Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have plenty of light on my plants but the leaves are starting to turn yellow on some of the plants.... do I need to add something to increase the iron? If so, what (please) and if not, what might be causing that? One of my squash buds just drooped over and looks like it is about to fall off... I have quite a few buds on there but they have not flowered out yet.
I want to make sure that the plants are getting everything they need.

My water readings are all good and I have worms in the bottom and the fish have a good appetite and are doing good... now I have to turn my attention to my plants.
As I said before, the roma tomato plant has not not made a flower and it is growing everywhere - very leggy and the harvester bean plant made 3 nice bean pods and then nothing else since.

If I need to add a supplement for the plants, then I would like some feedback if possible to help me figure it out.
Thanks


ps stage 2?

I add a spoonful of chelated iron (powdered iron) into one of my standpipes every 2 months or so. Give it a try and see if it makes a difference in a couple of weeks. Might even be worth putting a dolop of seaweed extract in your Ft for trace elements.

thank you... will find those things. Appreciate it.

You can kill two birds with one bottle Di.... look for "Maxicrop + Iron"....

where would I search for maxicrop? A graden center, a petco??? I guess I have never seen it before. If not somewhere common place, I will have to order it online - any good online places to recommend?

You can get it from Amazon... http://www.amazon.com/Maxicrop-Seaweed- ... B00064SYBM

G'day Di
every thing looks like it's coming along great but can we get some overall pic's of your system please ?

cheers

I will surely see what I can do about getting some posted tomorrow....

Here are the pictures of the grow bed (I have posted photos earlier of the fish part of it)

Here is the last one of the grow bed. (yellow squash plant)

I ordered the maxi crop with iron (decided it would just be easier than running all over the next town over to try to find it - gas prices are just too high for that especially since the next town over is 34 miles one way)

Excellent Di!! Nice, those are pretty much right where you would like steady readings to be.

As for the issue of the "lack of blooming", a couple of questions for you. What's the air temp around your plants? How many hours/day are the plants exposed to light? And what type of light (especially if it is artificial lighting)?

It will take 14-16 hours/day of light for the tomato plants to produce blooms and the air temp is best around 75 - 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Shorter hours of light and/or lower temps will tend to produce foliage instead of blooms.

the house is never below 75 and in the middle of the day it might hit 79-82 depending on the day and how hard the ac has to fight to keep up.

The light is on from approx 8am until bedtime which can be 10 - midnight.
It is fluorescent light designed for plants but I am not sure I can remember the numbers for it.
(will go check to see if I still have the pkg) ok.. I don't have the pkg but the bulbs say
Wide Spectrum F40PL/AQEC0 (or AOEC0) [or similar.. it is all in a weird place to be trying to read it lol]

I am glad to have finally hit a steady water reading and happy to have stopped losing fish. They seem to be doing good and they have a healthy appetite as well. It all seems nicely balanced out at the moment.

Well my yellow squash bloomed 2 flowers.... both male.

I was so excited but then neither of them had the bulb on the end to indicate the
fruit producing flower....
is that normal?