Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What's up everybody. So I have 20-3 inch tilapia and 4 goldfish for my ft. My system has about 100 gallons of water. Half raft dwc and half hydroton ebi flow bed. Have a sump with a swirl filter a large section with biomedia from work. They look like pasta plastic straw pastaish hahaha. And mechanical.



Ok so the lettuce, basil and jalapeno are my doing but the rest have been growing for along time like a year. I took over this system when I started my New job. Its in our office and each section has a 6 bulb t5 which covers the entire footprint of the raft and growbed

MY QUESTIONS

I have noticed how painfully malnourished my plants look.

What do I need to dose, brands/product names would be awesome?

Also my ph is around 6.5 which is adequate if my research serves me right.
But when I dose my seaweed extract it increases acidity dramatically. I learned after the first dose that it will drop the ph to 5.5 if I dose as directed ( I Just dosed #2 second time yesterday and we are sitting at 6.5)

IM CONFUSED THIS SYSTEM IS OLD IT IS ESTABLISHED AND HAS MORE THAN ENOUGH FISH WASTE IF ANYTHING IT IS OVER ENGINEERED AND FILTERED IN THE SUMP.

WHY ARE MY PLANTS ESPECIALLY MY EASY LETTUCE STRUGGLING?

Any help would be incredible. I apologize for the nature of my post. I'm on my lunch break. IF YOU NEED ANYTHING PICTURES, MORE SPECIFIC DETAILS PLEASE LET ME KNOW I WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN. ALSO HOPE THIS IS THE RIGHT PLACE TO POST HERE.

Also I think the old cabbage has powder mildew how serious is this should I pull it Out? I have no desire to grow cabbage lol.

Also with lettuce or any leafy veggie the bottom leaves are Browning and rotting away. Is this calcium def?

With my knowledge of gardening. I would assume I'm def in iron, calcium and potassium? Please correct me And elaborate just trying to be a sponge

Bump

Would love help guys

Maybe iron,but a small amount won’t hurt,Strawberries showing Potassium,Chillies showing Magnessium,cabbage don’t know,can’t really tell from the pic,actually they are rather on the big side.....

I had the same sort of trouble and iron made a huge difference. 100 gallons is small though so I would recommend that you make a dilution and add that to the water.

I now put about 2ml iron chelate powder per week in my 8000 liters system.

I also bought another fertiliser with the other elements in but because it is high in nitrogen, I keep a light hand.

Based on the problems being mostly on the older leaves I suspect a mobile nutrient.

Mobile and Immobile Nutrients -
Mobile Nutrients - Deficiencies show on old growth first
Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Molybdenum, Magnesium and Zinc

Immobile Nutrients - Deficiencies show on new growth first
Iron, Copper, Manganese, Chlorine, Cobalt, Boron, Calcium, Sulfur

+1 I'd go with what DasBoot says on this. I definitely see the potassium deficiency with the strawberries. Hard to tell on the lettuce but you may have some purple coloration from lack of potassium there as well. With some lettuce this is just their normal coloration. I think he might be wrong on the chili's having a magnesium deficiency since I would think the veins should be darker than the areas in between. On the other hand I'm not sure what is going on with the peppers and he may be right.

What are you using for the seaweed extract? Specifically which brand and product name? Some of these have Iron and potassium in them, some don't, find out if yours does or let us know what product you've got. Does this product have any nitrogen? Along those same lines, how much are you adding and how big is your system.

Have you switched to another brand of fish food or anything change in the nutrients you're providing?

For now I'd just give them potassium and iron and my feeling is that this is mostly a potassium deficiency issue. I am concerned that the pH changed as much as it did when you added the seaweed - somethings wrong there I think (might want to check that again - it might have something to do with how you're maintaining (no buffering) or testing (dirty test tube) your pH ).

Not really sure myself on the magnesium issue scotty,but when i looked at the entire plant even the new growth has pale veins.....

What are your Nitrate levels,not very likely but low Nitrogen for the pale chillies.....

Thanks ALOT for the help [THUMBS UP SIGN][OK HAND SIGN]

Quick question can you have to much bio filtration in an,aquaponics system?

Sandy recommendations of products or links. I can order online

In a word no....

You can have the wrong kind of biofiltration though - you'd smell it if you did though. You'd get toxic metabolites that would affect the fish and plants.

At the current pH of 6.5 - Maxicrop plus Iron would work since it has potassium and iron. I see you already have seaweed extract so probably not much point in getting the maxicrop. Potassium bicarbonate would be a good source of potassium and it is also used to fight some types of molds (I'd probably spray this on). EcoRose aka EcoFungicide is about 94% potassium bicarb and the rest is apparently detergent. For the iron you could get an iron supplement - Nate Storey has a couple of videos on YouTube that talk about iron and that will help you figure out what to get for that.

scotty i reckon at that PH DTPA is perfect for the job,my 3800 litre system takes two teaspoons a week to keep it in the sweet spot,i would stay away from EDDHA unless you never want to see your fish again....

You guys are awesome. Thank you. Ok dtpa, is what exactly (purpose wise?) I watched nate story and will start taking care of that. Will buy ecorose.

Also I noticed the raft on there (I didn't make.) has about a 3 inch gap on front And,back in between the front,and,rear,wall. The algae is pretty established. I assume that this is a potential issue and might have some,responsibility when it comes to my nutrient issues.

So I plan on building a,New raft. I want to pack it with more pots than it currently has. My coworker (sensitive builder who's system,I'm taking over) said I why ad more pots to a nutrient deficient system. Can I over pot It?