Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but are you talking about manganese, not maganese? Never heard of the second one

Steem, at this point I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Magnesium maganese manganese hydroxide bicarbonate sulfate frick I dunno.
I should have paid more attention in chemistry class.

Like Rup says, it's important to remember that aquaponics is drastically different than hydroponics. In AP we are aiming to mimic a natural ecosystem, albeit in a manipulation fashion.

In a dynamic balance like we have in AP, the more you "tweak" the more likely you are to throw something out of whack and crash your system. Basically, just leave it alone and let it do its thing.

The only sort-of exception that I can think of to this rule is iron and sea minerals. Some (not all) people add these because our systems are too small to include sources of these micronutrients as they occur in a larger, natural environment.

Potassium and trace minerals are easily taken care of with seaweed extract (seasol or maxicrop) or it may be possible to take care of most of this with sea salt.

Iron is needed by those of us with source water lacking in Iron or with a system pH that is too high for Plants to take up the iron that is there well.

Fish feed usually takes care of all else and as noted, there are some members that have not needed to supplement at all other than simply feeding their fish.

I sometimes think we all get a bit carried away with supplement this, additive that and trace the other . . . like giving a Hypochondriac a book of disease symptoms in which they find they have disease known to man! without waiting for the natural balance to work it's magic.
My F&D system is not finished; I don't have any media or plants in the Grow Beds, I don't have any fish in the Fish Tank but I do have water circulating around from FT to GB and back again to see if the "mechanics" work. The Bell siphons work perfectly and the Venturi By-pass to the FT is working superbly. I incorporated a small (130 Litre) tank for Duck Weed and/or fingerlings to take some of the return water from the GBs back to the FT and put a handfull of Duckweed I got from a water plant tank in a local hardware outlet (the "B" store! for us in Oz) to see if it would grow. I then got 7 tiny Silver Perch to put in that Tank to keep the Mosquito Larvae in check.
That was about a month ago, I haven't put anything else in the system because I have been busy doing the surrounds etc. To my great surprise and enjoyment, I did a water test the other day after receiving a new Salt Refractometer to measure the salinity ( I put about 3.4Kgs of pool salt in as a test), I found that the system was cycling!!
I have Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates just in the water. . .no media. . . no plants (save for the Duck Weed) and 7 tiny fish in a 1200 Litre system. The bacteria have established themselves in the circulating water to handle the nutrients that the small amount of Fish and Plant life that they found! No accellerants, no magic bottles of bacteria, no additives (a bit of test salt, but that was after the cycling started, obviously), no supplements and no fricking around.
I know that the system, which I will complete one day, will serve the purpose because of the population naturally occurring. All it took was provision of the correct working environment and a bit of PATIENCE!
I feel we are all trying to achieve instant gratification from a naturally occurring process that just takes time, by trying to improve on nature!!
Don't do it! IMHO you are becoming just a bad as the GM crop modifiers doing their thing, which we all think is so terrible, by trying to modify a simple system to be "better than nature".

My Two Bits worth.

IanK

Ian, I agree with you on many of your points..
I do have a relitavely big and somewhat complicated system at first glance, but when I stood back and stopped adding to my system and started doing water tests I also found that it was good... I add shell grit to buffer and iron from time to time, but thats it. However, as we keep saying, what makes this forum interesting is the WIDE veriety of systems and approaches - some work well, some need tweeking etc etc...
I am yet to test this observation, bbuuutttt, When I had a worm farm feeding into my system the plants seemed stronger - I seemed to get a lot of nutrient from the worm tea/rum/wee which the system loved - and for a long time that was the ONLY additive I put into my system - once again letting nature do her thing through the worms