Top 6 Dumbest Things I’ve Done in Aquaponics

It’s good to be able to laugh at yourself, right? Especially if you are laughing about dumb mistakes that you’ve made that you can tell others about – hopefully so that they will avoid making the same ones It is with this spirit of philanthropy that I pass on to you, my fellow aquapons, the countdown of the top 6 dumbest mistakes I’ve made in aquaponics … so far…

#6 – Too many fish in the system – I admit it. I’m doing this right now. I have 70 4″ – 6″ tilapia in about 100 – 120 gallons of water. It looks like a super-highway during rush hour down there. My excuse for this is mostly related to mistake #4 below, but is also related to my general wimpishness about killing fish to eat them (see prior post titled “To Eat or Not to Eat”. The theory was that by now I would have enjoyed for dinner the fully mature tilapia in the neighboring tank by now thus making room for these smaller guys to spread out. Problem is I can’t reach them.

#5 – Used cheap “feeder” goldfish – We had dreams of growing beautiful koi in our newest tank, but thought we should start with goldfish until the system was cycled and we were sure there weren’t any problems. To my delight I could get feeder goldfish for about $.18 at the mega-chain pet store in town. I got about 20 of them, and they died off, slowly but surely, one by one, over a few weeks. Thinking it was probably just cycling stress, I got another 40. Same thing happened. I found out that they probably came in with a disease (why keep them healthy when they are probably destined to be quickly eaten anyway) and that my system needed to be sterilized and recycled. Lesson learned.

#4 – Set up my grow beds over my fish tanks so I can’t access the fish tanks. – When we set up our greenhouse, the most space efficient place to set up the grow beds was over the fish tanks. This is where we put the beds when it was a hydroponic system. With the grow beds over the fish tanks, the the only remaining place for the plumbing was between the beds, basically taking up the remaining accessible room in the tank. Didn’t account for the fact that tilapia are speedy little buggers and not very cooperative about being netted. Plus, I can’t observe what is happening back in the far corners of the tank. Could be a crazy fish party back there…who knows?

#3 – Electrocuted the fish – Its true. One summer evening while having dinner at a restaurant with friends I got a call from my then 14 year old son saying “ah, mom, how come I got shocked when I stuck my hand in the fish tank?” That put a damper on a relaxing dinner, I can assure you. Ends up there was a plug on the ground near the tank that got wet. Won’t do that again. The fish? Well, they stopped swimming and we thought we had lost them but once the shock wore off they snapped out of it and recovered jut fine. Tilapia are amazingly hardy.

#2 – Swung the pH in the fish tank from 8.0 to 6.8 in 5 minutes – I was actually at Nelson and Pade’s workshop in Wisconsin over Memorial Day weekend having just set up my first aquaponics system about 3 weeks earlier. This was a joint project with my son so he and I talked frequently while I was gone and I had him doing pH and other testing on the system daily (side note – it’s great to have excuses to communicate with your teenager, no matter what the topic!). He told me the first morning of the workshop that the pH had climbed to 8.0. I knew that was a big problem so told him how to take the pH back down to 6.8. I then hung up the phone and went into the class. Within an hour Rebecca Nelson instructed the group to ALWAYS take pH down very gradually, i.e. over a period of days. Oh crap! At the break I got Ryan back on the phone but it was too late. He had dropped the pH in our system from 8.0 to 6.8 in a matter of minutes. I think we lost one or two tilapia in that episode. Again, they are incredibly hardy fish.

And the #1 Dumbest Thing I’ve Done – Run tap water into my fish tank all day because I forgot to turn off the hose. – I was at work when I got the call at about 4:00 “ah, mom, I just turned off the hose that was filling up the fish tank. Water was spilling out all over and I think it has been running all day”… Oh crap! I had meant to top off the fish tank in the morning with just a little water, had been distracted, and had left the hose running chlorinated water through the system ALL DAY! Lost about 14 fish and all of my beautiful bacteria. Had to cycle the entire system again. Devastating. Now when I use the hose (i.e. a chlorinated water source) I stick something large in my pocket so the discomfort reminds me of the hose…and the “discomfort “that my fish will feel if I leave it running.

So, what dumb mistakes have you made with your aquaponics system … that you are willing to share?

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