To current or not to current, that is the question.

[urbanfarmer]

I bubble out any new water to remove the Chlorine smell.

That works for 'chlorine'....if you have 'chloromines'....it won't (well, maybe in a month of bubbling.. ) A quick call to you water dept might be worth the effort. It would eliminate one possibility...

Well one thing worth noting is that I do normally use this stuff called "Prime" which apparently removes Chlorine and Chloromines and the lady at the pet store did tell me I would need to use it, but I wasn't sure how that reacted with plants so I figured I'd just bubble the water but perhaps that's the problem. I sure hope it doesn't harm my big healthy gold fish.

The plants seem great anyhow.

Yea, I wouldn't add any weird chemicals unless you know exactly what's in it. Like David said chlorine will "bubble out" but chloramine will not.

OKAY, so I was right. Your fish most likely died and continue to die due to the chlorine/chloramine.

http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/waterquality/datatables.htm
http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/waterquality ... e3_003.pdf
http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/waterquality ... JGAN10.pdf

Our friend Google has shown us the way! Your water contains chlorine, monochloramine, and dichloramine. In other words: SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS!!!

How big is your system? You can truck in some RO or distille water or buy a reverse osmosis unit for your house?

Since your tank and filters are in place, you can try loading it up with a lot of activated carbon and letting it run for a day or 2. Change the carbon half way through. It's slow, but it does remove it.

If you're more of a chemist, you can try this:

Removing chloramine from water

Chloramine can be removed from tap water by treatment with superchlorination (10 ppm or more of free chlorine, such as from a dose of sodium hypochlorite bleach or pool sanitizer) while maintaining a pH of about 7 (such as from a dose of hydrochloric acid). Hypochlorous acid from the free chlorine strips the ammonia from the chloramine, and the ammonia outgasses from the surface of the bulk water. This process takes about 24 hours for normal tap water concentrations of a few ppm of chloramine. Residual free chlorine can then be removed by exposure to bright sunlight for about 4 hours.

[wh33t]

I bubble out any new water to remove the Chlorine smell.

That works for 'chlorine'....if you have 'chloromines'....it won't (well, maybe in a month of bubbling.. ) A quick call to you water dept might be worth the effort. It would eliminate one possibility...

Well one thing worth noting is that I do normally use this stuff called "Prime" which apparently removes Chlorine and Chloromines and the lady at the pet store did tell me I would need to use it, but I wasn't sure how that reacted with plants so I figured I'd just bubble the water but perhaps that's the problem. I sure hope it doesn't harm my big healthy gold fish.

The plants seem great anyhow.

Yea, I wouldn't add any weird chemicals unless you know exactly what's in it. Like David said chlorine will "bubble out" but chloramine will not.

OKAY, so I was right. Your fish most likely died and continue to die due to the chlorine/chloramine.

http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/waterquality/datatables.htm
http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/waterquality ... e3_003.pdf
http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/waterquality ... JGAN10.pdf

Our friend Google has shown us the way! Your water contains chlorine, monochloramine, and dichloramine. In other words: SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR LITTLE FRIENDS!!!

How big is your system? You can truck in some RO or distille water or buy a reverse osmosis unit for your house?

Since your tank and filters are in place, you can try loading it up with a lot of activated carbon and letting it run for a day or 2. Change the carbon half way through. It's slow, but it does remove it.

If you're more of a chemist, you can try this:

Removing chloramine from water

Chloramine can be removed from tap water by treatment with superchlorination (10 ppm or more of free chlorine, such as from a dose of sodium hypochlorite bleach or pool sanitizer) while maintaining a pH of about 7 (such as from a dose of hydrochloric acid). Hypochlorous acid from the free chlorine strips the ammonia from the chloramine, and the ammonia outgasses from the surface of the bulk water. This process takes about 24 hours for normal tap water concentrations of a few ppm of chloramine. Residual free chlorine can then be removed by exposure to bright sunlight for about 4 hours.

My tank is about 90 gallons. I will try some things out and see how it goes. Thanks for the info guys!

[urbanfarmer]

Something else I compltely forgot to mention is that you can use ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to remove the chloramine. For 90 gallons I would suggest about 3000 mg of ascorbic acid.

There are other methods like letting the water sit in the sun or boiling it, but it's a very slow process! (And don't let anyone tell you it doesn't work because clearly they have not seed the equilibrium reaction equations!!!). The quote from wikipedia says 4 hours, but it would actually take 6-8 hours of GOOD sun to remove the chloramine in your water at your concentration... anyway, try something and let us know how it works!!!

Also, they have products like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006I ... B0006IX87S

It says it removes chloramine. I'm not sure how well, but it looks like a carbon filter of some sort. That may be your easiest bet!!!

[wh33t]

Something else I compltely forgot to mention is that you can use ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to remove the chloramine. For 90 gallons I would suggest about 3000 mg of ascorbic acid.

There are other methods like letting the water sit in the sun or boiling it, but it's a very slow process! (And don't let anyone tell you it doesn't work because clearly they have not seed the equilibrium reaction equations!!!). The quote from wikipedia says 4 hours, but it would actually take 6-8 hours of GOOD sun to remove the chloramine in your water at your concentration... anyway, try something and let us know how it works!!!

Also, they have products like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006I ... B0006IX87S

It says it removes chloramine. I'm not sure how well, but it looks like a carbon filter of some sort.

Imma just set up a rain barrel

[urbanfarmer]

Something else I compltely forgot to mention is that you can use ascorbic acid (vitamin C) to remove the chloramine. For 90 gallons I would suggest about 3000 mg of ascorbic acid.

There are other methods like letting the water sit in the sun or boiling it, but it's a very slow process! (And don't let anyone tell you it doesn't work because clearly they have not seed the equilibrium reaction equations!!!). The quote from wikipedia says 4 hours, but it would actually take 6-8 hours of GOOD sun to remove the chloramine in your water at your concentration... anyway, try something and let us know how it works!!!

Also, they have products like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006I ... B0006IX87S

It says it removes chloramine. I'm not sure how well, but it looks like a carbon filter of some sort.

Imma just set up a rain barrel

Even better!

[wh33t]

Well I learned a few things. Little fishes DIE in big current. I turned my venturi downwards about 60 degrees. The water still circulates and moves in the tank but it's not so vigorous anymore. I lost about 60 fish learning this lesson. I thought they kept dying because of fungus and ph swings and what not... I've put 100 new goldies into my tank and only lost 1 so I'm pretty sure it was the current.

[davidstcldfl]

Don't you love the learning curve...? We all go through it....

Glad to hear you figured it out !....

[wh33t]

Don't you love the learning curve...? We all go through it....

Glad to hear you figured it out !....

I do Learning is addictive!

I think I'm almost ready for Talapia.

[urbanfarmer]

I have a system that is highly efficient at converting wastes. All the values stay at 0 even if I intentionally pour tons of ammonia into the system. The pH is between 9-10. It is a very unconventional method of aquaponics and I have yet to find anything published with a similar method. Pretty cool huh? pH isn't everything. Keep experimenting and you may even discover a better way to build the mouse trap!

[wh33t]

I have a system that is highly efficient at converting wastes. All the values stay at 0 even if I intentionally pour tons of ammonia into the system. The pH is between 9-10. It is a very unconventional method of aquaponics and I have yet to find anything published with a similar method. Pretty cool huh? pH isn't everything. Keep experimenting and you may even discover a better way to build the mouse trap!

That is very unconventional! Do they not experience any nutrient lock out being that high? What is it that you able to grow in such a high PH?