Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I added it regularly for the Iron, because of the plants looking deficient. the PH has been at 7.4 to 7.3 since almost the very beginning, after dropping from 7.8 during cycling...... I used it because on the Iron thread it was deemed OK, and that was the only thing i could find for IRON.... I looked at using Texas Greensand, but was not willing to buy a Yard of it to get the small amount I needed. and i posted the time frame for using it wrong, the 1.3 Qt's used, was since last Jan. it has always help the plants look better every time i thought they needed it. Except for one time when i added Potassium bicarbonate that helped things look better and put on fruit when the iron did not seem to help. I have also added Epsom salt to help with flowering, and Maxicrop for the rest of the micro neutrents
the fish tank it's self is 5000Gal, the 6 barrels are 300 gal, the outside GB system is aprox 600 Gal+, (now disconnected for the winter and running independently), the new inside GB's / sump tank can hold aprox. 1600gal+.

If I did the calculation right (someone might want to double check this), 1.3 qts .12% chelated copper in 5000 gal of water is 7.8 ppm. Depending on the fish as little as .1 ppm is toxic, though some fish are tolerant of more. If your fish aren't dead, it must be because the plants have taken up some of the copper. They have copper test kits you could use to check how much you have. or just do some additional water changes to be safe.

I water quite a few dirt plants everyday using FT water. There has been several losses of water for various reasons over this time period too. and 2 system expansions were a lot of water was added to the system all at once. And I've only added about 1/3 of a Qt at a time, when the plants looked like they needed it. So it's not like i have a full 1.3 Qt in it all at one time.