Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi , this is my first post but not my first time visiting the site. Lots of helpful information here when building my system. Now for my problem, I have 4 ghost pepper plants that I planted last week I believe on monday. Now about a week later I started noticing a dark color starting to show on the leaves. Can anyone help identify the problem (nutrient deficiency perhaps). Ive have added about 275ml of Maxicrop+Iron when a few days ago since the system is void of nutrients due to it being a new system. Thanks for any help you can give me ill post pictures below.

Can you post some more info about your system

Size , Is it siphon or constant flood , ph , water temperatures , do you have fish , what you have put in (your maxicrop addition could be lots or minimal depending on system size.

Do you have sufficient air (oxygen in water)

Photos are a great help

Fruiting plants in a brand new system generally struggle until you have built up a nutrient base .

And of course welcome to the forum

It's probably about 400 gallons including a 275 gallon IBC fish tank and 12 grow beds that are 55 gallon barrels cut in half. The system is a constant flood system with the water about 6 inches below the surface. No fish yet as I'm currently cycling the system, but I'm using urea (small dose of about 1 tsp a day) and have about a .25 ppm ammonia reading, a 5 ppm nitrite reading, and about 40-80 ppm of nitrate. Like I said I put in about 275 ml into the system to get some nutrients flowing as it's new. I'm not sure on the aeration but I feel that my sump pump is sufficiently moving water (1300 gal per hour) that it aerates properly.

Could be nitrogen burn. Could be sun scorch if the plants weren't hardened off good before being placed outside. Could be a bit of both. Might try some shade cloth during the heat of the day and cut back a little on the urea.

If they start yellowing it will from too much water. Peppers don't like a lot of water and may not do well in the constant flood system.

Upper leaves are lighter and have interveinal chlorosis so this is probably an iron deficiency. I think the red color is probably unrelated to the iron deficiency and is likely a response to high light levels.