Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone,


I want to make an aquaponic growing system at home to grow various kinds of vegetables and am wondering the following:

Since different plants have different ph and nutrient needs, how would they grow with one source (the pond would have some mid-point ph level around 6 and nutrient for the plants)?

Some plants require higher levels of certain nutrients, is it possible to plan how much the plant is going to "eat"? In terms of nutrient and overall water?

Can one plan to have separate ponds in the system to allow different nutrient mixes?

I hope my questions are clear enough. Anyways, thank you very much in advance for your help and time!

Welcome to the forum! In general most fruits and vegetables take nutrients well in a given pH range, say 6 to 7.5 give or take. With respect to nutrients it's more of a buffet for the plants - trying to keep adequate nutrients in all areas and the individual plants can absorb what they need / like. It is usually very unlikely that you will have such an excess of one nutrient that negatively affect plant growth, though nutrient deficiencies are common - especially iron, but also calcium and a few others.

With a starting system you are more likely to have nitrates and be light on other nutrients, so leafy greens are a good start. But as your system ages, your fish feed rate increases, and you add supplemental iron and maybe trace minerals if needed, you will support a wide variety of plants in a favorable pH range. Some are very successful with pH into the low 8's.

Thanks, dstjohn99, that's very useful info!

If I want to have a system with decorative fish (I don't want to kill fish) and a variety of plants (potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, greens, lettuce, peas, and I somehow manage to get EC about 1.8 and ph of about 6.5-7, would you think it would be a balanced system?

I realize I need to take a very well-paced approach on this, starting off in smaller portions, gradually filling up the tank and the growbeds but in theoretically I could get to such a stage. If I then put a filter system either in the beginning of irrigation of in the end, to monitor and control EC, ph, flow, etc., would that work?

Of course, I would need to have a very well calculated fish tank, growbed infrastructure (containers, root area, irrigation tubes, sprinklers, mist makers, etc..) and a very well timed water pump.

I'm planning to build a family year-round plant-based diet greenhouse, powered by solar panels, rainwater harvested water, and aquaponics system. Each plant will be grown in a specific container to best utilize its specific growth characteristics. That would involve using different watering methods but I plan to mostly use aeroponics (both high and low pressure systems, depending on the desired root growth) in vertical growbed "towers". I would also have to think about aeration of the water somehow as well as adding CO2 in the most eco-friendly way (so far I've found various types of fermentation to be the safest bet but I'm still unsure about those)

A side question on the fish tank: how to deal with fish waste and dead fish? Does the bacteria on the tank bottom take care of that?

Good Luck. Your endeavors are of the highest there are.