Disaster Guppy Tank Overflowed!

When I check my system this morning, the water in the guppy tank had overflowed spilling water on the floor below. Several guppies were found on the floor and on the tilapia tank mesh covering. Luckily, most were still alive and I scooped them up with a dry leaf. Some dead ones were probably killed by ants.

Guppies on the floor... Still alive because the floor is wet...

Killed by ants...

Some were found inside the shade cloth...

The reason this happened is due to the modification of the outlet pipe that I made yesterday. I wanted the outlet to draw water from the bottom of the guppy tank to suck debris at the bottom. The outlet pipe also has a fine mesh that prevents tiny guppy fries from exiting the outlet...

The T-connecter is used to prevent a siphoning action from happening. It also allows easy insertion and removal of the green mesh for cleaning...

Problem happens when too much poop got stuck at the green mesh preventing water from exiting through the outlet fast enough causing an overflow...

Photo of fish poop stuck on the green mesh...

Luckily not much water and guppies was lost from this tragedy. Ill need to redesign a better filtered outlet pipe this time. I also did a water quality check:

Traffic light... Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate...

Ammonia: still green... 1.0

Nitrite: strangely, yellow color... < 0.5

Nitrate: photo is too dark... Its actually cherry red... > 50

Nitrite levels are lowering... This is sign of bacteria growth!

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Disaster Tank Overflowed

It has been raining heavily for the past few days. Which means raining season has arrived and that means bad news for my aquaponics system. In the past, the storms in my area had drowned my seedlings, damaged my plants, carried my guppies into the drain outside my house, uprooted big trees, blew roof tiles off houses, and damaged my verandah.

Yesterday, I found 2 tilapia laying motionless at a very wrong place:

A group of black ants collectively planning out how to dissect this piece of flesh

No ants on this one

Palm sized tilapia. Could have been fresh on my dinner plate.

Normally, my system works fine under heavy rain and all. Any extra water will flow out through the overflow at the side of the tank. But things are different now, I have an additional grow bed which adds to the surface area collecting rain. The tank outlet, which has strainer holes, probably got clogged by poop and couldnt let water out faster than the input from the rain. Over time, the water level will rise till the rim of the tank. Also with the addition of the second grow bed, there is a rare chance of both grow beds flushing at the same time. When this happens, the tank water will rise by 10 centimeters in less than a minute. With the water level already at the rim of the tank, a double flush will create a surge strong enough to push even large tilapias out of the tank.

Although there is a slight rotting smell, they looked fresh with their gills still red. I decided to freeze them to make food for stray cats in the future.

Thanks for reading!

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