I really messed up bad! Must have slightly lifted the siphon tube to my clarify tank last night letting in a little air when doing a water change. Something didn't feel right but...

Anyway, even though i came back and checked an hour later and everything was fine, this morning I came down to 170 plus yellow perch and three bluegills as dead as they come with only 6 inches of water in the bottom of the tank. Apparently as the siphon failed going into the clarifier tank, that tank got pumped down by the pump that sends water to the biofilter tank. The siphon in the biofilter tank that flows water back to the fish tank via gravity responded by pulling water to the biofilter tank, overflowing onto the floor draining the fish tank. Eventually the agitator was left high and dry reducing oxygen levels and there wasn't enough water in the fish tank for the fish breath. All this while I'm fast asleep at night.

I have to move on but I have learned and will make changes in the future.

1.) I'll have an alarm to let me know levels drop below a certain level.

2.) The overflow to the fish tank from the biofilter tank will be gravity instead of a second siphon.

3.) I'll listen to the my intuition that tells me something isn't right (as in this case I should have refilled the siphon tube if I had any doubts if something is wrong.) Two ways I've gone wrong in my life: listening to others against my own thoughts and not listening to that little voice inside me.

I'm guessing there are also fish on the floor around the tank but the picture doesn't do the number of dead fish justice.

Wow Cecil, that's a real bummer, sorry to hear about your loss.

I found an alarm on ebay, maybe something like this will work.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Aquarium-Tank-Sound-...=item4aa91e9cad

Thanks ADK. I'll definiely have to do that in the future. No fish to worry about now though.

What really burns me is normally I could replace them economically from my former perch supplier in Ohio that sells "shooters" to Ohio residences. But thanks to the VHS testing requirements and their expense, he can't justify selling them across state lines. Meanwhile a guy breaks the law twice importing Asian carp into Canada and the first fine of $40,000 wasn't enough to stop him from doing it again. I'm think his hauls are worth much more. As usual the government going overboard with regs only hurts the honest people.

Unfortunately when the Govmt. makes a stupid law it forces many honest people to choose weather to go out of business or chance breaking the law to make a living.
This was the situation a trout farm I use to buy from was put in.

Cecil-what does the term "Shooter" mean when you are talking about the perch?

Dave J

Dave,

A shooter is any fish that is well ahead in growth of the other fish. These fish were the creme of the crop of last years production and now they become crow food. Live and learn I guess.

Sorry to hear about this Cecil... That had to make you feel sick to your stomach!

It's just a setback although an expensive one. I consider myself lucky when I see the misfortune of others.

Unlike ponds the fish in an RAS are in a situation similar to our astronauts in space that are living in a hostile environment. That is if their environment is compromised it means death. That's why just like NASA, with an RAS, you need everything covered and nothing is left to chance. Even redundant systems like NASA.

Turns out it was not the siphon. The drain hose for the biofilter that is supposed to be curled up against the tank was laying on floor uncurled. That's how the system got drained. For some reason the lock tie that was holding it up had released as it's not broken. The zip tie won't lock either but I know it did before. Perhaps poor quality? Next time I'll even add a plug to the end of the hose.

In hind site I'm not sure making it easy to drain the tank was a good idea. If I had just left a plug in the tank fish would still be swimming.

Those appear to be some very nice sized fish from the 2010 hatch. Look at that really nice YP that the end of the zip tie points to. I hate to think of all the hours and effort that went into getting those fish to March 6th. What is it they say - One has to kill thousands of fish to be a certified fish grower. CB1 you are earning your 'stripes' and fish grower badge of knowledge. You have a good attitude - hang in there buddy. It would be my luck if Iput those fish out for crow food the neighhbors would report me for smelling up the neighborhood!.

You just had to remind me of all that didn't you!

My dad always told me no matter what happens the sun still comes up the next morning!

YP will spawn again this spring.

Sorry about that Cecil. If you are using a one man system redundancy is a must. Interior (in tank) and exterior (in hose) plugs may work. Have to have both out to let it drain. Protocol always do the inside plug first then the outside. Then the hose end/exit will tell you if its right.

Very true! I know that now.

That's why there is sex. It's a motivator to reproduce. If it wasn't any fun animals probably would have gone extinct from the get go.

Well, at least you know you can do it as you've already done it once... It's 1 year and not 5, look at it on that bright note.

Bummer Dude! At least you can fix that bug. A simple ball valve on your drain should do the trick.

