Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

In order to reduce my nitrate I regularly water my soil garden with AP water and refill the AP with dam water. Theoretically I thought this system would be the best thing since sliced bread. However I've experienced the opposite. For example I thinned out some self seeded celery plants from the AP and planted them in the soil garden. Watered with AP water and aerated cow manure tea, the celery is considerably stunted in comparison to the ones in the AP. The older leaves are yellow. Cucumber I planted 3 weeks ago are looking very sad, even peas are growing and producing peas but I wouldn't want to be relying on them to feed my family, they're quite sparse.

I'm not sure if I'm missing something biologically speaking here or if it is just a result of my raised beds being brand new, filled with imported soil (certified organic). Maybe it will take time for the microbial population to increase in the raised bed. I'm in the process of making hot compost which should fix that.

Just wondered if anyone else has tried using AP water in a soil garden with success?

Post some pics of your plants, maybe we can help figure out what's going on. Here are a few thoughts -

1. Might have something to do with the soils pH (affects availability of phosphorus among other things). Lack of phosphorus can cause stunting. I should mention it's pretty common for plants to grow larger in AP, though, it's not a given.

2. The yellowing on the lower leaves might be a mobile nutrient problem (insufficient Nitrogen for example). Plants need nitrogen to create proteins and grow.

3. Could be a toxicity reaction because of too many nutrients - these sometimes look like deficiencies.

If you let the plants stay this way too long they don't always snap back so best to solve it ASAP. My guess is that there aren't a lot of nutrients available and that nitrogen may be in short supply. Watering in some Blood and Bone meal around the base of the plants might be a quick fix - It's better if you can nail it more specifically though.

Thing is though I'm watering it with high nitrate aquaponics water and the same vegetables in the same AP system are doing really well. It could be a nutrient overdose, maybe the nutrients are accumulating via evaporation. I haven't done a ph test yet, I should try that. The water ph is fine, around 6.5.

Hmm, get those pics up . What is you nitrate test reading and roughly how many gallons have you applied? The size of the soil bed you've been putting this on will be needed as well.

With the AP setup the fish continually put out waste and the nitrate levels can be low in the water yet sufficient for the plants grown in AP. Your soil grown plants get only the nitrate or ammonia that is in the water at the time you dip the bucket so it's not continuous supply. The aerated cow manure tea may have added too little, enough or too much nitrogen. If you can guess how much manure was used we might be able to figure this out. I think if the leaves near the base of the plant started yellowing from the tips one possible explanation might be a nitrogen burn from having an excess. A nitrogen deficiency would be more of a general lightening over the whole surface of those lower leaves.

All of my veg gardens and hot house gets watered with fish tank water