Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello,
I desperately need help with solving the mystery of dying plants. Here is short summary of my system:

1. indoor flood/drain system with Afnans mini syphon
2. fishtank - 50l
3. GB - 50l
4. pomp works non stop, the flooding full cycle takes about 7 min.
5. Space fro
6. System is 4 months old
7. two goldfish of about 6 cm each
8. Location - 1,5m from the window (house plants next to it are fine)
9. No additional light used
10. Water test:
NO3 - 100 ml/l
No2 - 0 ml/l
GH - 8d
KH - 4d
pH - 7,5
Cl2 - 0 ml/l

Problem:
Plants are dying from the bottom up. They turn brown and rotten and dye within few days. It happened to basil, strawberries and menthe. The toughest is onion but it started to look bad too.
Whatever I put in the BG dyes (except onion, strangely)
Do you have any suggestions?

May thanks for your support in advance.
Best
JaPo

Are you using anything to supplement oxygen? Spray bars, air stones and pumps? Sounds like you don't have enough oxygen saturation.

Can you show some pictures of the plants?

So we can see things like how high the water level is.

As for oxygen, the system is small and flood cycle quite fast - 7min. In addition I have water constantly dropping down and breaking the water surface providing more oxygen. I have no additional devices or supplements adding oxygen. Fish seem to be happy with the level of oxygen. Do you think Colum Black-Byron that it is really a problem still?

I am adding more pictures, unfortunately all plants except onion dyed already. I will put new soon but I just wanted to try to fix the system before.

Did you let your system fully cycle? You could supplement a foliar spray like seaweed extract so they can get their nutes. You might be cycling your water too fast. Usually for ebb and flow you do 15 on 45 min off as long as the entire volume of your FT is cycled in the 15 min.

You might want to paint or cover the sides of your FT and GB because the light will cause alge and that will steal O2 from your plants and fishies.

..
I would be wondering if there is just too little light...
..
.

Possibly a potassium deficiency which is fairly common early on with an AP system. Try giving it a spray with a dilute solution of Seasol, Maxicrop or whatever equivalent you can find (prepared as the product states for a foliar application). Whatever you use make certain that it actually has potassium.

http://customers.hbci.com/~wenonah/min-def/onion.htm

I'm going to second this.

It looks like it's inside. What sort of lighting have you got it on?

If you check out my system thread, you will see the secondary Koi-Pond system..
Flooded tubes in a sheltered sun-house..

Those plants just don't cut it, because it has cream Poly Carb roofing..
It seems bright, but plants either just die off or are SOOooo lanky, trying to grow to the light..

I am going to look at cutting out the section above the AP tubes and replace with clear sheet...

I just can't imagine how a sun-demanding plant will grow 1.5M from the window.. and... we don't know what direction that window faces..
..
.

Could you try putting one of the house plants that are looking fine into the system
should let you know if the others are unhappy with the light or something else

There are different light requirements for different plants.

Many house plants are rainforest plants, that come from the ground cover in a rainforest, where they don't get much direct sunlight.

Productive fruiting, or leafy plants are different, they need direct sunlight, for 8 hours-12 hours a day.

Light and Potassium both seem likely. Try what you think will work or maybe separate the plants and do some one way and some another. Don't expect immediate fantastic growth in a new system though, they sometimes take a little while to get established. Water temp can also affect which nutrients and how much of each is taken in by different plants.

Water temp might have done the Basil in if it's below 60 F, it doesn't like cooler temps.

Hi,
Thank you very much for advises. I will implement them one by one starting from most easy to do. This way we can see what really the problem was.

First I will increase level of oxygen by opening the additional valve to return water to FT, so it will be breaking the water surface even more. At the same time the flooding cycle will slow down.
Newbie I didn’t quite understand what you wrote about the flow timing. If I double it from 7 min to 15 is it going to improve in your opinion?

If it doesn’t work I will put it right next to the window. If it still won’t work I will start implementing all other ideas one by one. Any additional ideas will be still welcome.
I hope that with you guys we I can fix it. I will keep you posted.

All the best!
PS. Onion started dying today too

What I meant was... if it only takes your GB 7 min to flood and drain that means it is flooding and draining about 8 times in an hour. Try putting your pump on a timer and let it run for 15 minutes (that should be 2 flood and drain cycles for your setup) and then let it rest for 45 min. If at the end of 15 min if you have excess water in your GB, you can drill a tiny hole at the bottom of your standpipe to let the rest of the water drain out. But a little water sitting in the bottom isn't bad (like a dutch bucket) you just don't want it flooded to the top for the 45 min off period if you have plants that aren't into that kind of thing.