Progress

Been a difficult few days. The supports to our deep water channels subsided at the far end. We had concreted most of it and expected the remaining few were on good enough ground to cope with the rain. Not the case.  Seems if shit is going to happen to our system it will!!!

So we lost water and obviously nutrients etc. Added drama was the shade cloth split in the wind.
Being away and leaving it all to Wanna seems a bit unfair but what can I do!!! She did a great gob and got it all sorted. Needless to say it has had some effect on the fish. Fresh water etc.  We have also continued and had a few of the small fish die. Roughly one a day this last week. The bigger tank is fine and they have got back into the habit of jumping up for food. Good sign. However given the mortality rate for the smaller ones and looking at the waste coming from the tank (see below) I suspect we are giving them to much food. Wanna (again down to her) has reduced the feed on the small ones by 50% yesterday and the waste/return looked good with little to nothing rising to the surface in the big tank. So all is beginning to look positive.

We're (royal we) have also planted "Morning Glory', an easy fast growing hardy plant with does take up a lot of nutrient but gets everything up and underway in what I hope will from now on be a continuous manner.

Additional Works

Wanna has just installed the shade cloth and this covers the seedling area and the tanks. Very pleased with it all.

Update.

We've been busy. New setup is beginning to settle down. Tank 2 with larger fish I suspect is not so good as we used tap water to fill it. So fish not happy and suffering a bit of a shock. Hence a few fatalities. Why we did this I do not know. Just stopped thinking while trying get so much done.

Anyway I've used Dr Racoky feed tables as a guide. (Reproduced here in separate page).

Also finished realigning the airlines, all over head and compressor in the shed. Saves exposure to rain etc and possible theft. Yes still a bit shaken by that incident. And now all left is to add some more plants and sit back with a coffee or two and see it develop....Oh yes and feed the fish....

Major Upgrade

Well we've been at this for some time. Problems with insufficient fish mass, some stolen and resulting poor crop growth.

We decided (Management decision) to expand our system. Several reasons, first being there was next to no cost involved as we already owned several concrete water tanks which were not in use and secondly to allow for two tanks giving a bit more flexibility  for faih amanagemtn. i.e. two tanks better than one.  If we have more spare we would have used them as well. Anyway thankful for what we've got.

In expanding we used the existing fish tank as our main settlement tank and continued using existing settlement tank as well.

Results for water quality. Testing scheduled for this afternoon but this mornings visual observations, water in fish tanks is clear, settlement tank a bit of floating debris but not much. Think it is some of the first fish food after relocating the fish and also poo.  Bio tank is cristal clear.

Small tank has two dead fish yesterday and three today. They only went in 2 days ago so thats not so surprising.

System is now 2 X 1000 litre tanks.
Settlement Tank 1  1000 litres
Settlement Tank 2  250 litres
Bio Tank  Tank 1 250litres
Deep Raft Grow beds 12 meters x 0.9 x 0.3 Approx 3,000 litres

All go.

Very Rough System Diagram......

Bio Filter Tank

Secondary Settlement Tank

MAin Settlement Tank

Fish Tank 1  Feeding Time

Water Testing

Just tested the water. Results look OK. I've put them all on a separate page.  Much easier to review. But plant growth is poor. Not sure where I am going wrong with all this. Will need to get some expert advice.

Stolen Fish

Stolen. Yes you read right. We've been away for a few days and when we got back I went to say hello and no reply. Some Bastard has taken out fish. I will find out who. Wanna keeps going to check but... So move on. Buy some more. Which we did this morning. Bummer...... Food for thought anyone with an open fish area.