Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

Hope my fellow Aussies are enjoying the spring weather and improved plant growth.

I've got a bit of a problem with some of my plants. I did search for these problems on google, but the best advice I could find so far is "nutrient deficiency", someone else went a bit further and said nitrogen. My last test a week or so ago showed nitrates to be 5 ppm.

I'm hoping someone here has more of an idea, and I know how you all love photos, so here it goes.

Ive got a bunch of zucchinies, beans, and tomato plants all crammed into a small space. My tomato leaves looked a bit funky a while ago, but the problem stopped occuring. Now my zucchini leaves are starting to go yellow and die/discolour on the edges, while my bean leaves are getting white spots on them (does not look mildewy..but what do I know??).

These are the pics.





Has anyone had this problem before. My main thoughts are not enough air flow or nutrients. Although, my PH has been around 7.8-8.0 recently, so could also be nut lockout?. I don't think it is a disease.

I will probabably add a bit off seasol anyway. I only have a 180 lt tank, so do you think a cap full is too much?

cheers,
Luke.

You have a lot of fruiting plants in a small space so keeping nutes up to them all will be hard going. For beans and zucs to look healthy all the time they need good conditions, but yours dont look that bad.

Thanks, it sounds like I can just live with it then. Although, upping the nuts might be an idea anyway, since most of the fruit is only in flower or infancy stage.

I know normally people say that a low stocked system will drive a lot of plants, but do you think stocking a bit more than 5 small yabbies in the 180lt tank would help? Or am i really not going to be able to grow 100% green and leafy plants without adding supliments in such a small growthing space?

Looks to me like you could have a couple of deficiencies. Firstly I'd be adding Chelated Iron... a slightly heaped teaspoon per 1000L

I'd also be giving the foliage a spray with some Eco-Rose (available from the big "B" store), it'll provide Potassium. When making up the spray make sure you thoroughly dissolve the Eco-rose, I've found it takes a fair bit of stirring for it to completely dissolve. You can add Eco-Rose into the water in your system, but definitely not when your pH is as high as yours. In the future, if/when your system pH begins to drop, you can use Eco-Rose to bring the pH up and it'll add Potassium at the same time, but I'd alternate between the Eco-Rose and hydrated lime each time you need to buffer the pH up.

I would also work on slowly bringing your systems pH down by treating any top-up water with Hydrochloric acid to a pH in the low 6's the day before adding it to your main system.

I had 5 yabbies in my small single blue barrel system (70L water capacity and 50L exp clay) and I found they weren't producing enough nutrients. I swapped them out for 5 small goldies and the plant growth was much better.

Cheers.

Thanks MrD,

I will try the but suppliments you suggested. I'll see how the drift wood in my tank goes at lowering the PH first before buffering/lowering in particular.



Okay, i think I will add some cheap feeders to the tank then. I have 180lt FT with large canister filter and 50L of GB, so the system can easily handle more livestock. When I finally get around to stocking with fingerlings, they can just eat the feeders.

Haha,

I just realised a "but" slipped into the first sentence of my last post in an amusing spot.

I dosed with seasol and have cleaned everything up, opening up the bed and getting rid of the really poor looking leaves. I will buy some Iron tomorrow and give that a go also.

In other news, it doesn't seem any of my tomato flowers are polinating. Out of about 11 on my plant so far this season I have had one go to fruit. And what looked like new flower buds have not progressed in a week or so. Don't know if this is related to my nutrient prob.

Oh well, leasons learnt. 1) nearly all your seeds will germinate in AP provided they dont float away. So dont over soe! 2) You'll never get that "bigger system" built in time to transplant the seedling from your small system. So make sure its built first before planning for transplant..haha. 3) Yabies don't produce as much nutrients as fish.

Yabbies dont eat as much as fish is why the nutrient output is different. Less food - less poo - less nutrient.

I did seasol. I have not done Iron yet. Been very busy the last week before I went on chrissy leave.

Had to go away for 3 days, and when I got back the plants seemed a bit better. Tested and the PH had come down to 7.6-7.8. So that combined with the seasol probably contributed to the plants improving.

I rinsed my canister filter & media out, as something in there was restricting the flow, and did a 1/4 water change to try and bring Ph down, using some rain water that got collected in the IBC I'm putting into my new system. It had a small amount of dead insects and grass clippings in it and Ph was at 6 (hopefully not also high ammonia). Will try and get some Iron this weekend and add that also.

Keep you posted.

Okay,

Time for an update in response to all the advice. And thanks again to all.

As reported. I started dosing with seasol and lowered my Ph, which seemed to make the plants more spritely. So this probably allowed the plant to start taking up the seasol, but didn't result in excellent health or a great deal of flowers.

About 5-7 days later I dosed with chelated iron and add a small piece of bananna skin to the GB. Things improved markedly, so I guess iron was the major prob, though potassium might have also been low. The green tomatto that had been haing for a few weeks finally started colouring up, and some of the shriveled flowers starts putting out fruit. My bean flowered like crazy.

Unfortunately it seems that my plants' ill health had already attracted more than just the thrips I at time of starting the thread. I had a hatching of caterpillas, white fly, and an increase in thrips activity, and a bit of white mildew on zucch. I blasted the zucchs with some eco-rose, but must have mixed it too strong as it burnt everything. My zucchs are still putting out male flowers, and so is the tom plant. But although the beans have a bunch of fruit on them, no new leaves are coming on, so they might have had it.

I've thinned everything back to try and get rid of pests and eggs, and to limit competition for nutrients. The pest activitiy has dropped and I found a lady bug today , but all, in all, my first AP crop has been less successful than I hoped. I now realise things can go down hill fast, and will be on top of things next time.

P.S. almost fell over when I saw cost of Chelated Iron and Eco-rose, $40+ total...I'm sure it makes a life-time of batches...but really???!

Oops, yeah...eco-rose mixed way too strong. Was supposed to divide the ten litre dose rate by 50, not 5!

Oh well, hopefully my beans will get some new growth now that goldies are in the tank.

Hi DrLuke, I think I may be having a very similar issue to you at the moment. White spots on the zucchini leaves and my tomatoes have just been sitting on the vine for weeks and none are turning red yet. Where did you get the chelated iron from?

Sorry to hear that.

I got mine from Flower Power ($25), but it is about $4 cheaper at Bunnings. As are most treatments by the looks of it, judging by eco-rose having the same price difference at those stores.

The pests that followed the nutrient deficiencies is what has realy set my plants back now I think. Now that I know the signs of thrips I realised I had them all along, but the white fly and caterpillas only came after all the plants got sick.