You had your aquaponics system running for a while and the grow-bed is all green, the plants are growing well. One day you wake up and go feeding your fish, you harvest a few plants leaves for the salad. And you realize that some leaves are not as green as they used to be. Several weeks later you find more and more yellowing on your plants.
You may have experienced this scenario and you are not alone. In aquaponics we sometimes face mineral deficiency.
The mineral deficiency
It costs me to admit it but our aquaponics ecosystems are relatively close compared to a classic garden. In a garden the worms and other living creatures are able to dig dip in the soil and reach, then raise minerals needed for the plants growth. In aquaponics the growbed are shallow and filled with media only. Our aquaponics media is generally not releasing a variety of minerals into the water. The only real input of minerals comes from the fish food but depending on the specific profile of the fish food used and the varieties of plant grown, the system may experience mineral deficiencies.
How to supplement minerals into the system to avoid aquaponics deficiency
In this case it is important to supplement the system with mineral powders such as rock dust or other trace elements. Iron is a specific one that need to be added specifically but I made some specific videos on this topic here: https://aquaponicsrevolution.com/mineral-application/
Today’s case
Today I received some pictures from a follower who thinks he is having mineral deficiencies on his plants. He is asking for help and would like to know the specific type of deficiency involved.
As you can imagine it is very difficult to determine the specific type of iron deficiency from a simple picture. A general presentation of the system and history of maintenance would be very helpful.
In this specific case we can see that only the oldest leaves seem affected. The plants being grown on Deep Water Culture (more information on DWC here: https://youtu.be/l5r6fqT5T5k
https://youtu.be/lWnzNwC1h40 ), the oldest leaves are generally closer to the water. This specific problem may simply due to extra moisture.
I would therefore recommend to add a mix of minerals, check the moisture level, possibly increase the height of the pots on the raft and see the evolution of the plants 3 weeks later.
Let me know what you would recommend in this situation in the comments of the video.
You will probably be interested to discover Jonathan’s six steps to build and manage an Aquaponics system. Click here to access for free! Thanks and good reading 🙂
