Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

HI
wondering if anyone could help me with my problems:

1.strawberries' first crop produced nice big juicy fruit but gradually they have been getting smaller and smaller to the size of a pea. Plants look healthy , nice flowers and lots of fruit but they are tiny.

2. Long beans producing lots. Beans are nice and big 50cm+, diameter of a pencil but they are really pale in colour. Haven't tasted them yet. Should they be a lot greener?

Added 1 teaspoon of chelated iron and epsom salts beginning of Jan. Buried banana skins in the growbeds in Dec.

thanks in advance

Odds on you've got a Potassium deficiency. I recently sprayed a tomato plant in my veg garden with Eco-rose, there was a self-sown strawberry bush growing near the drip line of the tomato plant that was only producing small strawbs about the size of a 5c piece. The Eco-rose solution dripped off the tomato plant, all over and around the strawb plant, within a week the new strawbs coming through were twice the size.

Maybe try giving your plants a foliar feed using Eco-rose (it's got a new name now, but can't remember it). Spray the foliage once a week, in the very late afternoon, about an hour or two before dark. Or if your system has a low water pH you could also add the Eco-rose to your system water. Maybe try a heaped tsp per 1000Ltr, but dissolve it first in some water, it takes a bit of stirring to dissolve it properly.

Banana skins have to be added to GB's on a continual basis to get any noticeable benefit. In my single blue barrel system (50L GB capacity) I've been adding a banana skin every 2 or 3 weeks and still had to supplement some Potassium recently.

Cheers.

The Eco-rose is now laballed Eco-fungicide acts as a bloom booster and also acts as a fungicide that combats powdey mildew and is certified organic, certainly a handy product to have on hand.

Can epsom salts be disolved and added to GBs? or do you foliar spray? also what quantity would be regarded as safe for either application? Our corn is showing signs of deficiency and we have a high pH which will be "locking up" some nutrients

thanks will get some asap
I just dissolved the iron with epsom salts in a 2l container and poured into the fishtank

can anyone please tell me the strength of potassium bicarb in Ecorose? should be listed on the pack
I've got my hands on potassium chloride medical grade (don't ask)
and want to give the equivalent dose

I'll try and find mine...

Potassium Chloride... will provide a Potassium boost... but it wont buffer your pH... if that's what you were trying to acheive as well..

And be cautious about the dosage... medical grade is probably 99-100.05% pure (don't ask)...

Small amounts ingested... (not sure if there'd be any accumulation).. can be fatal to those with weak hearts... and larger doses are used for lethal chemical injection of condemned prisoners...

it's 94%.. no info on what the other 6% is tho..

thanks
forgot to ask what are the directions for use?

guessing the other 6% is probably anti-caking agent

Wouldnt anti-caking agent be bad? Being the reason to use pool salt instead of table salt?

haha with what you are using, Is euthanasia legal in WA? Ooops? Soz!
I disolved a 1/4 tsp eco-rose into 500ml sprayer and sprayed about post sun. All good but our corn is still stripy???

the KCl seems to have done the trick. strawberries are getting bigger
Found out that the beans are just that colour, nothing wronng with them