Doctor Fish's system

Liney

Hey Doc just wondering how you’re going with the fist waste in your IBC tanks? Mine sits away from the SLO and I’m having to use a siphon vacuum most days otherwise it doesn’t go to the growbeds and complete the cycle which is a bit annoying. I’ve placed air stones around but still no luck.

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DoctorFish

Hi Liney,

Fish movement seems the best way to get the solids moving. As I have two virtually identical IBCs, one with SP and one with trout (16 in each) it's interesting to see the difference. The trout tank is far cleaner. The SP don't seem to eat much and are only about 10cm while the trout eat ferociously and are about 25cm. The only attempt I've made to get better circulation at the bottom in the SP tank is to extend the length of the water inlet pipe to the bottom of the tank and put a 45 deg elbow on it to direct the flow. I have also used my vacuum set up to Hoover the bottom once. I wouldn't stress about the solids too much. It's a problem of not having a nice round tank to vortex the solids to the middle. Also, you don't really want all those solids in your GBs, it's why many people use a radial flow filter or similar to remove solids. Remembering it's the ammonia excreted from the fishes gills that is the main issue. Sure the solids play their part, but discarding them from the system seems the norm.

I vacuumed my RFF this weekend, lots of nice fish poo for the other plants in my garden.

Now, if anyone knows how to solve a midge problem, I'd love to hear it.

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Liney

I also noticed my ammonia has gone up to 0.25 since adding the trout and done a few partial water changes but no changes to ammonia which is also annoying. But have noticed nitrates gone from 40+ to just over trace so only nitrites are at trace so hope the water/silt settles quickly.

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boss

Perhaps take a look at @Joeblow's SLOs for IBCs. They work a charm. He's got dual SLOs too.
As far as I know the unprocessed fish waste has no value to plants, worms on the other hand can use it to make fertilizer.
Brian

Liney

Hi Doc hope all’s going well, am thinking of getting another fish tank for silver perch so I can run them all year round while keeping trout in the other for the season. Will add another growbed or 2.

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DoctorFish

Hey Liney,

All good thanks. My system survived the storms we had recently. My sump tank is full as. I'll try and post an update this weekend.

Expansion is always an option. Separating the SP from the trout is sensible in my opinion. Depends on size. I think my trout would snack on the SP if I mixed them. The SP seem to grow very slowly compared to the trout. I'm going to be weighing one or two trout this weekend. You could partition your tank with a screen to separate them as well I guess. I intend to expand eventually, but I'm in no rush. I'm thinking of building a smaller system that can serve as a hospital tank for new fish, using salt tolerant plant species instead of vegetables.

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DoctorFish

OK, quick system update. All seems to be working well. My sump tank is full from all the rain we had recently. I was up at 2AM with a torch during the biggest downpour, fretting the my system would collapse somehow. However, it weathered it fine.

I weighted two of my trout today. They are sitting at 200g. A gain of 60g in 4 weeks. They seem happy feeding well.

Plant wise, my leafy greens are doing well in my DWC, and my bird scarer seems to be keeping the crows away. I'm trying to germinate some if my own at the moment.

The rain induced some disease in my tomatoes and I've had to pull out a whole plant. See pic of the leaves. Cauliflowers seem healthy.

I'm still having a midge problem. I put two koi into my RFF to try and eat some of the wrigglers. Numbers seem down, but too early to tell.

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Liney

Sweet mate. How’d you go with catching your 2 trout with minimizing stress and weighing them? I haven’t measured or weighed my 15 so am only guessing feed ratios as in 1/2 handfuls per morning and night and testing ammonia to see if system can handle it.

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DoctorFish

Liney wrote:

Sweet mate. How’d you go with catching your 2 trout with minimizing stress and weighing them? I haven’t measured or weighed my 15 so am only guessing feed ratios as in 1/2 handfuls per morning and night and testing ammonia to see if system can handle it.

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Using pool scoop net to get one (they pretty easy to catch by letting one swim into it) then place the whole net on the kitchen scales briefly. Only takes 20-30s to do the lot.

The guy I purchased them from said 1-2% of their body weight in feed. So I've been following that approximately.

Regarding testing, I've only got the test strips currently and so far I've not registered anything. Either my strips are rubbish or my filter side of the system is more than adequate for the number of fish I have. I'm thinking the latter, but I really need the API kit to test better. Just unwilling to fork out the money for one on principle. They are way over priced. I'm fairly sure my system is under stocked, so I think the filters are handling it.

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Liney

Are you feeding the perch the same type of feed? I got 5 of them yesterday from woodvale and also some crushed limestone as she said perch needed a little of this until they settle and feed. Very skittish and hide next to the pump.

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DoctorFish

Yep, very skittish. She told me to use limestone as well. Good if you want your pH to sit at 8 and not budge. I'm trying remove mine.

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DoctorFish

To be honest I don't think my SP eat any of the pellets I put in. I recon they are just consuming midge larve in my system.

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Liney

Thanks again if you’ve seen my other post my pH is actually 7.0 but am happy with that so won’t bother with any more limestone for now. Putting in feed for the SP and them being skittish means I won’t have time to watch them eat it so hopefully someone else can shed some light on this.

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DoctorFish

If anyone can comment on whether to use floating or sinking pellets for small SP that would be helpful. Most of my pellets are found uneaten on the surface. I have to scoop them out.

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Liney

Are they the same size as trout feed? I have some small sinking feed but find the fish are always hiding by pump so if I feed them they don’t move and it gets sucked up into the fish tank. No wonder trout are such good fun they see the food and smash it.

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