Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello.

My first time posting here so forgive me if my question has been answered 100x already.

I keep losing plants and I don't know why. I have four grow beds in my system that are fed by 110 gallon tank. Each bed is a 1/2 of a 55 gallon barrel...so 1:1 ratio. The system is indoors.

I rebuilt my system in Sept and since then I have not had the luck that I did with my previous version. One grow bed grows really well and the other three are a mystery. Really nice kale plants in the bed that seems to "work."

My nitrates are more than enough, my pH is about 7.2 ish and my standpipes are about 1 1/2 to 2" below the surface of my media.

I am not new to aquaponics but I am new to this particular problem and it is making me nuts.

My plants see to reach a certain point to either which they die (white-ish silvery spots on the leaves which is not powdery mildew) or they reach of point of growth at which they simply don't get any bigger.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Show us a picture?

Are the stems really long on the plants?

Here are some pics. I tried to get as close as possible.
As you can see the one grow bed grows really well.

Could you take pictures (bigger if possible) of the whole dying plants?

Sorry about the orientation of the pics...I'm still figuring that out.

First pic is of my lettuce plants. I have tried 3 times recently and they have all died. Previous to that, the lettuce bed was overgrown with huge, green leaves.

The next three are of the pepper plants I have tried to in vain to get to grow. They have been there for a long time and have basically stayed the same size...including the very small ones.

In my previous system I had none of these issues! I am using exactly the same medium out of the old setup. I basically just redesigned the beds to make it more convenient.

I am out of answers. This was never an issue before.

Has the lighting changed between the reshuffle of the beds?

The first lettuce bed looks like it's going leggy, searching for light.

I'm not too sure about the others. Maybe too much light causing the curling (I'm not an expert with lighting, so I don't know if it'd do that)?

Lighting is basically the same.

I am starting to wonder if it may be the seed company that I used. Was never thrilled with their stuff. Have new ones on order.

I really appreciate the help though. Thanks!

What ligjting do you have? If you have bulbs, when was the last time you switch them?

I have high pressure sodium and fluorescent

Haven't changed them because they still work

what is your pH of your water.?

pH is 7.0...brought it down a bit. Never was problematic before...in my early days of aquaponics when I never checked or cared. Maybe that's the problem and I should go back to ignoring it : ). However, now, I am on it like a hawk. Have used some AquaDown to fix the issue. Seems to be hanging steady although I do have limestone in the system that cam from the previous media. I will be addressing that soon but like I said it was never problematic before.

thats wierd that you say that there is limestone in your system because those deficiencies look a bit to be calcium.

hmmm...so I do I remedy that? I figured that it was some kind of nutrient deficiency.

I'm not much of a green thumb but I live on a very limestone ground and I know for sure that yellow leaves is iron deficient.
I put a couple of teaspoons of iron challets in my fish tank every month. because I don't think anything in the fish tank or the growbeds will ever give or produce iron for the plants.
cheers.