Aquaponics system update week 17

in #gardening7 years ago

Fishpoop tomatoes. Ripening! This week water magically cleared up and the strawberries started acting up.

tomato ripening

I hope august will be enough to ripen the big ones. The trichoderma or the weather is at least slowing down the spreading of black spots turning into yellow leafs. The "roma" variety shown below not affected yet.

roma tomato

Water Quality

My goldfish demanded being featured in their clear water habitat, they are jealous of all the trout attention.

goldfish in sump
Big improvement in water quality, last week I couldn't even see the bottom. My theory is brown algae disappearing caused by lower phosphate values and sun getting less powerful, it dropped to 8ppm from 18 two weeks ago when water started getting brown. I still highly recommend having something to filter out excess solids.

Nutes in ppm

As I pointed out the drop in phosphates is the most remarkable thing. Otherwise continuing to see good balance. Potassium actually rose a bit so I can now switch to adding calcium to raise pH. Calcium dropped very slowly over the last month, maybe even low enough to affect my strawberries. Fruit is setting but deformed. Could also be lack of micronutrients or poor root conditions. Copper still not readable, which is good, but also maybe bad for plants.

ElementMy valuesTypical hydroponic solution
N20210
P831
K>45235
Ca140200
Mg4048
Fe0.81 to 5
Cu0 (smallest I can measure is 0.1)0.05
NO20.30
deformed strawberrieschives white spots
ImgurImgur

Looking out for

Peppers still green, rhubarb getting huge again. You are supposed to leave rhubarb alone after solstice to let it store nutrients for spring. I don't know if I will be able, rhubarb pie is so good :D

hydro rhubarb