filter bag there wasn't any missing paint. So just in the last month a spot about 2" x 2" and some small spots equaling about 1" x 1". Not a large area, probably most of the damage was done in the later part of the month, I was wondering if the aluminum is what was keeping my PH levels @ 8.2?

I did a drastic water change...by accident :oops: . When I was getting the new pump set up, I added about 150 gals of rainwater to my 850 gal FT. Then I used my backup pump to pull out 150 gal from the bottom of the FT. I thought I had things back to normal by the time it got dark...I forgot to disconnect the drain hose from the backup pump. Though out the night with the new pump running the water back feed to the siphon hose and slowly drained out all but 1" of water from my FT. What a sickening feeling to open the cover to your FT and see all of your fish just laying on the bottom...some even sticking part of the way out of the water. YES, the pump has a floating shut off switch that got hung up on my filter netting. So this was Sunday morning...the good news is both of my GB's were almost ready to start their drain cycle. By adding just a few gals of city water they dumped about 300 gals of fish water back into my FT with in 4 mins.

I then added 600 gals rain water (PH 8.2) from my rain barrels to get everything up and running. Check the PH of the FT on Monday night...my FT has always had a PH of 8.0 to 8.2. It now has dropped to 7.6, Ammonia dropped form 0.25 to about 0.15, my Nitrate dropped from 160 to 80.

Fish was not very active or hungry on Sunday, better on Monday, about 90% normal by Tuesday night. Had been noticing some of my Pink Tilapia are not so pink, looks like they're turning a transparent dark gray. Is this normal or is this a toxic condition?

___________________________________________
I HAVE NOT FAILED. I'VE JUST FOUND 10,000 WAYS THAT WON'T WORK. Thomas A Edison

foodchain
01-08-2014, 11:22 AM
Normal in my opinion from stress. Would also explain them coming "off" the food. Did you add any dechlorinator, vitamin C, or start right to the city water?
Vitamin C tablets, crushed between two spoons till pulverized and dissolved in pond water....slowly added to water supply aids in both stress but also counteracting chlorine/chloramines. I am sure someone out there will challenge this. But I have had success with both ornamentals, marine, and edible fish without trouble. I put 4, 800 millagram tablets in per 3,000 gallons in pond. And inside systems I use 1/2 a tablet for every 100 gallons.
I don't dose this regularly, only when I have a crisis. I am not sure what the max tolerance is, or how long it stay suspended in system. But this is what I do as a "home remedy" and it gives me good results.

Apollo
01-08-2014, 01:41 PM
You asked "Did you add any dechlorinator, vitamin C, or start right to the city water?" All but about 3 gals of the water came from my rain barrels.

I have been noticing some of my Pink Tilapia are not so pink, looks like they're turning a transparent dark gray. Is this normal or is this a toxic condition? I know you said that the Pink Tilapia comes from selected breeding of only the pink ones. Is the gray color just the Blue Tilapia color come out...these are the ones that you eat?

Update on my PH levels today is Wednesday the 8th...Its been 4 days since I removed the Alum. pump from my FT. My PH has gone from 8.2 to 7.6 to 6.8 correct me if I'm wrong, at this point of time I should place some boiled egg shells into my FT to keep it from going below 6.7

Does API STRESS ZYME+ help out my fish or does it just improve my BIO filter?

foodchain
01-09-2014, 09:33 AM
You can eat them all, just wether or not you want to. I only mess with Mossambique tilapia.

Apollo
01-09-2014, 01:08 PM
OK foodchain now you're confessing me...in one of your post on Breeding Tilapia your wrote "I have "pink" tilapia, had for years. I made them from mosambique, and I suppose they still are as I haven't crossed them with anything. I simply kept breeding the orangish pink ones back to each other and culling the grey/black ones out"

Now on Jan 8, 2014 I ask, I have been noticing some of my Pink Tilapia are not so pink, looks like they're turning a transparent dark gray. Is this normal or is this a toxic condition? I know you said that the Pink Tilapia comes from selected breeding of only the pink ones. Is the gray color just the Blue Tilapia color come out...these are the ones that you eat?
Your answer to that question was "You can eat them all, just wether or not you want to. I only mess with Mossambique tilapia".

So...are they the same? Can this color change on about 20% of my fish be from the alum. or is that just the grey/black ones that you're talking about?

One last question...my PH is dropping, it's now at 6.4 and I'm boiling a dozen egg shell to bag and add to the FT. Is that going to be enough egg shells? Is it even possible to add too many?

Sorry for being such a needy person, it all a learning curve...I'm just flat lined right now!

topz
01-20-2014, 11:40 PM
Well Apollo how is the system doing this week. Did the eggshells work to slow the dropping ph? Colors come back in the fish yet? Don't leave us all hanging here.

Apollo
01-21-2014, 08:45 AM
Sorry, been busy chasing the dollar and working on my Vertigrow System.

I put about 2 dozen boiled quail egg shells in a mesh bag and place it into my FT. It slowly brought the PH up to 6.8 - 7.2 depending on which tester I use.

All the fish seems fine except for the largest one, his gills look gray instead of pink. But then again he's one of the Pink Tilapias that slowly started turning light to med gray. This color change started weeks before the water shortage, not sure if this is something to worry about.