Finally second system cycled and filled...

[Cecil]

Well the Uniseal used to insert a 1.5 inch PVC pipe for a center drain seems to be a resounding success. With all the trouble I've had repairing the metal in this steel tank and installing a center drain I am relieved! As I posted in a previous post this project has really kicked my butt!

Now I'm waiting for the iron precipitate to be captured by the clarifier tank, and the water to warm up a few degrees before tying in the RBC and tank with a siphon tube. After adding the well water with aeration, the water went very brown due to the ferric iron precipitate. I don't want to add fish until I get it cleared up. That stuff is a gill irritant smaller fish that have finer gill filaments. If you look at it microscopically it's has sharp edges.

The RBC in a separate tank cycled a few days ago. I added a little ammonium chloride to feed the bacteria until I add fish, and to see how the filter handles new ammonia. Nitrites ever went up and ammonia spiked at .5 mg/l and is back to zero a couple days later.

Only problem is when everything is ready I will have to chop ice to remove the fish from their cages outside! Oh well did it last year too. At least I'm two months earlier this year!

I'll post pics soon...

My 5 to 7 inch YOY yellow perch in my first tank seem to be adapting well. Although I am still feeding them hydrated feed, they are hitting it on the surface now. Soon I will phase to dry feed.

[GaryD]

Hey Cecil,

Everything settling down OK?

Uniseals are great. Crusty switched me on to the them months ago......and now it seems that they are being used everywhere.

Gary

[Cecil]

Hey Cecil,

Everything settling down OK?

Uniseals are great. Crusty switched me on to the them months ago......and now it seems that they are being used everywhere.

Gary

Yep the Uniseal saved the day. Wish I would have tried one initially instead of wasting time on other approaches. Live and learn! It's dry as a bone under the tank!


Yes things have settled down and the center tank is working well.

However, I am in the process of bringing in yellow perch from a cage outside into the second system that has now cycled. But once again I have to chop ice to do so!

I carry in 10 five gallon buckets of water from a hole in the ice and dump it into a 55 gallon drum near the tank they will go into. Then I add and mix NaCl to a concentration of 0.5 percent (5ppt, 5 gm/l, 5000 mg/l). The fish are brought in and placed into the drum with aeration until the water slowly comes up to the temp of the tank they are going into. I put them in last evening and temp was up to 60 F. by morning.

After that I dip them in 3.0 percent (30 ppt, 30 gm/l, 30,000 mg/l) NaCl solution before dumping them into their new home. I don't want to bring in any parasite critters! This has worked well for me so far.

The tank is set at 0.3 percent but I will drop it back to a steady 0.2 percent once the fish settle in.

I hope to move in all the ~ 3 inch YOY yellow perch today although we have a raging Lake Michigan effect snowstorm right now! At least the pond is close enough to the house where I won't get lost!

The bluegills in another cage may have to wait until the ice gets thicker. It drifted out away from the pier a little before it froze in. Can't reach it from the pier but the ice it too thin to walk on. That should change in the next week though. Temps close to zero F. coming.

The story of my life! A day late a dollar short!

I have room for one more 6 foot tank and I'm seriously considering setting up another one if only for grading or two separate species. I may even put 100 feed trained smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieui) in one this spring to get them up to size before putting them into the pond. If I put up a pole building this coming year it won't be too soon!

If I do set up another one it will be with a trickling filter. The RBC's are just too much of a pain to build and cost a lot up front in materials. I have plenty of plastic media on hand I'm not using so...

[Cecil]

Scrapped the small ~ 3 inch yellow perch and will soon have "shooter" bluegills in the tank. This small perch will give the crows something to eat in the bleak days of winter.

They were much smaller than their 5 to 7 1/4 inch counterparts of the same age in the other tank (that are doing very well). Some were so small they were plugging my drain and although they were feeding fairly well they looked quite emaciated with large eyes. And feeding many small fish five times a day was really hard on the biofilter. I'd rather spend my time and energy on fast growing larger fish vs. fish that may or may not catch up. Live and learn.