Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

JRL91RS
Looks like you have a nice system going.
I have only clay bricks with no mortar. My high pH comes with the well water. The ammonia cycle will start to lower my pH eventually. If I loose my patience I'll add some muratic acid and balance it. I want it to work without adding chemicals. My mustard is growing well but the kale is showing bleached out growth on the new leaves.

My new motherboard arrived today. Did I mention that Asus has wonderful customer service and 3 year warranty?

Thanks! I wanted to start with a very small system to learn how to care for it. I am in the process of collecting materials to go from 2 beds to 8. I have found barrels for 1/4 what they normally cost and just scored a bunch of free industrial racking that I will cut down and use for my stands. Getting plumbing parts this weekend so hopefully I will make some progress in the next week or so!

I can't wait to see how your system progresses!

Be sure to use the muratic acid on the top up water in a separate container to get it stabilized to avoid bouncing your system pH which would be worse on your fish, bacteria and plants than doing nothing at all.

If the pail growth on the new leaves still has kinda green veins, then you want to add a bit of chelated iron. This is one of the few things that only some people get to avoid completely. If plants are showing the deficiency you should listen to them.

Great to see your progress Gene, have really enjoyed reading through this thread with all your photos too.

Looks like pH lock to me still.

Be sure to use the muratic acid on the top up water in a separate container to get it stabilized to avoid bouncing your system pH which would be worse on your fish, bacteria and plants than doing nothing at all.

I'm willing to wait for the system so balance out naturally as long as the "experts" agree that I'm going the right direction.

If the pail growth on the new leaves still has kinda green veins, then you want to add a bit of chelated iron. This is one of the few things that only some people get to avoid completely. If plants are showing the deficiency you should listen to them.[/quote]

I'll look for green veins, there were none in the existing picture.


Grab camera go to farm........

gene,

gene i am not sure the size of the pvc for the frame, but i had a failure using 3/4 pvc, once it got a little too hot one time and the pvc warped.

Well I don't know if that is one of those ornamental Kale plants that has the white center leaves or if it is a really extreme case of Iron deficiency. A spoon full of Chelated Iron per grow bed probably would not go amiss in this case. Could probably do a spoon full or two per week until the symptoms ease off and then cut back to just every few weeks.

Should this be from a gardening center or do you use the vitamin?

By the way the color has completely drained from the kale plants. The mustard is growing fine.

Chelated Iron (you are looking for DTPA or EDDHA if you can find it since EDTA isn't as plant available at the higher pH.) You are looking for stuff meant for plants, I don't know if any of the vitamin supplements are chelated. You may well need to order it online, I know around here the only places to get chelated iron are rather specialty type places at the average big box store doesn't carry chelated iron but only liquid iron sulfate or fertilizers that will have lots of other things mixed in and you don't necessarily want that either.

Found some online... It's EDTA. Shopping more carefully.
removed all bricks from both systems. Tank looked lonely so I added some granite rocks.
Recent cold has been hard on the system, only lost one fish. It got on top of the ice and never recovered.

if you do a search for "aquaponics products chelated iron DTPA" it looks like you can get it online in several places.
my web site
the aquaponics source
Amazon

The proper chelated iron is on order... will be here this week.
Weather is going to return to unusually cold in the next couple of days, wish I had the hoop house covered.