Week 13
Hello Steemit! Have a tasty minty green drink from my garden. I had to do some growbed cleaning mostly removal of mint, it grows like crazy. I set up an extra ibc for easy nutrient solution mixing and topping up evaporated water. Also the fish ate a lot this week. Thank god it rained.
Nutes in ppm
This week was all about nutrients, the fish raised the nitrates 70 ppm in one week, I also added 180 gr of epsom salt, 50 ml of 75% orthophosphoric acid, 160 ml of 25% potassium hydroxide in one go.
| Element | My values | Typical hydroponic solution |
|---|---|---|
| N | 80 | 210 |
| P | >20 | 31 |
| K | 45 | 235 |
| Ca | 140 | 200 |
| Mg | 40 - 50 | 48 |
| Fe | 0.6 | 1 to 5 |
| Cu | 0 | 0.05 |
| NO2 | 0.1 | 0 |
At this point I'm forced to add too much phosphor in order to neutralize the kaliumhydroxide. So the H3PO4 and KOH combo isn't working too well. I'm thinking either getting sulfuric acid or a different potassium source could give more control. This was also the first time Calcium dropped, it had been raising steadily throughout the season. Maybe the tomatoes starting to set. At this feeding rate I have to add about 25 ml of the KOH solution daily to maintain the ph at 6.8. I managed to keep it between 6.6 and 7 this week.
The nitrate increase had some interesting effect on my tomatoes, notice the first spindly growth and then much thicker stalk
Micronutrients
In light of my previous post, having learned that zinc and copper are added through the fishfeed in sufficient quantities, I stopped adding zinc and copper chelates. I'm still adding iron, boron, manganese and molybdenum in small quantities. Happy to have bought these all separately.
Macronutrients
Harvesting
This time harvesting was more of a cleanup operation cutting back the mint and watercress.
I made syrup with the mint and used that to make myself a mojito :). I've decided to give the beetroots one more week as they started to grow again.
| mint | beetroot |
|---|---|
 |  |
Looking out for
| fish starting to get big >200gr | how much longer? |
|---|---|
 |  |
I could use some help on ideas on what to do with the space that will be freed by the beetroots. Spinach? in the middle of summer. I guess lettuce is starting to look unavoidable. Something fast growing. Maybe cucumber.
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Great info. I'm still cycling my new system. Had some trouble with the bell siphon and water flow. Hopefully I will be transplanting soon.
Ah the bell siphon, I'm a total fraud bought mine lol. I have one bed running on a bell siphon it has an extra air tube to make it stop really reliable. Like this video
The other bed is just constantly flooded. Works as well so far.
I just made a standard one without the air tube by I'm contemplating adding one. I messed up and drilled holes in the tube that fits over the stand pipe so it wasn't siphoning properly.
I would have a constantly flooded bed but my setup is outside and I do t want to promote algae growth. What do you have growing in that bed?
two tomato plants, a bell peper, cervil, chives, borage, mint and water cress. You can lower the water level for established plants. Think kratky method.
Cool, thanks for the advice. Sorry for the long gap between replying. Work has been taxing and I like to periodically unplug from social media for a while.
The good ole kratky method! This was my first experiment with hydroponics. It turned out pretty good. The resourcefulness of plants is amazing.
Any time buddy. I jumped into Aquaponics and just now I am learning about basic hydroponics. Funny how that goes.