Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The basil and cilantro were once again not working in the small DWC tank, definitely a light issue. When will I learn. I just wanted to make that tank work, but looks like I will have to wait until I can afford another LED light. Anyway, I moved them to the top GB and bought 5 more goldfish so my stock is back up to 7.

Still don't know why I keep losing fish.

-Tyler

Did a quick parameter check last night. Everything looks to be in line and so far, the five new goldfish I bought haven't died yet. I moved the basil and cilantro to the top grow bed. Everything is looking healthy just hoping they have enough light to grow.

Interested to see how the bush and strawberry plant does in a pH environment above 7. My guess and the research I've done says it won't be good. I guess we will see.

-Tyler

OK, a few things to cover with you. First off the fish deaths could have been due to an ammonia or nitrite spike - once these happen fish often die slowly, one at a time because of the damage already caused. Another possibility would be disease and sometimes a UV filter can help with this.

You pH is still high which might indicate that the media in the grow beds has some limestone in it that's buffering up the pH to 8.2. Not much you can do to get the pH down short of replacing the media if that's the case. If that's not the case then you can adjust the water slowly by using Hydrochloric acid (aka muriatic acid) to adjust your top up water to a pH of 6.5 (let it sit for a couple of hours to see if the pH drifts and readjust if needed) each time you have to top up your system (make sure you follow the precautions on the bottle, this is a concentrated acid and can be dangerous - especially store away from children). Do not put the acid directly into the system only adjust the top up water (it's too easy to overshoot). You don't want to make changes greater than 0.4 pH units at any adjustment (give the fish a chance to acclimate maybe a day or so before adjusting again).

It looks like you've maxed out the kits ability to read nitrates. To find out what your nitrates really are dilute the system water you're testing with some nitrate free tap water (check the tap water with the kit just in case). So basically if you diluted the system water with an equal volume of tap water you'd just multiply the result by 2. You don't want the reading to be the highest or lowest one on the chart or your result may be off because the kit can't read any higher or lower.

Hope this helps.

You pH is still high which might indicate that the media in the grow beds has some limestone in it that's buffering up the pH to 8.2. Not much you can do to get the pH down short of replacing the media if that's the case. If that's not the case then you can adjust the water slowly by using Hydrochloric acid (aka muriatic acid) to adjust your top up water to a pH of 6.5 (let it sit for a couple of hours to see if the pH drifts and readjust if needed) each time you have to top up your system (make sure you follow the precautions on the bottle, this is a concentrated acid and can be dangerous - especially store away from children). Do not put the acid directly into the system only adjust the top up water (it's too easy to overshoot). You don't want to make changes greater than 0.4 pH units at any adjustment (give the fish a chance to acclimate maybe a day or so before adjusting again).



Scotty,

What do you think about adding distilled water as my top up water? pH roughly 5.5, adding about 5-8 gallons a month or so.

Also, I am not seeing results as I intended with this new light. I have 15 minute on vs. 45 minute off every hour from 7 am to 9 pm any recommendations on this set-up? Thanks in advance.

-Tyler

I think using distilled water as the only water source for top up over and over again is a really bad idea but for some of your water it's OK. The problem is that the minerals have been removed so you'd have to get them from the media or from somewhere else. Maybe you've got so many minerals in your regular water it would work for a while but if you don't get enough into the system everything will suffer.

Your new light isn't on enough. Basically it's on for 15 minutes each hour for 14 hours of the day for a cumulative total of 3.5 hours. I suspect that increasing the actual time over 10 hours per day might give you what you need.

Sorry for misstating. The pump is on the timer schedule in the previous post. The light is runs constantly from 7am to 9pm.

I see what you mean about the distilled water. Funny thing is I looked at the plants this morning when I fed the fish and the blueberry plant is sprouting leaves like crazy and there are already two flowers on the strawberry plant. So maybe the pH is fine for now, only time will tell. The two plants struggling the most are the basil and cilantro, the plants I thought would be the easiest. No idea why they're not doing well.

-Tyler

Ah, OK thanks for the clarification . So unless the wavelength is wrong or the intensity is lacking it's not the lighting.

Post up a pic of the basil and cilantro under normal light if you can, I'm better at telling what's going on that way. The basil didn't look that bad but I'm not used to that lighting . FWIW, Basil and cilantro can both be pretty picky growers.

Cheers

You must be growing some very unusual Basil and Cilantro. I've always had the best success with these 2 easiest plants to grow.

Of course Cilantro is a cool weather crop. and Basil is a Hot weather crop, the only drawback is that it turns black at 46 F.

Trick to growing it, Don't try seeding individual seeds, broadcast them, they grow better crowded, besides the seedling can be thinned and eaten. And the seed is very cheap to buy.

Here are some updated pictures of my plants. The strawberry plant and blueberry bush seem to doing fine, let me know if you see otherwise. The basil and cilantro are struggling big time. As always thanks for the feedback.

-Tyler

They do well for me too but they seem to die out or bolt earlier than other plants in the same categories (warm or cool weather crops).

Cilantro tends to bolt when the temp goes up because as you stated it's a cool weather crop. Lettuce and other greens aren't as prone to bolting as cilantro has been for me - and I live in a cool climate. Basil starts having more problems when the temp gets to 65 or below because as you mentioned it's a hot weather crop. Usually I see it more problems under 60F but occasionally they make it into the 50 to 55 range before they lose most if not all of their leaves. Tomatoes and peppers both warm weather crops do better than basil in tolerating cool weather.

Hi Tyler,

Check for condensation above the plants at night over the next few days. If you find that you're getting some, you may need to install a small fan to keep the air moving. Strawberries and Blueberries both tolerate getting drips on the leaves better than basil and cilantro - especially with cooler water.

If that's not what you find then try for a better photo, thanks.

No condensation and no drips but I did go ahead and pull the cilantro plant out. It was covered in aphids. Luckily it was only localized to that plant. I normally start my own seedlings indoors so don't run in to this problem but I bought these plants from a local garden store. I have attached pictures from last week. I tried to give you a better picture of the basil plant.

I will take more pictures this week. We left for Easter weekend and came back to huge growth in all the plants. Lots of strawberries and peppers forming already.

-Tyler

Hi there,

Nice youve bought a massive LED light! I am using 150 watt for 1 square meter of growing area. So 300 watt on your growing area is definitely enough. But the spectrum consists of just red and blue light. Lots of plants will do fine with just red and blue, but some will grow stunted. I had 2 different strawberry varieties, one grew very well, the other one was super elongated. I dont see any light related problems in your plants at the moment tho.

I think your basil is showing iron deficiency, makes sense in regard to your high pH. A high pH makes iron unavaible for uptake by plants. The cilantro looks beyond saving to me, I would get it out. The change from gardencenter conditions to high light intensity indoor aquaponic setup might have been to much.

Good luck.

+1 probably an iron deficiency but I'm not 100% certain since the lower leaves seem to be chlorotic as well. I'd suggest spray applying some iron.

Glad you pulled the cilantro.

Strawberry plant is a bit fuzzy in the photo but looks OK (I'd spray it with iron as well though).