A CITY GIRL: Yellow Leaves in Aquaponics

Things have been really moving along in the greenhouse. The only other source of heat in the greenhouse are the water heaters set at 83 degrees. When it was snowing outside, it was 40 inside the greenhouse.

The only problem are the leaves are turning yellow. The yellowing isn't singled out to one leaf or plant but each plant has some degree of yellowing. I think this was a problem from early on with the strawberries.

Over all we are pretty green! I can't kill this tomato plant despite all of the brown you see. It keeps sprouting on everything I cut off. I think it's time for this plant to go. Since the fruits get so big, it take them too long to ripen. I even added a green tomato to a soup the other night. They just rot before they can turn red. The cherry tomatoes are a must instead.

If you remember my broccoli issues in the garden, you'd understand my excitement to see this broccoli crown. My broccoli in the garden never grew a crown. I started growing it in March! and finally pulled it in early December. I clearly need to work on my soil.

The cauliflower baby crown is just as beautiful, but this plant has some obvious yellowing.

So much green! The big leaf is the cauliflower plant. (The leaves are edible too!) You can see some spinach above the blue net, and the eggplant continues to produce. Oddly, the best view of the eggplant, is outside looking in.

The system is not without its weeds. Easiest weeding EVER!

The tilapia thought they were going to get fed when I opened the lid, so they wouldn't stay still.

They finally gave up hope of food (I already feed them). Taco wasn't in this photo, though.

So back to why I originally decided to write this post: Yellow leaves. Chelated Iron is suppose to be the answer. I just got it in the mail today. I wasn't able to find this product in any store. I looked at nurseries and hydroponics stores, and only came up with blank stares like I didn't know what I was talking about. My no. 1 challenge with aquaponics is no one knows about it, so all of my information is from the internet. I digress. I purchased this from amazon.

By design, all of the plant nutrients are coming from the fish food. Clearly, iron is not in the fish food. I added one scoop of the chelated iron to the syphon. I should be adding this about once a month when I see yellowing. It doesn't hurt the fish, but in a few days the plants should be good as green.