Still waiting on nitrites to crash!

In cycling my tank my ammonia had pretty much dropped to nothing and I have both nitrite and nitrate readings of course telling me I've got nitrosomonas and nitrobacters at work. Trouble is it seems like it's taking forever for the nitrites to crash. I know the 62 degree water temp in the basement isn't helping, but heating the 330 gallons isn't an option right now due to financial reasons.

I know nitrites peak after ammonia levels fall and it takes longer for them to drop but I'm getting antsy!

Well two days ago I tested for nitrites in the fishless RAS and there weren't any! So now that nitrites had dropped to zip as had the ammonia, it was time to add the fish.

Here is a hole I cut in the ice to scoop out the fish from the floating cage I was holding them in.



Here's the acclimation drum where I put in the 35 F. pond water and slowly allowed to get to the RAS tank temperature which is 63 F. Note how brown the water is. It's a form of yellow algae that showed up last fall which I have never had before. It's a coldwater algae and is going gangbusters under the ice. Can't wait to drain the pond and hopefully get rid of it. Yellow algae has been implicated in fish kills and I did have stressed brook trout when this algae showed up. It may however been coincidental or the pond conditions that stressed the brook trout may have also been conducive to the this algae species.





Here are less than half of the bluegill fry (fall spawn) before scooping out the rest of them, which seems to indicate I have a thousand or so bluegill fry in the RAS now. They are only about 3/4 inches in size with a few larger ones that were an earlier spawn.



Now I need to get them feeding ASAP.

Next project will be an in wall aquarium for natives!

Edited by az9, 03 February 2010 - 11:26 PM.

Here is a hole I cut in the ice to scoop out the fish from the floating cage I was holding them in.

Did you have any way to feed them beneath the ice? I know that larger fish don't need to eat much in winter, but I'm surprised that fry that young could make it...

Did you have any way to feed them beneath the ice? I know that larger fish don't need to eat much in winter, but I'm surprised that fry that young could make it...

No, no feeding under the ice. And I did have about a 50 percent mortality which may have reflected that. From what I've read late hatch bluegills have a much lower survivabilty through the winter anyway. I wanted to not have to overwinter them but it turned out to be a SNAFAU situation from the beginning.