Since the December 8th update, we have lost 80 fish. We have been losing on average, 10 a day. Our highest total of deaths of fish was 17 fish in one day. We are trying to figure out what the problem is in the water that is causing the fish to die. One remedy that we tried was adding aquarium salt, and it seems to have worked. Since we added aquarium salt, we have had three days that nine or less fish have died. To also help the trout, we have been trying to lower our pH. We first attempted this by adding 30mL of vinegar, but it did not work. We also tried more frequent water changes, replacing 10 gallons of water every 2-3 days and adding 100 drops of pH down. We also decided to switch food, back to the left over food that we had from last year. It seems as if the new food gets “bloated” in the water and then the fish will not eat it. The left over new food tends to become covered with the mossy white fungus. Since we switched back to the old food we have not any issues, there is no left over food and no new mossy white fungi growths. To us, we think that the salt has had the best impact as the number of dead fry per day changed significantly with the addition of the Aquarium salt.
Christmas vacation starts tomorrow, so we decided to set up the automatic fish feeder. This will be filled with 80% number “0” food and 20% number “1” food. We set this up to feed the fish once every 24 hours. With all of the issues we had recently, we figured that less food is better. The feeder is set on the second to smallest portion to allow only a very little amount of food to be delivered. Mr. Kline will check on the trout tank ever 2-3 days, and out trout cam gives us the ability to check in on the fry from home. The Trout Cam only works when there is enough light, so be sure to visit the cam during daylight hours. We are working on a light solution to allow for extended viewing times. (click here to take a look!)
We wish you all a happy trout holiday season and a swimmingly safe New Year! See you back in 2011!
- MS Trout Team