Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok guys, our newish school system is struggling and I am starting to lose student interest.

What are some plants that will grow no matter what? Basil is even dying in our system!



What can we plant and you think would grow even under challenging conditions?

Hi could you post a link to the school system

Have a look at what grows in your local area. Technically, your climate should sustain alot of plants.

Then go buy the seeds.

Mix all the seeds and then spread onto the GB.

Wait and see what pops up.

Add a cup of Seasol (seaweed extract) each week, mix in a watering can and water over GB.

Something "should" come up.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8538

We have absolutely no problem with sprouting seeds. Everything we plant sprouts.

Everything that sprouts DIES>



Even larger starter plants DIE.

Can you post a pic on what the ailments are?

What are the parameters?

basic shrivel up and die.

I have another thread in the plant section.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9174

Could only really be a couple things:

1 - not flooding high enough or often enough
2 - to much direct sunlight
3 - someone is putting on a herbicide

I cannot think of anything else that would cause them to just shrivel up and die. You could probably rule out herbicide if the fish are all ok. It looks like you have shade over it, so I doubt it gets to much sun. What are your max temps? I would say take a good hard look at your flood cycle. Measure it all and give us some numbers.

The media in your growbed looks way too fine. What do the roots on the effected plants look like?

Mint?

This is all in another post so I apologize to all for duplicates!

RIght now the plants get about 3 hours of pretty strong direct sunlight in the morning. Going to put in more shade cloth this week. Right now max temps is mid 80s.

Timer on pump is 30-45 minutes on and 30 minutes off. Takes about 10 minutes to fill GB and then another 15-20 to drain.

Here's a monkey wrench to the whole thing: raft bed plants also dying. so that might eliminate the flood and drain issue.

Might be low levels of herbicide. The maintenance workers did spray the area several months ago. The system had water running but no fish and plants at the time (it was being built).

Could be the herbicide.. I know it's a big undertaking but can you drain the water, wash the gravel and start again?

- Ceylon spinach

- mint, as freoboy said

but really, of your basil is dying, there's something fundamentally wrong with the system.

Yeah Chili sound like it might be huh?

We've been flushing the system with freshwater. We've also had some heavy rains so I guess that would help too.

I wonder what the residence time of herbicide is in water?

Sorry to hear you're having difficulties. I've looked through your threads and seen a few things that were suggested I'm not certain which you tried so forgive the repetition.

First I would try putting a thermometer on the surface to test the temp at the bed surface and slightly below. A high/low thermometer will record the high and low so you can see what's happening.

Second, If you have access to a water hyacinth, put it in a floating cage to protect it from the fish eating it and plop it in the tank - if it dies then probably something in the water is killing the plants and you need to gradually change the water so as not to kill the fish. These also do a great job of filtering water.

Last of all I have had great luck with growing parsley from seed and would try it. Either the parsley, or water hyacinth should make it.

I predict the hyacinth will live but the parsley will die and I suspect the thermometer will show high temps near the surface of the black growing media (but I could be wrong ). If you find this then you could layer a lighter colored gravel over the top and that should help. You could also put some white plastic over parts of the bed to help.

One thing I noticed that was interesting is that both the pepper and the eggplant had yellowing of what look like the veins.