I was never too confident in a siphon, although it has worked for you. Risk is too high for me.

Even though your Perch have XX eyes, you had some pretty good results. Keep moving forward

As I said the siphon turned out to not be the problem.



Yep!

Yeah but I'll be without an age class for 2010 which hurts my ability to harvest a new age class each year.

BTW at least one of the females had egg development as you can see here. She's an 8 inch fish.




Either she started eggs before I planted her this fall, or they do develop in warmer water, but perhaps not as well as they would in cold water. Or there are exceptions and the literature that says they can't or won't in warmer water is not correct.

If I am reading it correctly, you were able to grow a YP to 8" in less than a year? If so, that is impressive!

I've had sunfish produce eggs and successfully spawn in aquariums where water temps never dropped below 68 degrees. No change is photoperiod either... Not sure how they knew it was time to spawn? Somehow they did though.

sorry to hear cecil, i've been trying to follow your threads, i have 2 extremely small batches of fish i'm raising indoors.. your work has helped me quite a bit

Dang it Cecil, that's too bad. I've gravitated away from white zip ties - they don't seem to last as long as the black ones, and if used outside, they degrade very quickly.

Didn't you say you wanted to drain that tank and re-paint it? Now's the chance.

It was a black zip tie and it didn't break. It fooled me into thinking it locked securely (it did lock) but when I pulled on it after putting it back together it slipped apart. Probably from that country where there is little quality control if you know what I mean. I heard a high rise construction worker was killed by one of their bolts that snapped when he was tightening it. He fell to his death. All in the name of the more profits for the stock holders I guess.

Thanks for the kind words and good luck with your system. As I've said before here I make every mistake once, which is my method of learning. Once I get all the bugs out I'm really a good teacher.

Cecil don't you have another RAS, and how are things going with that?

The plan was to transfer the fish to that one once the tank was re-epoxied etc. Didn't happen even though it was epoxied beautifully. I now have two systems with no fish. The plan is to only use them in the winter.

I remember reading years ago about some RAS failures. These were companies that spent the long dollar and lost it all to various mishaps.

One in particular, that had a similar problem as Cecil comes to mind.

It was around 100,000 gallons IIRC, (ten 10,000 gallon tanks) and they had manual water changes. They would turn on the water to fill, and open a valve to drain. Apparently, an employee did not close the drain valve properly and when they came in the next day, their standing stock of fish were plant food.

Quite a few failures in RAS. Very expensive to make it 100%.

I'd rather make a mistake at this stage of the game vs. having a lot of money invested. I can assure you with this mishap Murphy's Law will always be remembered!

There was a Tuna Operation in Australia that lost millions due a simple drain issue.

This always sucks. I pulled a really stupid one last year. Was doing a water change, added dechlor, and started filling the tank with tap water. This can take quite a while, so I usually do something else, and check back on the tank level from time to time. Well, I forgot. Woke up the NEXT MORNING to a flooded basement, and a tank full of dead fish. There was only enough dechlor for the gallonage of the tank, so chlorine poisoned about 20 breeding tilapia. Luckily my basement is unfinished, and I had replacement tilapia in the pond. I beat myself up about it for a few days. You are not alone Cecil.

I always set an alarm now.

My wife hates it when I get distracted changing water in the tanks in our basement...I finally went with outdoor carpeting and bought a huge wet-vac...I get distracted waaaayyy too easily. She hates it more when I change the water in a densely stocked tank and forget the dechlorinator....then leave for a week to deliver fish. I just tell her either clean the tanks, or put Vick's under her nose to kill the smell.....somehow she doesn't find it as humorous as me and those are the times I hate coming back home...lol

It's all relative as my situation pales compared to what is going on right now in Japan. And if I get a system going where the potential is to lose a lot of money I won't be leaving anything to chance then, so in the long run it has silver lining to it.

Rex, what, you get distracted?? I know, I know, don't put any white cylindrical objects anywhere you can see them.......

Truth be told...a call with a certain Indiana taxidermist did once...It really doesn't take much....lol

It is nice to know that I am in good company, and not the only one with brain farts.

I seen a item in a farm supply catalog that I thought was neat. It was a plastic meter that you can thread onto your hose spigot, set the number of gallons you wanted to pump, turn it on and once it got to the preset number it automatically shuts off. It was less than $25 bucks if I remember correctly. I bet I could find it if anyone is interested.

I could go for that