First, this is an excellent site. I like how active this forum is, and there appears to be a great deal of knowledgeable members. Thank you. I'm glad to now have the opportunity to be a part of it.
I might be a little different than a good portion of the members here, but maybe some can relate. I have started keeping my fish in an aquaponic system. I have hybrid bluegill. Today I netted a bg out of the FT that seemed to be in the last few moments of his short life when I got home from work. There is a large discoloration under the fish, near the back 1/4. I first noticed the fish because I saw something of a misshape about his body. When I netted him out, It looked almost like a fungus or something. By the looks, I thought maybe it would wipe right off, but it did not. I guess I don't really have a great way of describing it. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I will hopefully get the pic attached.
I have a 170 US Gal FT. Pretty regularly my parameters are: PH 8.3 (New system, high due to well water, new media, etc.), Ammonia 0.125-0.250ppm, Nitrites 0.125ppm, Nitrates 60.0-80.0ppm, temp average 65 deg F. The system has been "set up" since Jan/Feb 2013. I didn't have any of my biofilter or plants set up until MUCH later. One day in the beginning of Feb I visited an ice fishing tournament, and came home with some of the leftover bait minnows. Since I had this FT / GB (grow bed) system with aeration already running in my garage for testing purposes, why not put those minnows in there and keep them? If nothing else, at least I would have bait later on in the season if I needed. I started with about 11 minnows, and did partial water change outs every couple weeks, or when I noticed the fish acting strange, or any filth accumulated. Slowly, usually one by one the fish dropped off. (All bait fish, at this point.) By April I only had one or two left. I never noticed anything weird on the fish that had died. In April I started moving the project out of my garage, and outdoors. I installed the media in my GB over the FT, planted my plants in the media, and kept the Lone Survivor bait fish in the tank. Once I knew my bacteria colonies were up and running most excellently, I added 60-70 hybrid bluegill fingerlings. I know this amount of water is too small for that many fish grown out, but I plan on moving them indoors into a much larger tank before winter, and I'm pretty sure the system could handle them all at this point of small size. (Which according to my water test results, proved true.) Introducing the fish into the new tank: This is where I made a huge mistake. I have learned a lot, I'll say that much. The fish were dropped off at my home by my brother. They sat in their bags, floating in my FT for a couple hours before I got home. Then, over the course of only about half and hour, MAYBE and hour, I would dump some FT water into the bags, dump out some, and eventually submerged the bags and chased the fish out. The fish came from a hatchery about two hours away, by the way. At first all seemed to be well. Even after the first 24hrs I still had not had any fatalities, and assumed I was in the clear. The first 24 hours were the roughest, as far as temperature. It had just started getting hot outside (end of the first week of May), and I had a wild temperature swing that first day with the fish while I was away at work. When I got back, I had found the FT temperature had gone from 62F to 78F! Immediately that night I set to work on insulation. About three days later I started to lose fish. At first it was one or two. Then more. Within the last week I have lost close to 25 bluegill. I assumed it was probably PH stress from the introduction, or the massive temperature change during their first 24 hours. Throughout this time I had noticed some strange discolorations on the deceased fish, most in different locations. For example, some had a discoloration directly behind the head the extended back a short distance to the beginning the fin. I usually noticed the discoloring on the fish that were sucked up against the guard of my pump, and I thought, "That doesn't really seem all that unreasonable. I'd probably look funny if I spent hours stuck up against a pump, too." There were a couple of times I noticed a little bit of slime that seemed a little out of the ordinary, but again, I had no way of knowing if that fish had been laying on the bottom for 20 hours or 2 hours, and assumed it might be reasonable to have some slime accumulate after decomposing for 20 hours. By the way, because I removed deceased fish and inspected my system every day, I never had any trouble with ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates.
I feed the fish AquaOrganic fish food that I buy from the aquaponic source dot com, a semi-floating pelleted food.
I wonder if the tank had some disease from all the original bait fish? I wonder if the one left over is somehow immune to it? My reasoning for not sterilizing the tank before the new fish was, "This little guy is still kicking and looking real good! I don't see any reason other fish wouldn't do the same?"
