Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

HI folks!

my system has dropped off in production from last year.. (perch last year barra now.. trout in between)
waters all good, fish eat... plants struggle i think.

any ideas what i can throw (plant wise) into the GB's

have celery/toms/leeks/spinach and some other stuff...

put some seedlings in that i raised from seed and they just snorkelled it... GAME OVER

I need something hardy and fool proof...
every suggestion welcome and taken on board..

I am in Ballajura (perth) and my GB gets good protection from sun/wind etc

cheers
Steve

PS: new pond has been lined and should be online soon.

A little more info about your system might help people trouble shoot the issues you are having, do you have a system thread?

You list some plants, are they doing well or having issues, if so, what are the problems?

What is the pH, how deep do the beds flood (if water gets over the media, it is flooding too deep, top of media should stay dry.)

What is the nitrate level, is there any? If there is no nitrate showing and the plants are all looking yellow, then it could be nitrogen deficiency but that is rare in AP.

Other possible problems can be potassium deficiency, seasol works well to correct that and provide other trace elements.

Iron Deficiency shows up as yellow leaves with green veins on the newer leaves first.

Beware of bullet proof plants, they also tend to be aggressive plants that will take over a grow bed and choke everything else out. Mint would be one of these aggressive plants.

Often planting seed in the beds is as effective as transplanting seedlings.

no yellowing, i remember the ph was around 6.6 last week but the others dont come to mind.. (should write them down) BUT i do remember that everything was in good scale, unlike a water test from about 5 months ago. I am not flooding above the media, probably about 1-1.5 inches below surface.

Last salt was 4 ppt, 5 weeks ago to settle new fish. and i have since topped up the FT with water twice. water source is the same from day one.

The only thing i can really think of is our weather has been really quite warm over the past few weeks and the younger plants struggle with the heat.. possibly not the best time to plant.......

New seedlings going into a system probably need some extra shade and/or some extra hand watering till their roots reach well into the water level. Scorching sun can toast seedlings beyond recovery really quickly. Transplanting might be best done on cloudy days or in the evening when the plants will have overnight to settle in and then give them a few days with some extra shade rigged up to protect them during the hottest part of the day.

Might be better off direct seeding.

the beds both have about 85% shade from 10am til around 2pm.

might throw in a handful of seeds and see what happens...

I find many garden plants like morning sun and afternoon shade. When those plants are not getting the 85% shade, what are they getting? Full scorching sun from 2-4 pm is often the hardest on plants as that is also during the hottest part of the day.