Comment

Comment by David Schwinghamer on July 23, 2012 at 7:47pm

super high nitrites!

Comment by David Schwinghamer on July 23, 2012 at 7:46pm

Whats the deal with all this death talk, its bringing me down. Yes I did experience some deaths in the beginning but now I cant think about killin fish especially Tilapia. My fish have been rode hard and put away wet literally? No oxygen for 18 hours, no food for 4 days, I just keep going and going and going and going and going and...

Comment by Zach Moler on July 23, 2012 at 7:33pm

had my first fish death, i dont remember seeing it there when i fed this morning, but im sure I could of missed it. ammonia only at .5, added some rain water, hopefully its the first and last =/

Comment by John Malone on July 23, 2012 at 1:39pm

Freshwater Master Test Kit

I sent the following email to API, the makers of the test kit a lot of us use:

Are there any special considerations regarding storage of the Freshwater Master Test Kit?

Are any of the test solutions affected by high temperatures, such as 110F or above?

What is the shelf life of the kit?

This was the reply I received.  (Highlights are mine)

John I would try to keep the kit stored at room temperature.  If it gets heated up it should not be affected but you do not want it to go through constant warming and cooling periods or vice versa.  To determine if the reagents are expired, each reagent bottle has a Lot # printed on the top front of the bottle. The last four digits are the month and year of manufacture. Example: Lot # 28A0110. This is a pH reagent manufactured in January of 2010.  PondCare Wide Range pH, Phosphate, Copper, Calcium and GH all last for three years.  Ammonia, PondCare Ammonia, Nitrite, PondCare Nitrite, Nitrate, High Range pH, KH, Freshwater pH(low range) and PondCare Salt Level will last for five years. I would not use or trust these kits after they have expired.  

If you have any other questions or wish to discuss this further, please email back or give us a call at 1-800-847-0659.

Another nugget of information to tuck away to eliminate variables from the AP equation.

Cheers.

Comment by John Malone on July 23, 2012 at 1:19pm

A BIG Thanks

Q: How do you know if someone is a good friend?

A: Get them to help clean out an 500 gallon AP fish tank that stinks of dead fish!

A HUGE thanks to Jacques for coming over on Saturday, lugging gross water, passing the tools and being encouraging.

Thanks buddy!

Comment by John Malone on July 23, 2012 at 1:09pm

Moving On

After the last fish died, I knew I had to do a few things.  Here's what I've done, and why.

1) Dumped all the water from the system.  If there's some contaminant in it I don't want it.   (Side note : the lawn jumped out of the ground overnight... amazing!)

2) Refolded the liner on the fish tank.   Previously I had loose folds in the corners and I was concerned that fish might get stuck in there, die and then putrefy the water.  Guess what?  There were several dead fish stuck in the folds.   I don't know which came first.  Did the fish get stuck and then die, or did the fish die and get stuck?  It's a critical question that I don't have an answer to.   A couple of the trapped fish were no more than skeletons, so they'd been there a long time.

3) Reconstructed the fish tank cover for better access to the deep dark regions.  Hinged lids are much easier to open than those that are screwed down.

4) Started construction on a second grow bed.   Why?  Two reasons.  a) More growing space.  b) Extra filtering capacity.

I've refilled the fish tank, let it degas overnight with air pumping through it and have restarted the system.   I tested the water and was very surprised that there was 1ppm of ammonia in there.   Hmmmm.....  Rushed inside and tested a water sample straight from the faucet.  1ppm.    Grrrrr!   I think I've been chasing my tail for weeks.    I was topping up the fish tank as often as I could to try and dilute the 0.5ppm reading that I was getting.  I may have actually been adding ammonia to the system, rather than diluting it.   It also casts doubt of ammonia poisoning of the fish as the system was running at 0.5ppm while I had 30 fish, some dead in the folds and me adding 1ppm top-up water.    Given those conditions my beneficial bacteria were doing a pretty good job!

I hope to have the second grow bed built by the end of the week.  I'm expecting the system to still be fully cycled, but I'll run some ammonia through it to be sure.

I should be ready for some more fish in a couple of weeks.

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on July 23, 2012 at 11:45am

@Zach Will do.

Comment by Zach Moler on July 23, 2012 at 11:37am

I'm sure it'll work doc, but just fall over when they get too tall unless you secure em

Comment by Dr. George B. Brooks, Jr. on July 23, 2012 at 10:58am

Probably won't work but will be interesting. Floating raft aquaponic corn.

http://bit.ly/P3boWl

Comment by Bob Campbell on July 23, 2012 at 8:53am

@Robert Rowe - How deep do you keep the water in those pipes?

Why did you glue the pots into the pipes?

What size are the pipes and how much do they cost?

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