Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My cauliflower is showing signs of a possible potassium deficiency (purple veins in leaves).
I know banana is a god source of potassium and have a good source of them. Was wondering if I chopped the peel into bite size pieces, would the Tilapia eat it, and would this likely help with the potassium deficiency in the plants?

just bury it in the growbed

Fish will eat banana peel we feed it while fishing to saltwater fish in the GOM.


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Tried feeding it to the Tilapia. They took it in and spat it out constantly, think it maybe too tough for them to chew initially.

Fed the fish banana, buried a piece of the peel in the growbed near the cauliflower. It worked a charm! No more purple veins and the leaves are nice and green. However, the peel has attracted ants! And the ants seem to be going after my earthworms in the bed. Found a dead worm covered in ants on the surface go the bed. Any suggestions to get rid of the ants?

A good flood of your GB would probably do the trick.

Thanks. Will give it a try. I presume that overnight is the best time to do this, so as to avoid algae growth on the media?

I don't think one banana would do much damage, but too much potassium in a fish diet could lead to heart problems. Hence why there is hardly any potassium in commercial fish feeds. You are better off putting the peel in the GB and letting worms do the work

Will remember next time, if the potassium problem shows up again.
Thanks.

If you're using non-organic bananas remember to scrub and wash them well first as conventionally grown banana skins usually have a whole cocktail of toxic pesticides applied during its life

Make sure you get rid of those ants… aphids and ants go too well together. Also I have had ants make nests in plant roots in my media beds (hydroton) and they have been difficult to get rid of then even flooding the beds for a day wasn't enough… ended up just ripping out the affected plants

Would it help to blend up the banana peel? I know that our worms love any type of blended food and will consume it much faster than whole peels.

What kind of banana peel?

I want to say right up front that I have no direct experience with this here, and maybe someone else will chime in, but I did want to add what I do know.

I know that in small vermicomposting bins chopping up anything you put in into smaller pieces can definitely help. It helps the worms to break it down faster, in that they're dealing with smaller pieces at a time. Again I do not know for sure, but I would think that chopping it up into much smaller pieces would be much better than burying larger chunks.

It would be easier for the worms to break down, and in turn wouldn't sit there as long so that it rots or attracts any other kind of bug (ants etc). No direct experience, but just from knowing how composting works, it would seem to make sense that this would be a good way to go. It seems like blending would make it even easier for the worms to break it down, as it would already be half way there.

Anyone correct me if I'm wrong!

Pity I didn't think about blending the peel. The big chunks attracted ants, which invaded my growbed and killed my worms, and made nests in the roots of my eggplant and lettuce, which didn't fair too well.