A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

fish got big, so has their poop. when to add extra filteration?

Got 6 catfish and 6 bluegill in a 150 gallon tank. Catfish are are about 15 inches long now.

I have a typical setup with pump in fish tank, flood and drain (15 mins on, 45 mins off) to 2 - 40 gallon grow beds with worms. Everythings has been working very well, but i've noticed more poop floating around in the fish tank water. I checked and cleaned the plumbing and the pump, everything's clear and working as it should.

Looks to me the poop has gotten bigger than the grate around the pump. I've been manually siphoning off every other day or so to help keep it clear, but can't seem to catch up. Is it time to consider a filteration addon? Should i remove the grate from around the pump? If i did that would the poop clog and jam the pump?

Thanks in advance for the tips/advice.

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on February 17, 2012 at 5:26am

What do your water tests say? If you are starting to see trace ammonia or nitrite then yes it's time for additional filtration.

I wouldn't remove the grate completely (unwary fish getting sucked up against the inlet could kill fish and pump) but perhaps you need to improvise a different grate for the pump.

Permalink Reply by Michael Welber on February 17, 2012 at 5:45am

I guess I thought that poop is what we want. Great fertilizer.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on February 17, 2012 at 5:52am

Right but he is having trouble getting the poop to the grow beds because the pump is small and the fish have gotten big.

And two 40 gallon grow beds is not much filtration for a 150 gallon fish tank so if the ammonia or nitrite levels start coming up from 0 then it's too much poop for what he has.

By the way a little bit of poo floating around is not a big deal, it will eventually sink and should eventually get sucked out by the pump. However if fish poo or uneaten fish food is building up anywhere in the tank, that needs to get cleaned up or circulation needs to get re-worked so that it gets sucked out of the tank to the grow beds.

Permalink Reply by RW on February 17, 2012 at 7:52am

Correct, the problem is with the poop not getting to the grow beds.

Ammonia and nitrite levels are about .25ppm. The fish tank is probably about 120 gallons full. I don't have the room to add another grow bed. This particular system is in my garage.

I'm doing water changes periodically to help the situation. I'm going to have another system up soon and will be able to spread out the fish. Meanwhile, may look into rigging some sort of external filtration. I guess with a SLO drain and a CHOP system this doesn't become an issue?

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on February 17, 2012 at 8:10am

You might run your pump more often of for longer and see if that helps your water quality seeing as only pumping for 15 minutes per hour you may not be getting as much filtration out of those grow beds as you could be if the water was in them more (longer or more often.)

Permalink Reply by Michael Welber on February 17, 2012 at 8:20am

I wondered about that also since I run my pumps 24/7 and thought that was what most media based, flood and drain systems do. I know some people run on timers.

Permalink Reply by RW on February 17, 2012 at 1:02pm

thanks for the ideas, but if the poop is too big for the pump grate, it's not going to make it. I'm doing flood and drain without a bell siphon, so pump on and off. Will try mixing in a few 30mins on / 30mins off into the cycle and see if it helps.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on February 17, 2012 at 3:53pm

Some people if they have a water quality issue, spike in ammonia or something, will sometimes just turn the pump on to run constant for several hours or even a day and then test to see if that helps before going back to the normal schedule. It can sometimes help to go constant flood if water quality is an issue and you can't add more beds.