Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

OK... I've done some digging in archives and haven't come up with anything that comes close enough so I'm coming directly to the knowledge source...

Tom leaves are curling and yellowing around the edges. Fish were just added to the system within the last 48 hrs. Tom issue has been for more than two weeks. I'm guessing a nute deficiency, perhaps iron but I'd like to hear from those more experienced.... pH tanked from 6.8 to 6.0 roughly a week ago as well. Still producing flowers, though... Stalks are also somewhat brittle...

Any thoughts appreciated...

Looks to me that it could be potassium. Since the yellowing is starting from the tips on what looks like some what mature leaves. Most likely the nutes from the fish haven't quite been able to work their magic yet since its only been two days. As for the curling, I'm not totally sure. This site says Magnesium deficiency is similar to potassium deficiency and the picture shows upward curling of the leaves. If its magnesium deficiency I know you could add some Epsom salt.

Thanks, Zek... It's the DOWNward curling that's throwing me. Everything I've seen for leaves curling shows them curling upward and/or inward on themselves as opposed to what I've got going on. May be magnesium. I hit the local pet supply and grabbed some liquid iron/potassium for aquarium plants to see if that would help as I can get my hands on any chelated iron locally. Haven't seem much of a difference yet and that's been over a week now. Even the local university ag guru couldn't venture a guess...

So we'll see how having the fish and food in there does. Hopefully that will turn things around in another few weeks.... As long as no more Comets go over the falls, through the swirl filter and onward to the GB.... <sigh>... I've since rectified that and put a guard on the top end of my SLO for future prevention. Fortunately/unfortunately, my tank floods just above my SLO tee. Good as it acts as a bit of a surface skimmer, bad that it apparently can suck small enough fish through... Won't happen again at least.....

From the pics the curling seems limited to the top of the plant - might it be the light?

I'm thinking heat, but I know cfls run fairly cold... Just throwing it out there.

Sorry to hear about comet's little adventure

Well... I don't THINK heat is that much of an issue although I could be wrong, BiF...I've actually started leaving the grow room door open in order to keep the heat/humidity down, though. Toms have had such a spurt in growth despite the curling that transpiration is up again and I'm hitting 88-92% humidity and 79*-82*F but even that somewhat baffles me as we get week long stretches of weather like that here and I haven't seen outdoor toms act this way...

As for lighting, I'm using one 2700K and one 5000K tube in that 4' T8 fluo fixture. I AM, however, cheating a bit as I'm over-driving the bulbs, i.e. running two ballasts on the fixture. And believe it or not, the residual heat from that fixture and the 100W CFL not in the photos are the only sources of heat in the room at the moment which fairly amazes me in and of itself...

Long term, the Comets are only here b/c the tilapia source I was going to use is suddenly having breeding issues - is that even possible for tilapia? I was under the impression that they were simply rabbits with gills... With my luck the Comets will be filetable by the time tilapia fry are ready...

The mom was accused of "eating" her babies. The dad doesn't want to take care of the babies cause he found some new female to knock up. Child Protective Services came in and made the babies wards of the state. Its a whole bunch of red tape so its going to take some time. Give it a year or two while the gov't figures it out.