Having an algae sale!

[John Foster]

A couple problems...

Literally, in one day, I went from clear water to GREEN!.  My tanks are now covered... but how do i get rid of the green?

I'm still doing water swaps... my ammonia levels are still seemingly pretty high, 4+ ppm.  My bed is beginning to grow... anything else I can do to get the ammonia levels down, while still producing edible fish?  I have read that adding red wigglers to the bed helps... is that true?

[TCLynx]

Stop feeding the fish!

Complete cover to block out light from the fish tank till the algae clears.

Extra aeration.

Water changes may actually be causing you issues.  What kind of fish, how many how big, how big is the fish tank, how big are the grow beds, what kind?

How long has the system been running with the fish?

The issue right now is that your bio-filter probably has not cycled up so you have high ammonia levels.

Here is a blog post about cycling up a system

[John Foster]

I have rainbow trout about 8-10".  They have been in the tanks for 3 weeks, and the tanks were running 3 weeks prior to that... so the bio filter has 6 weeks.  The beds are just IBC tops, so about 4'x4'x8".  Each tank has about 30 fish in it and I have only been feeding about 1/2 cup per day per tank.  They gobble it up in seconds.  I have had to do some water swaps because the ammonia level can get up there.  ATM: Ammonia is 4'ish ppm, Nitrite is about 0.25 ppm, and Nitrate is about 5 ppm.

Thanks for the link on cycling up. :)

TCLynx said:

Stop feeding the fish!

Complete cover to block out light from the fish tank till the algae clears.

Extra aeration.

Water changes may actually be causing you issues.  What kind of fish, how many how big, how big is the fish tank, how big are the grow beds, what kind?

How long has the system been running with the fish?

The issue right now is that your bio-filter probably has not cycled up so you have high ammonia levels.

Here is a blog post about cycling up a system

[TCLynx]

EEK, Trout need good water quality.  High ammonia is not good for them and the nitrite spike that will be coming here shortly will also not be good.  Get ready to salt the system.  Salt for fish health salt can help a little against nitrite toxicity.

So those three weeks you had the water running in the tanks before you got fish, were you adding any ammonia to cycle up the system or were you just pumping water around?  If you were not dosing with any ammonia those first three weeks, then your bio-filter would only have had the time since you got the fish to start cycling.  If you are seeing ammonia levels over 4 ppm, I fear you are only about 3 weeks into the process.

STOP FEEDING, I know they are hungry but only feed them right now if you prefer them DEAD.  Your bio-filter is not up to keeping up with feeding that many fish that much.  I wouldn't feed them till both your ammonia and nitrite are both back under 1 ppm.

So you didn't actually tell us how big your fish tank is or how much grow beds you have total.  What you have said makes it sound like you have 30, 8-10" trout in each partial ibc tank and only one 8" deep IBC top grow bed for each of these fish tanks.  If this is indeed the case and you have no additional filtration, then you have too many fish even if the system were already cycled up.  Seeing as your system is not cycled up yet, you really have too many fish.

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

Your results are of great interest... I wanted to do trout but was warned by the experts & scientists to steer clear until I had enough experience. I hope that you are able to avoid the nitrite iceberg floating in your waters. Please share your results good or bad.