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  1. #21
    Moderator urbanfarmer's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    Hello, what is the pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate readings of your water at the times around the fish deaths?

    I suspect 1 died and the ammonia got out of control because it was left in there too long. The evidence may be "out with the bathwater" given all those water changes.

    As mentioned previously by David, the unionized ammonia in the water increases with the pH. However, the toxicity of unionized ammonia does not increase, this remains constant. What increases is the respective proportion of speciated unionized ammonia in aqueous solution. In other words, you have the same total amount of ammoniacal nitrogen (ammonia/ammonium), but the balance of lethal ammonia to ammonium tips towards the more toxic version of the molecule in water; thus, killing the fish.

  2. #22
    Moderator JCO's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    Thanks you "SHELL ANSWERMAN"...now come back with simple layman terms for the "PEANUT GALLERY"...what should he do to correct his problem and prevent it from happening in the future
    JCO
    Irish eyes are always smiling but
    • "In the eyes of the world, you are only as good as your last success"
    so never forget
    • "MAN IS ONLY LIMITED BY HIS IMAGINATION"

  3. #23
    Members Jeff's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    While I don't have any clear answers as to what happened in this situation, I do have some educated guesses.

    My GUESS is the following:

    1. While my system has been established with healthy fish for two years, I NEVER did any water changes. I only topped off 5-10 gallons a week to account for evaporation. Usually with these top offs, I either never used anti-chlorine/chloramine drops, or I did in small supply.

    2. As the fish have gotten bigger, it caused me to feed more. This caused more waste and probably poor water quality. While the ammonia/nitrites/nitrates never appeared dangerous, it may have caused a parasitic infection in the water. Just a guess.

    3. Once the first fish died and went unnoticed, it probably spiked the ammonia levels as other fish began to feed off the bodies of these fish. I wouldn't know though, because once I saw dead fish, I began to do aggressive water changes.

    4. Due to never having performed a water change, I made a few careless mistakes which I believe contributed to more fish deaths. Mainly, I didn't treat the new water with Stress Coat (which also helps remove chlorine/chloramine), and I didn't acclimate that water before putting it into the system. Since fish can shock and die with as little as 7 degree water temperature difference, I killed a few fish this way.

    Overall, I lost 2/3rds of all my fish. I'm down from 29 beautiful fish to only 8, and a couple of those are still being a little anti-social.

    Here is what I am doing now:

    - Frequent MINI Water Changes. I am changing out 10 gallons every day or two, and adding back the same amount of water which is treated with Stress Coat, and left in an open container for 24 hours.

    - I added a Radial Flow Filter to help remove a lot of the fish waste from the tank

    - I also began adding some SALT to the new water being added, although I have since scaled that back because I don't have a Salinity Refractometer to keep track of how salty the water is.

    I haven't had a fish die in over a week now, and I don't plan on buying anymore fish until I feel more comfortable with how the system is behaving.

    I thank ALL OF YOU who have contributed to this thread and helped me out.
    ------------
    My System: Jeff's Backyard System Here We Go!

  4. #24
    Members Aloha Don's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    Is it REALLY necessary to do that much water changes???
    I was under the impression that once the system cycled and stabilized, then the system would basically take care of itself with constant monitoring and tweeking from us.....
    Put all excuses aside and remember this: YOU are capable - Zig Ziglar

  5. #25
    Members Jeff's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    Normally, you want to do a water change to maintain good water quality. This is even more recommended if you suspect that you have some kind of parasite which may be killing your fish.

    Due to the problems I've had in this thread, I wanted to rule out that kind of thing, so until I feel like my system is stabilized, I am doing these MINI water changes.

    Again, I stress the word MINI. My system probably has about 160 gallons of water in it, and I may only be changing 10 gallons of water at a time. That's not enough to shock the bacteria cycle, nor is it enough to shock the fish.....but over time, it should dilute and replace any water that may not be healthy for the fish (at least that's my thought on it).

    I only plan to do these mini water changes for about a week or so. Then I will leave things sit and only do a 10-gallon water change once a week or so (along with topping off the system to account for evaporation).
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    My System: Jeff's Backyard System Here We Go!

