Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Continuing...

continuing...

Good to see it all coming together MP...

Carefull with that slave labour, you'll get rupe on your back

What's wrong with my tomato plant? I thought it was just the individual plant but now new ones are showing similar signs. Could this be leaf curl virus or maybe lack of potassium?

I love the side drain adjustable bulkhead drain, your and ideas man, keep up the good work.

MP, can you see any signs of mites? Certainly not a potassium issue but it might also be a virus.

Chatty

Sorry, no mites at all that I can see. The particular plant is really old, it was transplanted from my old ap system as it never did anything there and I was determine to get some tomms from it. It's got about 8 little tomatoes waiting to turn yellow and as soon as they do I'll pull it out

The above images were actually of recognizable leaves...some leaves are no more than little yellow stumps.
Should I pull this out now...is it a hazard to other plants in different beds?

I would, unless you have heaps of room and you can afford to try and work out what is wrong with it!!

Chatty

My system just isn't happy. About 3 months ago everything stopped growing...these are the symptoms...
silverbeet growing ok but much slower than it did in the old system
every single lettuce plant I've put in has bolted
corn has now matured but the plants are only about 1m high and the cobs are about 10cm long with 20 or so kernels only.
tomatoes are growing really slowly and are very weedy looking
zuchinni died
cucumber started ok but then died after producing 3 or 4 fruits.
egg plant not too bad but every flower has dropped off
strawberries look ok but growing really slowly...today I ate a berry that I've been waiting 2 weeks for it to turn red.

The water temp has been 24-26C most of the time, I've been putting in 1/4 cup of seasol about once a month, ph is hovering around between 6 and 7. I have a 1,000L IBC tank, about 600L of sump, about 1,000L of gravel...sourced from landscape yard...small river pebbles, brown and some some white., buried egg shells for ph control. I have about 30 goldfish about 7cm long. flood/drain is 15/45. I don't think I have that many plants but my current theory is that I don't have enough fish...however I tried adding extra ammonia to the system through other means (pee) but that didn't seem to make any difference.

The roof of the greenhouse is white plastic which is supposed to provide 30% shade, it's apparently the most common choice for greenhouses.

I planted a bunch of radishes and chives about the time things went pear shaped so I pulled them out thinking that some plants don't like to be planted near them...I figured it wouldn't matter in AP but maybe having them anywhere in AP is like having them right next to all your other plants. Some people have reported growing both without problems....anyway, pulled them out 2-3 weeks ago and have not witnessed a miraculous recovery.

Had some grasshoppers and caterpillars...not too many...and some aphids which I've been spraying with pyrithrem (sp?) spray. Interestingly, I put in 6 iceberg lettuces...3 were actually ok but only one survived the slugs...butterheads go straight to being 18 inches tall with small, bitter leaves....oh, and my celery grew tall but was really thin and woody.
HELP!!!!

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do next?

Can you give us a nitrate reading? Also, have you added any supplements as yet. I've always added iron chellate and a pottasium (I use cream of tartar) because these are not generally in sufficient supply from the fish food.

I note the 30% shade, but I've found that some plants do not thrive in the middle of summer where they are getting too much sun, because a lot of energy goes into just coping with that.

Ok, I got 20 more goldfish, added 4 teaspons of chelated iron and 4 teaspoons of cream of tartar...wait and see what happens.
Do you think I added enough chelated iron and cream of tartar? Can you overdose...if not maybe I should add more?

What feed are you using, and how much are you feeding them MP? Don't forget feed is pretty much the only input into the system, so if your only using a low protein goldfish flake things aren't going to move quickly..

It's the tiny pellets that I got with my silver perch ages ago...all since deceased. You know the little plastic test tube you test your ph in...well I give the fix 1.5 of those per day....40 goldfish from 2cm to 10cm...mostly about 6cm.

Do you think that's enough? I'm paranoid about killing them so figured it was better to underfeed them than overfeed.
I've had no goldfish deaths so I must be doing something ok.

Ok, it's been a few months since my last post and the system is marginally healthier. Have had constant problems with caterpillars, I go through every morning and pick off the little buggers. Little ones go to the fish and big ones go to the chooks.
Everything is still growing really slowly, not at all like they used to grown in the old position around the side of the house. I upgraded to a 40kg sack of gro-best fish food and my fish (about 60 goldies of various sizes) are fat and happy. My second attempt at corn has led to 3 inch long cobs, my lettuce has bolted yet again, tomatoes growing really slowly, silverbeet growing really slowly. Previously, one plant gave us 2-3 meals a week now 4 plants are barely growing fast enough to beat the caterpillars.

I've added chelated iron, cream of tartar, seasol to try to stimulate things. My strawberries look happy but I only get 3 or 4 strawberries per week (if the slugs don't get them first). I've rebuilt the roof so there is no rain water getting in the system anywhere and diluting things but I am topping up about 30 litres a week from the dam.

The roof is white polycarb. The only thing I can think of now is maybe there isn't enough sunlight? My kids cubby blocks out the sun for a couple of hours in the morning so I'm going to get that away as soon as the passionfruit growing up it stops fruiting.

I don't have a nitrate reading but the system has been going about 9 months...surely it has cycled fully by now.

Does anyone have any ideas how I get things growing again?