Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Keep adding urea (keeping ammonia at 0.25 - 0.5) until you get a nitrate reading of 10 - 20, then moderate the urea doseing.

Seasol once or twice a month, and watch it go

Well it has been a while; things have been pretty hectic as I have been switching jobs. But anyway things in the fishie whirlpool (still sans fish) are not going so great. I have been testing my water, and watching the ammonia drop, but still unable to get any substantial nitrate readings and the plants are really struggling. Today I added a cap of seasol (it had been a two weeks at least since the last cap and the pH is down to 6.0. See the chart for the rest of the numbers.

You have cycled, but your plants are too wet, hence the brown stems.

Thanks for that OBO, so I should try and slow down the flood/drain a bit? So that the grow beds spend a bit more time with low water levels? Branch off my feed line to slow the input down a little?

hello coco

i think that what he ment was, that the plants must have their stem away from the moist that evaporates out of the GB --> lower your water line so that the stem doesn't get wet, basils are very delicate with that

good day

I recall an earlier photo where there was a fair bit of splashing happening in the bottles, maybe try to cut back on the pumping a bit or put a little plastic divider between the splash and the plant.

OBO & molj: Thanks for the tips, I did a mixture of both, dropped the water height by about a 1cm and moved the feed line back from the plants. Will probably drop a small plastic shield in as well.

But this has me thinking about version 1.2 - Might make a bigger (and deeper) grow bed to sit on the frame rather than juice bottles. Wooden frame + pond liner construction.

mwuhahah - next you'll be digging a hole in the ground