My fish died

[Adam Shivers]

I was wondering if there are any Ideas how to balance my system without any expensive tests. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to afford a test kit. Maybe it's not possible but I thought maybe someone has had success with something that I could glean from. I started my system with goldfish as I have always had success with them living long in just a bowl that we keep clean. Well why would they all die when the plants are helping me? Too many? - I've never had so many (15 or less) but I've also not had a 55 gallon aquarium either. I've had little one to two gallon bowls before. All of my fish died.

[Adam Shivers]

I'm also about to double my water. my pump died now.

Jonathan Farrand said:

When signs of trouble in the fish department it never hurts for a water change or many untill your system becomes balanced.  Goldfish as you well know are a very hardy fish.  If there isn't visbible signs on the fish of disease,infection, or external parasites you most likely have water in high levels of the nitrogen cycle. A series of slight water changes will remedy toxic fish water. 

[Adam Shivers]

I have no fish as of now

Chandara Khan said:

Well, there are some cheap resolutions to adapt.Generally there are two main problems that cause your fish die. They are water quality and bacteria or virus problems. Since I don't know which one that attacked your fishes, first of all let's talk in case of water quality problem. I personally recommend you to monitor your fish daily activities which means you should take some time to notice your fish's eating, swimming or surface air breathing activities. If you notice that your fishes do not eat as much as usual, it means there is something wrong with your water quality. What I mean is that generally before the fish die there are some clues or signs that can tell you something goes wrong in your system.  Thus the simple resolution is to keep changing your water with clean water. Let say 10% per day and you better check your air stones to see whether their holes are blocked with sediment, algae or fish poo or not. If so, you'd better clean them or use the new ones. You better add more air stones in case you see the fish gulping so often at the surface area of your water. By changing the water like this the concentration of NH4 & and NO2 will be lessen. If it is in the second problem, You need to examine clearly on fish body to whether there is any infection , fin rot or dropsy or not. You'd better use some medicines to cure them. But the simplest medicine is Salt.

[Adam Shivers]

ok, we recently went on a fishing trip and brought back the crappie minnows that we didn't use. they died off for a few days and have paused in there dying. I have been working on my siphon to get it to keep up with my new pump and did that today. I have six minnows left and moving water. I had been on my sprouting venture in order to learn ways to feed my family,remember, TC? well I have set some trays of wheatgrass in the growbed as this will be more growth and less to maintain. I plan to add more water to make up for loss and in the process add a barrel to attempt to double the overall water capacity of the system. I planned to do this earlier but am just getting to it. I fed the minnows a couple of times wondering if I should and haven't fed them in a couple days. I read it was ok to feed them flakes so I just fed them some of my goldfish food I had. they seem to be cleaning residuals off the bottom that I guess were sustaining the biofilter when there were no fish - any thoughts on this ... keeping them alive? next steps? I plan to test water before and after adding more.

[David Waite]

Adam if funds are truly an issue, I think you should consider earth farming. Aquaponics is not cheap nor is it cheaper than dirt to get started. Wait my friend until the economy gets better and then farm fish. Earth or dirt farming is still cheaper unless your water is a buck a gallon.

[Adam Shivers]

I have $150 and no income. -not complaining just letting you know. I'm just trying to tweak what I already have invested my time and money into. I am earth farming as well we started potatoes and peas and swiss chard and lettuce an have berry bushes and asparagus (not ready to cut this year). We plan to plant a lot more. we have warmer crops started in an indoor nursery.    - the thing is I have an inch tall pepper plant ( not dead) that was started in aquaponics a long long time ago. I don't know how some people grow with these methods. I am trying to learn so that I can accomplish not only growing all year but to teach people how to do so. What makes it so expensive to you? just wondering because I feel like there are a lot of things to buy for either. Is it just all the tinkering and testing?

[Kellen Weissenbach]

Give that asparagus 2 more years, and then dig it up, divide it and replant.  You'll have more asparagus than you'll know what to do with.  :)

 

 

[Adam Shivers]

awesome! yeah we are being patient to wait it out yet planning to leave this location soon... we'll see what happens! my main thing is I keep quail and chickens (and doves -but thats just fun) quiail are my big thing and I am on my way to more production soon.

 

Kellen Weissenbach said:

Give that asparagus 2 more years, and then dig it up, divide it and replant.  You'll have more asparagus than you'll know what to do with. 

 

 

[Kellen Weissenbach]

Quail are awesome, aren't they?  I raised quail for years.  I'm actually looking forward to doing that again when we get settled on the new farm this August.

[TCLynx]

In aquaponics I found some things were so stunted for me the first year and some things struggled while other things did just fine.  The next year things did lots better but since my big system was a high pH system many things still did struggle.  This year some crazy things seem to be happening.  I planted water cress that grew like mad over winter and my nitrates are not way down to like 5 ppm (which they have never been so low in the big system before) and now I'm doing very well with things like broccoli, swiss chard and beats have been doing great in the system and I have a sneaking suspicion that many warm weather crops will likely do better for me this year as well.  The lettuce in the towers this past winter was beautiful.

 

Sometimes getting a system to really balance out just takes time.

[Michelle Silva]

I had the same issue with the pepper plants that I had in the vertical towers. I just finally took them out the other day and replanted in the ground..

Thanks for sharing your experience TC..I have about 250 fish now (mainly tilapia now but most are pretty good size). I'm still probably on the low side for the amount of plants I have but I was thinking the issue I had  (with the towers) may be not enough oxygen..will be switching over to experimenting with pine bark nuggets soon as the coco coir I used has become very fine and broken down already and looks like soil.

 

It's only been a week, but the seedlings in the pine bark nuggets in the net pots/rafts seem to be doing good.

[Adam Shivers]

yes - I replanted the peppers with my wife's starts.

Michelle Silva said:

I had the same issue with the pepper plants that I had in the vertical towers. I just finally took them out the other day and replanted in the ground..

Thanks for sharing your experience TC..I have about 250 fish now (mainly tilapia now but most are pretty good size). I'm still probably on the low side for the amount of plants I have but I was thinking the issue I had  (with the towers) may be not enough oxygen..will be switching over to experimenting with pine bark nuggets soon as the coco coir I used has become very fine and broken down already and looks like soil.

 

It's only been a week, but the seedlings in the pine bark nuggets in the net pots/rafts seem to be doing good.

[Adam Shivers]

cool that's what I'm hoping.... I think that if I just KEEP some fish ALIVE for awhile it might help to balance things a bit -in the meantime just having some of my sprouts rinsed for me in the system isn't a waste of the "going through the motions" as far as pumping. I could be way off here but -well I'm used to it!