Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Have some pepper problems. From what I read and concluded, it is a calcium deficiency. So, I placed crushed leftover Easter eggs ajust below the gravel around these plant's roots. Could anyone verify this diagnosis or effectiveness of this treatment? I also have some MaxiCrop with Iron I was thinking about adding to help remedy.. These seedlings have been in the ground for 1 week, so I think some of the wilting/curling leaves are due to transplant shock.

The system has been running with fish for 8 days, so I know I still don't have the proper amount of bacteria build up to create proper nutes for the plants. Dying fish has kind of stabilized over the past few days; still holding onto 9 of 20.

I will take my first water test tomorrow to see what all my levels are. I will post them on here for reference.

Cal. Wonder Orange Bell Pepper plant







Banana pepper plant

I have not had any luck with peppers in my AP system.

Hmm... I am determined, to grow these! I won't let them get much worse before trying to transplant to soil.

What should I add to them if I were to do them in soil?

My best guess is that the leaves in the first picture are facing the sun and are sunburned. The plants probably were grown in lower light and when you moved them out it toasted them a bit.

Other possibilities;

Spider mites as they can sometimes cause a leaf to look like this (they'll be on the underside of the leaves and almost to small to see).

Calcium deficiency (still could be but probably not)

Cheers

Scotty, have you had success at growing peppers in AP?

Florida Chris,
I got a habenero pepper plant growing in my system and its just starting to take off. Most of the original leaves have fallen off and a there has been an explosion of new ones. When I got the plant, it only had the large leaves and nothing under them. It took a little over a week for the plant to start to look like it was starting to grow. With similiar weather and similiar plants, just give it some time. It should take off.

It looks like you are getting some growth on the top. Thats the first growth I noticed on my plant.

My pepper plants do fine, but they don't make any real peppers. they stay green, just have never gotten a large enough pepper to eat.

Mixed - basically I've had pretty good luck with Mini Bell peppers but can't recall whether I tried regular Bell peppers. I had the mini bells growing in my old system for about a two years to the point the stems had become woody and they continued to pump out peppers (20 to 30 peppers per plant at any given time). I pulled them because gnats seemed to love them as well.

I tried cayenne, habanero and serrano peppers last year (in the greenhouse part of the new system) but they did better in the bucket garden than in AP. I'm pretty sure this was a temperature issue and not nutrient related (basil had a tough go last year as well). The new system is half inside and half outside so rain can rapidly lower the water temp. After a warm spell in the Spring the temps dropped and stayed low until mid June. Peppers grew very slowly - the basil expired. Meanwhile in the bucket garden which warms quickly on sunny days I had a bumper crop of Bell Peppers, a decent crop but short season of cayenne and serrano but not so good with the habanero (only got 1).

I've been working on upping the temp this year (to keep it above 60) so we'll see how it does this time around.

I know EB and JT have both grown habaneros and lots of others have been growing peppers without much difficulty so it's possible. Just don't plant them before the temps are up in the 60's, planting at lower temps you're more likely to get low yields.

My habanero pepper plant just keeps on producing, even when I had a calcium deficiency. It works really well in my system, and is probably the best producing plant in there!

I'm sure that temperature and location play a large role in how well your plants work in your system.

Scotty - is your bucket garden by any chance a self water rain gutter bucket garden? Was looking into that for a soil garden for plants that do better in soil.

Habs and other peppers should do fine

Why as a matter of fact it is . For your viewing pleasure, the wicking beds and self watering rain gutter bucket garden - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=13622&p=348492&hilit=bucket#p348492

While I'm at it here is my aquaponic system number 2 thread - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9511&hilit=Scotty%27s+second+system

Might as well post the first system although I didn't have many pictures I could find for that thread (still not sure what happened to them). This system was all in an unfinished, unheated portion of a basement and was enclosed in a Harbor Freight greenhouse to help insulate - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8130&p=243303&hilit=Scotty435#p243303

Re: Plants in the bucket garden - the only plants that didn't perform up to my expectations were the Tomatoes. They grew fine but didn't produce as many tomatoes as I usually get with soil grown Tomatoes (Still more than I needed though ).

It's all about finding what works for you, then you just figure out how to get there.

Scotty- Awesome systems!! Thanks for the photos. I am not going to have as big of a system. Still learning and trying to get a green thumb! Does the dirt not fall out of the netpots? I saw you have to make sure it is very compact, I am just thinking over time it might loosen up.

Thanks FC glad you like the systems. The dirt only falls out of the netpots when your first putting it in, after that it packs in. I haven't noticed any loosening up over time, that might be different if it was a flow through system but I bet it would still work because for some plants the roots grow right through the net pot.

Hi guys. Sorry I had not read through the thread properly yet.

But I also have California wonder, and it took a while for them to establish properly, but they are producing green and red edible fruit about half the size of store bought now.

My plants look twice as bad as yours and they are still producing. Though I'm pretty confident my sad looking plants result from pest invasion, probably slugs, and not so much deficiencies.

In the first few weeks after I transplanted mine, the flowers came in, and then they started looking exactly the same as your early pics, with yellowing leaves etc. I just boosted the system with Eco rose and chelated iron and they sprung back up.