Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looking great on the trellis - might I suggest you experiment with a half circle cage or full circle on one tomato plant - I've grown with a flat vertical reo bar and had trouble containing them. They do, on the other hand, love cages - less work.

Is that iron deficiency ? I have a similar thing with my cucumbers.
I never know which is which. there are charts somewhere on the net.
Green veins yellow leaves isn't potasium.

What??? more modifications............but I get your point.

I plan on putting chicken wire on the roof and adding a couple of posts either end at one meter (width of wire) from the existing posts then putting chicken wire up them also. The idea being I can have a bird netting curtain along the front and both sides to stop the 28 parrots helping themselves. At best I think I'll be dropping bale twine down from the chicken wire above to support the tomatoes where required. Otherwise I'll train it along the trellis(hopefully).

Just ripped another 16 Trout out this arvo. Butterflied four and yep, they don'tget much pinker than that.

Wow Muzz they look awesome. Great looking set up you've got going there

If that yellowing with the veins staying green is starting on the newer leaves first, then it is probably iron deficiency. If the yellowing with veins staying green is on old leaves then it could be another deficiency.

Love the improvements Muzz. makes me want to get out and do more with mine.
On the interveinal chlorosis - If the yellowing of the interveinal areas of the older leaves occurs it is probably magnesium deficiency. Magnesium is a macro nutrient that plants need for chlorophyll production. It is also mobile in the plant so if there is a deficiency the plant is able to remove it from the chlorophyll in the older leaves and use it to make chlorophyll in the new leaves (that's why they go yellow). Like TC said iron is less mobile so you generally get chlorosis in the newer leaves.

Magnesium deficiency also leads to premature aging of plants and the production of woodier fruits. From memory an excess of potassium can lead to magnesium deficiency or make a magnesium deficiency worse.

There is a great book put out by QDPI on disorders of plants with a section on nutrient deficiencies and pictures. I might see if there is an online version.

It looks more like its the older leaves that are suffering. So I'm guessing as you guys and girls have suggested is that it is more likely a magnesium deficiency. Most likely brought on my PH buffering using potassium bi-carbonate. So now it looks like I need some Dolomite to add to my list. Looks like another trip to town in the coming days. Hopefully my PH fluctuations will settle down a bit in the next week or so once I've harvested all of the Trout.

Marc, I had a look for that book but couldn't find it. Got any more details??

Hey MatyH, if your interested in catching up for a beer and having a sticky beak I'm around till Monday morning.

Cheers Muzza

The book is Ornamental plants pests, diseases and disorders.
Just pulled it off my shelf and looked at magnesium deficiency and in addition to what I stated above it also says that high levels of sodium in irrigation water can induce magnesium deficiency. I appreciate that this is in relation to plants in soil but I cant see why a similar situation would not occur in aquaponics.
it also states that slow growth due to being too cold or wet or too dry can also induce it.

if you are into leaf analysis it should be in the range of 0.3 to 0.6%


My tanks are all filled with rain water so there is no minerals of any consequence coming in on the water. The rest of Perth water is likely to have some level of dissolved minerals (some more than others)
Just gone out and dosed with some dolomite lime.

Beware that potassium deficiency can also show a little bit like that too, though you are more likely to see bronzing and brown patches on the leaves in addition to the interval chlorosis. I mistook such in one of my systems for Magnesium deficiency and used Epsom salts once and really kind of made things worse for a while.
Then again, Magnesium and calcium are usually both quite abundant in our well water and potassium seems to be a major limiting macro nutrient around here. I've actually had to resort to using potassium sulfate since my pH is too high to be using KOH or Potassium bicarbonate heavily enough in my system.

Hey muzz that would be great but I'd have to take a rain check I'm up in Perth for a few days thanks anyways

Thanks for the replies, its all a learning curve and I have much to learn. Hopefully after doing a fair bit of reading I now have a better understanding of how plants react to element deficiencies. Maybe

I will be dosing the system for iron when it turns up in a week or so but in the mean time I'll try a little dolomite.

Finally got round to drawing up a schematic of sorts of my system. There's also a second SLO from Trout tank to the S Perch tank that is set higher and only 50mm. Acts as an overflow. Brush trough has a stand pipe that also acts as a overflow back to S Perch tank. Had enough of drawing so left them out....The white pipe after the bio filter is higher than the main line and acts as a bypass returning excess water back to the S Perch tank (originally the sump). So if I turn off all GB and Drum valves all the water will return via the S Perch tank. Alternatively if I have enough GB's to consume all of the flow (which I don't) then all water would return through the blue drain lines.....Clear as mud.

Great diagram Muzza. Never realized that your fish pond was in the main loop like that and you have SP, Trout and redfin sharing the same water. I'd read elsewhere that redfin may carry a virus that can effect SP - I take it you have not had any problems with that?

Is it to scale? Could squeeze plenty more GBs in if so

ps Is this the book?
http://www.appsnet.org/Publications/kerruish/

Hey Matty, to scale except future wicking bed, which is planned to be 6m x 1.5m. I did put the drain pipes in the other day for two more grow beds but not sure I'll need them.(yeah right )

Went down the Warren last weekend for 2 nights, cold and wet and I only managed 2 Redfin, very quiet. Pickled in lemon juices and shared around the camp fire with some of my smoked Trout I took down.

I thought the Redfin in WA were disease free.

Timer just went off to remove another batch of chillie trout from the smoker, better go

Cheers Muzza

Thats good to know - Had a friend go to Harvey recently and got heaps of reddies (not many trout though!). Did you get reddies to eat pellets?

I was thinking of you down at the Warren last week - stayed at home and installed a new AP system and cut tree branches off for the green waste collection!

Have never seen them eat anything. There's a few Trout in with them but they rarely get fed pellets. Want to compare flesh/taste to the Trout fed on pellets. During the day the Redfin hide under the bridge, but if you go down at night they can be seen out hunting. Can't see many shrimp left in the pond but there is still heaps of gambusia in there. Their pretty much a useless fish to keep other than ornamental (but you never see them). Will see if they spawn soon with the rising water temps other wise they might be on their way out and I'll get a heap more Silver Perch for in there.

Have got heaps of baby mussels so they are quiet happy in the system.

And one of my fish feeder controllers has died again. Third one in 18 months. Friggin useless. So time to research industrial touch screens with relay outputs.

Haven't fished Harvey, I'll put it on my list for this summer.

Smoker and Cryovak have been getting a work out, been smoking 10 whole trout and 16 butterflied daily. Getting sick of it. Think there's still more than 100 in there.

looks tasty - and its lunch time!

Harvey is full of rat redfin, they are quite a pest if trolling for trout.