GrahamC

These are sudden fish deaths, which is not typical for Mycobacterium marinum which is a chronic wasting disease. So, if there is something killing your fish, it's going to be a bit harder to diagnose. Perhaps HFF might pay for the testing if everyone has sourced their fish from them?

Looks like a bacterial infection causing swelling and clouding of the eye.

You can call it presumptive disease; bacterial, viral or whatever. Doesn't sound like a toxin crossing different water supplies and not affecting all fish. But bacteria and viruses don't have a 100% infection rate, or kill rate.

Gives you a tight head of lettuce.

that's a technical issue.

As opposed to catching them in a net and letting them suffocate? The ethical position is no different between feeding live WCMM ( which are a species basically extinct in their native habitat ), and whitebait, some of which are endangered here.

pricey tank http://www.diginfo.tv/v/12-0150-r-en.php but looks nice. How do you think the plumbing works? All through the central column?

Hmm. What should biosecurity do? Come along and sterilize everyones' tanks?

Why can't you just catch some whitebait and use them as live food?

Ask if she wants a post mortem for closure. What are you going to tell her when your fish start getting sick?

Either they're moving, or, new ones are forming and others vanishing .... I think this is a new life form, a motile form of bubble algae

So, were the fish dead before the filter came back on again, or died after?

They're shrinking so I guess the gas is being absorbed. Perhaps the bubble is acting as a lens so that's why it appears to be green ... showing the underlying algae. I tried ringing WINZ to ask them whom they would suggest for penetration testing .. but the line was busy.

I was under the impression heat pumps weren't that effective way down South ...

Maybe if all the tanks are in the one room it might cut down the heating costs.

My aquaponics setup has been pretty bad so far. My mistake was leaving all the duck weed in the bath so it was grabbing all the nitrates before the terrestrial plants had a chance .. I've never had any detectable nitrates. But I've only got 10 gold fish in the bath. Today I harvested 1kg of duck weed, and hope that my nitrates will soon start to go up. Also planted a banana skin in the grow bed to try and drive aphids away. Adding 1 capful of Seasol once a fortnight, and also added some Flourish iron last week ( couldn't find Yates chelated iron ).

I called the picture angel-bubbles, and they are reflective but hard to see how bubbles can form on the surface of a sponge filter which is negatively pressured. I am resisting poking them!

Wondered about that but looking at them tangentially, they're green. Perhaps the bubbles are being formed under the algae? Also wondered if the fish were making Xmas decorations for their tank :cr8:

Found these green spherical objects on my sponge filter in my angel tank ( 3 angels, unknown gender ). The main ones are the same size, but there are a few much smaller ones. No one is guarding them. There's a light green algae covering the sponge filter, and they look the same colour. Eggs or something else?

Maybe I can slip into Zealandia at night ... and grab a few. They want to clear the lake of all non natives anyway.

I also see Perca fluviatilis ... wonder if it will ever be possible for home aquaponic users to have access to these fish.

The Australians keep trout in their home aquaponics setup ... so it's clearly possible. I don't think I'd be into heating a system, cheaper to just get your fish from the DFS.

There was a hydroponics setup in Motueka ( I think ) that ran an aquaponics trial with techical advice from Dr Wilson Lennard. His PhD is in aquaponics. As far as I can glean, they had an issue with winter time ... guess the fish don't feed so not much nutrient for the plants. I haven't seen any official report on their experiment but it seemed that that aquaponic plants did better than the hydroponic ones. Not sure what fish they had a license to try and grow. Apparently for fruiting plants like tomatoes, you need to add some potassium. Chelated iron is a lot cheaper than buying Flourish iron. So, interesting to see you managed to grow tomatoes as the plants are heavy feeders. My aquaponics setup has been a fizzer so far. The lettuce were attacked by aphids and I didn't notice until too late. Also lack of sunlight so even though roots were over a foot long in the DWC, the plant was just an inch tall and going spindly. My zucchini were also attacked by aphids. Nitrate levels were also unmeasurable and I think this is because I have way too much duckweed present. And also I have far fewer goldfish with only 2 10cm fish, and the remaining 8 being babies in my bathtub. It was mentioned above that trout would not survive. How about perch? I believe Zealandia has perch in their waters as well as trout and natives. Dr Lennard doesn't recommend worms. They just create worm casts which is another form of solid in the grow bed. Worms don't break down fish solids anyway, they just consume the bacteria/fungi. Murray Hallam is quite keen on worms .. but we just don't have any comparative data.

CLT has a strength similar to concrete but much lighter. So, you could build a much bigger tank Price .. not sure. Have to ask the factory in Nelson.

Got a Palmer's Garden Centre?