Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Title says it all.

First issue: White streaks on plant leaves. Streaks are not fuzzy, they almost look like if you splashed bleach on the leaves and wherever the bleach landed, it discolored the lead and turned it white.
https://imgur.com/MzTIVZc

Second issue: I flooded the GB. This morning, i found tiny white "worm-like" insects floating on top of the water and still moving. Any thoughts?
https://imgur.com/nRVow2Q

I have been at this for at least 6 months now and have been able to grow....Nothing

The white streaks don't look like any disease or nutrient deficiency that I know of. I think they could be genetic or possibly caused by a virus. Not much you can do about either and the plant doesn't look unhealthy otherwise so I think I'd just leave it.

Lots of critters show up in AP beds. Unless you know the white worm is specifically causing some problem in your AP system then it's probably not of concern. I have no idea what this one is but I've seen similar in my AP - might be a detritovore.

Hmm, 6 months and haven't grown anything? This time of year you should have tomatoes, beans, basil - warm weather crops, which should already be producing - I'm not sure for your climate but it may be too late for these if they aren't already in. You're in Orlando Florida and I'm seeing that you're growing peas in late August with temps hitting 94F today. Peas aren't really a warm weather crop - I'm actually surprised they look as good as they do . These may start to produce better as the weather cools provided it doesn't take too long to cool off.

Hey Scotty, thanks for the reply. My system is completely indoor so i am not as susceptible to growing seasons as most, as i understand it (please correct me if i am mistaken). That said, indoor growing has presented its own set of challenges, the most recent one being that my humidity indoor is much too low for plants. I rectified that by creating a mini greenhouse that sits atop the GB. This has provided a much needed boost in humidity level.

I guess worms was the wrong way to describe them as i don't think they are actually worms but rather, some sort of insect, maybe insect larvae? Not sure, either way, they did not look like worms and so i thought maybe they could be behind the issues i am seeing.

The peas i am growing (quite observant, btw!) were not full sized peas but rather, microgreen peas i let get way too large. I had to yank everything out of the grow bed last go around and that's all i had on hand. I threw them in just to see if the greenhouse did its job and helped with the humidity which, it did.

My comment about being 6 months in is a frustration really. I have been trying for 6 months and have not been able to get anything to yield. The plants start out well and about halfway through, something usually goes wrong. I may need to reconsider what i plant as well as where i get my seeds.

Any advice on best places to get seeds online?

Having the system inside does make things more challenging in some ways and I prefer to grow outside for this reason. On the other hand you do have more control of the environment so once you get things figured out you'll have an easier time replicating your success.

I'm not certain I understood the comment about yield - do you mean of fruiting plants (tomatoes, peppers...) or all plants like lettuces etc.?

I'll need more information on what actually happens to the plants - just knowing that something happens is not enough to go on.

A lot of times with indoor systems it's lighting levels that cause problems. This is especially true for fruiting crops.

I wasn't too concerned whether those were worms or not. The pea plants color breaks weren't caused by those. Might be able to tell you more if I saw what happened with the plants you had to remove earlier since there is likely more than one thing going on. You're likely to get some springtails and what you filmed may be an early version - they are quite common in AP systems. You can flood the grow bed and flush them into the fish tank (some types of fish will eat them - goldfish apparently do). There is also a thread where someone mentions a recommendation for nematodes to clear them out. You won't need either solution if these aren't causing plant problems.

Hopefully you can find something useful in this post. If not post up some pics the next time you see something happening that you don't understand and maybe we can figure out what's going on.

Cheers