  6. #26
    Members dead_sled's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    A few questions on the Stress Coat:
    1) Is it safe to eat?
    2) How will it affect the bacteria?
    Less irritating avatar since 02/27/14.

  7. #27
    Moderator JCO's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    Some people swear by water changes but I think that initially came from the home Aquarist who kept tropical fish. Since they did not have any sumps, grow beds or bio-filters to take care of the fish waste, it stayed in the aquarium and became toxic when left unattended. Additionally, water changes will not remove parasites from a system.

    I personally have never made water changes to my indoor AP system in over 5 years. It consists of a 100 gal aquarium, bio-filter and grow bed with herbs in it. All I have ever done is add water weekly to make up for the natural loss which takes place.

    Also no water has ever been removed from my KOI breeder AP system outside in the last 10 years or so. Even when I relined it with new plastic this year, I pumped it out into my swimming pool which contains yearling KOI, and then pumped it back from the pool to the pond. "THE POND", that's what I call my man-made 4,000+ fish tank I built to run my outdoor AP system.

    When set up correctly and cycled, an AP system will, over time, become its own eco system and balance itself out naturally on its own.

    In your case, it would seem to be by having a fish die off. This was possibly due to the fish having become larger and receiving more feed, thus producing more waste and this created the upset in the system and some of the fish, usually the weeker ones, had to go to rebalance itself.

    When I started my indoor system, it had approx. 100 Ryukin goldfish about 1" long. Over time I have culled, removed and sold all but 6 which I have kept as breeders. During that growout I have lost 3 goldfish to swimbladder problems and that's all.
    JCO
    Irish eyes are always smiling but
    • "In the eyes of the world, you are only as good as your last success"
    so never forget
    • "MAN IS ONLY LIMITED BY HIS IMAGINATION"

  8. #28
    Members Jeff's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    JCO - Man, I wish I lived closer to you. I'd love to visit your place for a tour!

    Back to the point you raised, there is no doubt in my mind that I overfed some of these guys. Instead of feeding small amounts a few times a day (as some recommend), I was feeding 1-2 super large amounts of food. Then when I lost my first initial 6+ fish, I forgot to scale back the food, so I was still feeding the same large amount as if those fish were still there to consume. I'm sure that really caused some havoc with my system.

    One thing I am still not sure about is PARASITES. Let me ask you this: I still notice an occassional long CLEAR poop in the water. It looks almost like a jellyfish tentacle, is the best way to describe it.

    From my online research, I have found differing answers, but the two most prevalent ones say the following:

    1. Clear poop indicates a fish who may not be eating (and therefore, it's just a clear gel that comes out). Fish poo should be the same color as their food.

    2. Clear poop indicates parasites

    So assuming that the answer is #2, what would you do in an aquaponics setup? You don't really want to use too many chemicals to treat parasites because of the veggies, but you also don't want to treat for any diseases when it may just be something benign.

    Do you ever notice just clear (and I mean CLEAR....SEE THRU) poop just floating in your water? The length of some of these clear wormy-looking poops can be up to an inch long.
    ------------
    My System: Jeff's Backyard System Here We Go!

  9. #29
    Members Roger L.'s Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    Jeff, I have seen those type of poop from my tilapia when all they get is store bought fish food. When I started supplementing with duckweed it has a brown color. I would venture to guess that just like humans, what comes out reflects what went in.
    At what point did our government cease to be of the people, by the people, and for the people?

  10. #30
    Moderator JCO's Avatar
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    Re: How I DECIMATED my aquaponics system and I have no idea

    I believe you are talking Goldfish here...and that kind of poo is not uncommon for them if being overfed.

    Change up the food and add some that contains algae and cut off on the feed for about 3 days...they won't starve. When you start back to feeding them, REMEMBER...SMALL AMOUNTS no less than two times per day...what they will eat in 5 minutes.
    JCO
    Irish eyes are always smiling but
    • "In the eyes of the world, you are only as good as your last success"
    so never forget
    • "MAN IS ONLY LIMITED BY HIS IMAGINATION"

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