Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello all, I am relatively new to aquaponics and growing in general. I have had my system set up for a couple months. My tomato plant was doing great starting to flower and growing good. All or a sudden the leaves started doing this. And part of the plant started drooping. I have had issues with tip burn on lettuce as well are these related? How should I treat this?

Thanks for any help.

Hi Steig, welcome to the forum.

Your picture didn't come through so I can only guess at what's going on but the tip burn sounds like it could be a potassium deficiency.

There is a tutorial for posting photos here - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21754

Cheers

Scotty, I don't know what they're paying you as a mod, but you need a raise. Great job!

Attemp 2 at the photo. For potassium deficiency are people just using hydroponic nutrients? Or is this why I occasionally read about burried banana peels?

Depending on pH will dictate what type of potassium you use. My pH is always below 7 so I use potassium hydroxide (raises pH). I'm not a fan of a banana peel rotting in a growbed. With that said, that looks like iron deficiency to me.

The hardest thing about diagnosing deficiencies is they often look similar. This website is handy though (and there are others that are good) http://www.organicagardensupply.com/dis ... th-photos/

For potassium deficiency (and phosphorus, which I had with my tomatoes last season) I used MKP with great success. It's Mono-Potassium Phosphate and it was very effective and is fish safe. People do use banana skins but I didn't like the idea of using them.

Azira, that website is exactly what a guy needed. Thanks for the link I bookmarked it right away. How did you apply the mkp? The listing I found showed reference to how much per gallon per area of dirt.

I just dissolved some in some of the system water then poured it in to the GB at the distribution pipe. As to how much I used, I'm not sure. At first I was tentative and only used a small spoonful, but I saw no result so I ended up just shaking out a bit into the container. It maybe was a 1/3 of a cup, probably far too much but it did the trick.

It can cause algae growth but I've never had any in my system because the tanks are so dark, so it didn't cause any problems.