Comment

Comment by Jeff S on June 29, 2015 at 4:22pm

Leo, I'm definitely no expert but I give my fish (Tilapia) 2 minutes to clean up the food but I do that to control ammonia levels since I have large stocking density for my limited media beds. I could see feeding them more if there was enough of a filter to get them to grow but goldfish in a starter system with 15 minutes of food seems like overkill until you find the ammonia/nitrate balance.

Comment by Leo White Bear on June 29, 2015 at 1:16pm

Robert-

  I see your thoughts and I agree absolutely.  What does one do to a hot bowl of soup to cool it down?  They blow on it.  With the fan blowing across the surface of the water, just this action will cool it down.  With the added advantage, if you blow hard enough to ripple the water surface you will also add oxygen to the water.  People are under the misconception that it is the air bubbles passing through the water that adds the most oxygen but that's just not true.  It is added when the surface water is moved and it doesn't have to be white wave action.  Although this will add more O2, obviously, but just the action of water movement will cool and add O2.

Comment by Robert Rowe on June 29, 2015 at 8:13am

I live in Arizona. I have a 1500 gallon system of which the largest volume is my 700 Gallon Fish Tank. Currently with an outside air temperature of 112 Deg my water is 78-81 Degrees. I simply keep the sun off my tank and have a variable speed Fan blowing over the water surface. In addition "No Sun, No Algae".

Comment by Leo White Bear on June 29, 2015 at 4:58am

Remember that your system should be able to handle 1-pound of fish per 5-gallons of water.  Although I would go a bit less than that when just beginning with goldfish as they tend to be a bit dirtier than other species.  How large a water volume do you have?  A lot of the nutriments come from your feed and not just from your fish, you need to still keep an eye out on how your fish eat and how fast, keep notes in the beginning as this will help you to determine how much to feed them.  When you feed your fish, measure the amount of feed and see if they clean it up in the next 15-minutes.  If it is gone before that time, give them a bit more the next feeding.  If there is some left after 15-minutes, feed less next feeding.

Comment by justalilcrazy on June 29, 2015 at 2:44am

Leo, thx for commenting. No additives in ammonia. I actually stopped adding ammonia for 4 days and nitrites didn't seem to change. I dosed to 2ppm on friday morning but haven't since. Probably gonna start with goldfish. My first set up and i want it fully functional before i add a more pricey species.

Comment by Leo White Bear on June 28, 2015 at 9:30pm

The nitrite level is not that bad.  If you are experiencing nitrates being 100ppm it is time to add plants.  These will take up the nitrates to a safer level.  When the nitrates are at 40ppm you can add fish.

  Stop adding the ammonia and let the bacteria balance out to 40ppm.  What species of fish do you plan on using? 

  Check your pH, with these levels, it will be throwing off your system.  If you get to a pH of 7.0 you are doing well.  With the hydroton, there should be no reason to have the high pH so I'm leaning to the ammonia and high nitrates.  Does your ammonia have any additives?  Check the back of the package and see if it is actually 100% ammonia. 

Comment by justalilcrazy on June 28, 2015 at 7:41pm

I've been cycling my ststem for about 4 weeks. Fishless and plantless. Achieved nitrites and nitrites. Been waiting for nitrites to disappear to add fish. When i add ammonia to 2ppm it's gone within 12 hours but nitrites stay at 2ppm. Nitrates are at about 100ppm ph is at 7.6. I've lowered ph but it just creeps back up. F&d system with hydroton media at 75°F. Any thoughts?

Comment by Michael Lane on June 20, 2015 at 7:48pm

This I will try thanks

Comment by Leo White Bear on June 20, 2015 at 2:59pm

Michael-

  Jeff may be right depending on you location and soil type.  Here in Wisconsin we are sand and rock.  By digging down as far as you can with a post hole digger equals approx. 4'.  The sand moisture acts like a heat sink and works for a while.  Then you are just pumping warm water back into your tank.

  To keep my fish cooled down, I had to build a spiral cooler, covered with burlap.  I pumped water from a designated sump tank to the top of the cooler and let it trickle down through the burlap and back into the cooler sump wetting it down.  As the breeze flowed through the unit it cooled the water flowing through the 3/4" plastic piping by 10-degrees.  This worked best for me but we all know there are many ways to skin a cat.

Comment by Jeff S on June 20, 2015 at 11:00am

Michael, I have often wondered why folks in warm climates don't just run irrigation tubing 4-5ft under ground and pump their fish water through it to cool it down. Not a quick fix but I think cost effective. You could do something as simple as a post hole digger as deep as you can go and put (2) 1/2" tubes joined by (2) 90s at the bottom then refill the hole.

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