Aska's Aquaponics: System Update

Here's an update on my system...

Ammonia: 0.5

Nitrite: 0.5

Ammonia and nitrite were at 1.0 yesterday. The reason was due to 2 dead tilapia at the bottom of the fish tank. I've been feeding them irregularly, sometimes 1 tsp per day, sometimes 2 tsp, and sometimes none...

Tilapia left: 88

The insect screen is doing its job well. Here's 3 days worth of fallen debris over the guppy tank. There should be more as I had removed accumulated leaves for the past few days...

To reduce algae in the system, I shaded the fish tank using 50% shade cloth folded over several times. It's quite dark inside there.

I also bought a new Resun aerator with auto-switching backup power for RM170. Comes with a flowrate controller dial and consumes electricity at the rate of 10W. This thing weighs like a brick...!

Because this aerator is meant for indoor use, it has to be shielded from direct sunlight and rain. Hooking it underneath the growbed should be good enough. I tied cotton strings across the iron bars to act as support for the aerator body. This is only a temporary solution, since the aerator is pretty heavy and I shouldn't risk having the aerator fall and tear through the green insect screen into the fish tank below. I need something stronger for support...

I hope that with this amount of aeration, the tilapias will be happier... :-)

I'm not sure the reason, but some of my tilapias appear to be gasping at the surface. They had been behaving like this since I bought them. I don't think the current level of nitrites can block so much oxygen absorption. Could it be a permanent gill damage caused by the stress endured during the one hour journey from the farm to my house?

As for the plants, mint is growing strong. They are also starting to droop sideways... Have they begun executing their plans of conquering the entire growbed already?