Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello All,

I am still getting nutrient deficiencies, not sure what is going on with the system please help.

I had another post with issues and it was determined that it was most likely potassium deficiency. I have since sprayed plants and all was good. Now I have a new issue, I just planted some plants they are showing signs of withering, please help what am I doing wrong? I supplement once a month Seaweed max crop half cup to the system diluted in a gallon poured directly into the grow beads. I fee like I have a few different issues going on here

Amm o
Nittrite o
nitrate 100ppm
iron 5ppm

I'm not sure what's going on but I'll throw out some ideas that might help.

Are the deficiencies any greater as you move away from the inflow to the grow bed? You've got some high nitrogen but it should be fine. You might want to back off on the iron, I'd let the system go without an addition and check the iron level to see if it goes down. The iron test may not detect all that's there.

How's the heat on the leaves beneath the lights? That first plant pic has most of the problems on the curved portion of the leaves which you'll often see with a burn when plants are outdoors in the sunlight.

This looks like a tip burn of some sort, could be calcium related. Calcium isn't very mobile and if the transpiration rate is low and growth is fast you can get tip burn. Usually there is enough calcium already in the system but it competes with other nutrients for uptake - have you been adding anything else to the water? What's your pH and are you using any kind of calcium carbonate for pH control?

I added cal mag yesterday diluted directly to the grow beds. I do not see differences between distance from the intakes it appears consistent. As far as light I mean it is an led light that I use and it is 3 feet above the plant. No I do not have calcium other than calming what do you recommend and how should I use it or add to the system? Thanks for the help

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Can you elaborate further please on adding calcium for ph control? I am new to this not sure what that means

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A variety of calcium products can be used to adjust Ph

I use a mixture of Calcium Carbonate (garden lime)

Dolomite (calcium and magnesium)

And Calcium Hydroxide

So to explain further

Calcium Hydroxide is a soluble more or less immediate product (little or no residual action)

Calcium Carbonate has some instant and some long term (buffering) effect

Dolomite same as Calcium Carbonate

So test your Ph regularly and do small adjustments until you get a "Feel" for how much you put in weekly

As I said above I use a mixture of those three plus potassium and iron

Amounts vary according to time of year / plant varieties

In small systems crushed egg shells or coral can be handy for keeping Ph stable

You don't want wild swings in Ph

High Ph will trigger iron deficiency in your plants

Too much Calcium will trigger Magnesium deficiency and the opposite applies as well

A Ph of around 7 is a good compromise for plants / bacteria and fish

I have a ph of around 7.6 so I should lower it? What should be used to lower?

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At this point I wouldn't adjust the pH, it will eventually come down on it's own. Hopefully the calcium you added won't affect the pH too much but you might want to watch it. Some of the calcium products are slow to dissolve so the change may be gradual. I use a mesh bag to hold crushed coral (a source of Calcium Carbonate) that way I can remove it from the system if the pH goes up too much - this gives you better control.

You can adjust the pH using Hydrochloric acid (aka muriatic acid) but you need to be very careful because big changes in pH can shock the fish and potentially kill them. It's best not to change the pH more than 0.4 pH units at a time. The best way to do this is to adjust the top up water each time you have to add water (Adjusting it to a pH of around 6.8 is usually good). This will gradually bring the system pH down since the top up water is usually only a small fraction of the total system volume.