Sorry for the long winded story, but I think that just about covers all the questions I found in the "BEFORE YOU POST HERE" Thread. I hope the picture shows up well! Thanks!
I might be a little different than a good portion of the members here, but maybe some can relate. I have started keeping my fish in an aquaponic system. I have hybrid bluegill. Today I netted a bg out of the FT that seemed to be in the last few moments of his short life when I got home from work. There is a large discoloration under the fish, near the back 1/4. I first noticed the fish because I saw something of a misshape about his body. When I netted him out, It looked almost like a fungus or something. By the looks, I thought maybe it would wipe right off, but it did not. I guess I don't really have a great way of describing it. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I will hopefully get the pic attached.
I have a 170 US Gal FT. Pretty regularly my parameters are: PH 8.3 (New system, high due to well water, new media, etc.), Ammonia 0.125-0.250ppm, Nitrites 0.125ppm, Nitrates 60.0-80.0ppm, temp average 65 deg F. The system has been "set up" since Jan/Feb 2013. I didn't have any of my biofilter or plants set up until MUCH later. One day in the beginning of Feb I visited an ice fishing tournament, and came home with some of the leftover bait minnows. Since I had this FT / GB (grow bed) system with aeration already running in my garage for testing purposes, why not put those minnows in there and keep them? If nothing else, at least I would have bait later on in the season if I needed. I started with about 11 minnows, and did partial water change outs every couple weeks, or when I noticed the fish acting strange, or any filth accumulated. Slowly, usually one by one the fish dropped off. (All bait fish, at this point.) By April I only had one or two left. I never noticed anything weird on the fish that had died. In April I started moving the project out of my garage, and outdoors. I installed the media in my GB over the FT, planted my plants in the media, and kept the Lone Survivor bait fish in the tank. Once I knew my bacteria colonies were up and running most excellently, I added 60-70 hybrid bluegill fingerlings. I know this amount of water is too small for that many fish grown out, but I plan on moving them indoors into a much larger tank before winter, and I'm pretty sure the system could handle them all at this point of small size. (Which according to my water test results, proved true.) Introducing the fish into the new tank: This is where I made a huge mistake. I have learned a lot, I'll say that much. The fish were dropped off at my home by my brother. They sat in their bags, floating in my FT for a couple hours before I got home. Then, over the course of only about half and hour, MAYBE and hour, I would dump some FT water into the bags, dump out some, and eventually submerged the bags and chased the fish out. The fish came from a hatchery about two hours away, by the way. At first all seemed to be well. Even after the first 24hrs I still had not had any fatalities, and assumed I was in the clear. The first 24 hours were the roughest, as far as temperature. It had just started getting hot outside (end of the first week of May), and I had a wild temperature swing that first day with the fish while I was away at work. When I got back, I had found the FT temperature had gone from 62F to 78F! Immediately that night I set to work on insulation. About three days later I started to lose fish. At first it was one or two. Then more. Within the last week I have lost close to 25 bluegill. I assumed it was probably PH stress from the introduction, or the massive temperature change during their first 24 hours. Throughout this time I had noticed some strange discolorations on the deceased fish, most in different locations. For example, some had a discoloration directly behind the head the extended back a short distance to the beginning the fin. I usually noticed the discoloring on the fish that were sucked up against the guard of my pump, and I thought, "That doesn't really seem all that unreasonable. I'd probably look funny if I spent hours stuck up against a pump, too." There were a couple of times I noticed a little bit of slime that seemed a little out of the ordinary, but again, I had no way of knowing if that fish had been laying on the bottom for 20 hours or 2 hours, and assumed it might be reasonable to have some slime accumulate after decomposing for 20 hours. By the way, because I removed deceased fish and inspected my system every day, I never had any trouble with ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates.
I feed the fish AquaOrganic fish food that I buy from the aquaponic source dot com, a semi-floating pelleted food.
I wonder if the tank had some disease from all the original bait fish? I wonder if the one left over is somehow immune to it? My reasoning for not sterilizing the tank before the new fish was, "This little guy is still kicking and looking real good! I don't see any reason other fish wouldn't do the same?"
Sorry for the long winded story, but I think that just about covers all the questions I found in the "BEFORE YOU POST HERE" Thread. I hope the picture shows up well! Thanks!
