Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It's been awhile since my last post, I've been busy with our new system. We're having some plant problems and we could sure use some advice. Pictures below: BTW the gb's are not flooded it was raining when I took the pictures.

Cherry Tomato



Sumter Cucumber



All of our tomato plants (Brandy Wine, Cherry and Roma) look like this. We're also noticing some leaf curl on our Kidney beans and Bush Lake beans. We have 275gl IBC (with 200gl water), 2 IBC grow beds. A mix of Hydroton and Pea Gravel media. Our levels are within range, we just picked up 26 channel catfish yesterday and they're doing good. We were fishless cycling with catfish food for a month before the fish went in.

I was going to buy some chelated iron, maxicrop soluble powder and Miracle grow blood meal off Amazon but I'm unsure how much to use of each and if I should add it to the gb's or ft. Will any of this help our poor plants or are they doomed?

Thanks for any help

Looks like a few possibilities: slugs, snails eating at night. Also, possible minor element deficiency or fungus on toms. Difficult to see in the pic. The new growth looked pretty clean, and that's what's important. I would continue dosing with Seasol. Not sure about using granules in your ap...blood meal?

X2

Do you have any nitrates?
Seasol is the best and can be added with fish, my system been going nearly a year and i still add season once or twice a week.

Kind of looks like the beginning of a Potassium deficiency in the Beans. See if the Maxicrop has instructions to spray on the foliage and mix according to these and spray the plants. You could also add it to the water but I don't use this form of Maxicrop so I'm not sure of the amount. I suspect the beans will be fine anyway with the fish having been added.

I wouldn't add the blood meal to the water at this time since the fish are in the system. It's high in Nitrogen and might cause the Ammonia to spike. You might be able to use it as a foliar feed for the plants I just would try to avoid it right before a rain though. It also contains Potassium as the Maxicrop does but I can't give you a dose for spraying it on (if that's an option on the instructions for the product).

The amount will depend on which type you get but this is an example of how you would add Chelated Iron - 1 level teaspoon per 1000L every 6 to 8 weeks if pH is above 7.5 and iron deficiency is indicated. I only use this if I notice an Iron deficiency (light areas between the veins on the leaves with the veins much darker is the normal way this shows up). So far I'm not seeing this in your pictures. If your pH is below 7.5 then you'll likely be getting some Iron from the fish food and probably won't need it much if any. Some of these products contain traces of things like lead so just be aware - usually in very low amounts but this is why I only use these when I actually spot a deficiency.

Hope this helps

Thanks everyone for the advice, you all have been very helpful. I think I'm just going to go with the liquid Maxicrop + Iron and see how that goes. I found it on Amazon, 1 QT for $13.62...does anyone know how far this will go with a 200gl tank? Should I buy a larger size? How often do I use it? I don't want to over do anything and cause a system crash but I also don't want to loose out plants or fish either.

I don't believe there is a specific guideline for using Maxicrop plus Iron unless your spraying it. You should be able to add about 8 oz directly to the water (probably between 5 and 20 oz would work but I'm playing it toward the safe end) the first time you use it and then 1 or 2 oz every two weeks to a month. I would discontinue or at least reduce use if you aren't seeing any symptoms or if your pH climbs too high for it to be effective (I said 7.5 before but it's probably more like 6.8 to 7.0). You can spray it on to avoid the pH issues of adding it to the water. For this I would use a solution of roughly 1 oz per gallon and spray directly on the plants with it.

If the pH is too high on a regular basis then you may want to get Chelated Iron - Nate Storey has a good video on YouTube about Iron that will help you figure out what to get.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4_hCAnymFw

He lists what they use in the description - "Miller DP" - DTPA - they either get in from Ace Hardware off the shelf or buy it online.