Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Oi Oi OI!!

yep, that's right steve, 3 syphons

wow, those beans and capsicums are growing really well

kick arse monya,

coming along beautifully. can't wait to see it in full bloom.

keep it up mate.

We have finally taken some pics of the syophons etc, but as they are on Steem's camera I am waiting for him to post them.
If anyone knows where my camera is, can they let me know?

mine too

KP did wonder why he had 4 cameras now... dilemma, should he tell them... hmmmmmm Maybe he should start a poll on this dilemma... that should sort out what he should do. Now only to do it anonymously...

finally some syphon pics. The syphon dumps the 4000 odd litre fill in a few minutes

the fish in this system are doing really well (ever seen goldies that jump out of the water at feed time lol) but the plants are really struggling. I am wondering if it is the bore water, has around 900 parts salts, not much higher than adelaide tap water, but certainly a different makeup... Also, there was some burning of the plants due to direct sun on very hot days, so we now have a shadecloth cover over the greenhouse for summer. The ph is still a bit high (in the low 8's) , but we are slowly ironing out the bugs. Funny how a different location and different parameters can throw up new challenges and keep us all on our toes. Life is never boring

and one of the actual syohon going into the sump.

Monya it could also be a possibility that your plants could be suffering from nutrient lock out due to the PH. Keep up the good work mate.

Good chance of that.... pH 8.0 - pH 8.5 will lock out uptake of....

phosphorus, iron, maganese, boron, copper and zinc

and even limit nitrogen uptake .... just about everything most plants want...

other than potassium.... so if you've got your tomatos and strawberries to flowering stage they should be setting fruit pretty well.... but probably not sustainably for further growth

that is exactly what is happening, the tomoatoes are fruiting but not growing...

anyone got the best solution to drag ph down?

Lurve the siphon action Monya, its rivaling that fire hydrant demo you did many moons ago

Good one Stu. What are the nitrate levels mate?

Re: reducing the pH - I guess if you were very careful with quantity, diluted in a major way first and added ever so slowly over a pe4riod of time, you could try hydrocloric acid or something like that. Doing it more safely, doesn't peat reduce pH?

Nice place and nice scenery. An hour outside of town is about right - then you only go for what you need. We find we go to the big city about once a month. But, what is important is we have two building supply places within 6 kilometers.

Did it again - didn't read the whole thread.

A definite on the PH - way too high.

Yep CRTD, we have a local hardware shop about 5k away, however, if you go there, you need to prepared to remortgage your house for a 25mm pvc elbow

VB- nitrates about 10 - 15, so not massive, but should be enough to produce some growth.

Have been squeezing lemons in (have shirt loads of them) so may add another 10 tomorrow and see if that can bring it down a bit. Other than that a water change would help, but even though we can do that from the bore, I am reluctant, crazy really. much rather find a solution, but from all your opinions it certainly sounds like its a definate ph issue, so we must get it sorted. I was spoiled a bit by phenomanal growth in system one, this slow growth is not the go!