Aquaponics/ phosphorus deficiency?

Johnhorror

Active Member
been hard to keep my temp is down in my room so they are usually running at 83° I am using a current culture system that I converted into an AP system I am also running a chiller the water temp stays at around 75°, inside my main reservoir I have 12 tilapia and five decent size goldfish, The strain is bubblegum from bonza seed bank, I am running a 1000 W raptor hood with a luminex ballast & two 550w solar system leds , my pH level seems to drop pretty fast lately and I have been added pH up to correct the problem I keep my pH between 5.8 in 6.5 I try to stay closer to death 6.5 range so that my fish stay healthy as well , I have been noticing my leaves are turning yellow and our Curling up a little bit, today I have noticed that I have a lot of purple streaks in my main stem's and on the leaves and other smaller branches pretty much throughout the whole plants. I am waiting for my PP I am meter to arrive so I can check that, I am in the fifthweek of flower... so what I have done so far is added some cool bloom hoping that will help out.
Any thoughts?
 

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Johnhorror

Active Member
There is roughly 120 gallons running through my system I'm not home right now I'm not sure what the hp is offhand I can get back to you later on that I believe that the chiller is big enough I think there's just something wrong with it
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
There is roughly 120 gallons running through my system I'm not home right now I'm not sure what the hp is offhand I can get back to you later on that I believe that the chiller is big enough I think there's just something wrong with it
just a quick guess but i'd say run a slower pump thru it if that is how you have it setup. too fast a flow will not let it cool enough. or it's undersized.
 

Johnhorror

Active Member
Update: my ppm meter arrive today so I checked to see what they were and it was only at 100, my guess is that the fish aren't producing enough nutrients. I've only been run in the system this one cycle so it's been roughly running about 2 1/2 months. when my lights came on I noticed that a lot of the leaves were almost completely yellow I narrowed it down to a magnesium deficiency so I did A foiler spray with Epson salt 1 tablespoon to 1 gallon. I guess the bacteria probably hasn't colonized yet so I ended up at in some nutrients of my own I have the pH 5.7 at the moment and I raise the PPM's to almost 500. Hopefully this corrects the problem and all my fish don't die, if they do die I would just stick with regular noodles for this run and restart from the beginning next run.as for getting a slower pump I am currently running six 8gallon buckets was in 8gallon control bucket to a 55 gallon drum. I am using the pump that came with the current culture H2O system, i'll finish this run the way it is sense where I live will be getting cooler out soon and I probably won't even be needing a chiller not to mention I will be switching out my thousand watt HPS is and just runing six SolarSystem 550 leds
 

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
Your chiller pump is supposed to be separate from the pump that circulates the RDwC system. You need to be at maybe 130 gal/hr on a 1/10-1/4 HP chiller. What brand and power is yours?
 

Johnhorror

Active Member
Your chiller pump is supposed to be separate from the pump that circulates the RDwC system. You need to be at maybe 130 gal/hr on a 1/10-1/4 HP chiller. What brand and power is yours?
My pump goes from the filter on my current culture system to my chiller from my chiller to my reservoir, from my reservoir it is gravity fed to the control bucket, The pump is in the correct spot.
IMG_6867.JPG
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
ecoplus 1/10hp model info:
Pump Size: Minimum 132 GPH Maximum 264 GPH Chilling Capacity: 93 gallons— can chill the water up to 10ºF 35 gallons— can chill the water up to 30ºF
 

Johnhorror

Active Member
ecoplus 1/10hp model info:
Pump Size: Minimum 132 GPH Maximum 264 GPH Chilling Capacity: 93 gallons— can chill the water up to 10ºF 35 gallons— can chill the water up to 30ºF
Correct me if I'm wrong But doesn't 1200 l/h = 312gal per hour? With a hp of 1/10? I think the problem that I have with the chiller is that it is inside of my grow area... I have a fan that blows the heat from the chill out of that room but the air that the chiller is sucking up it's self is hot air so I am going to have to figure a way to move the chiller into another room
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
moving it out might help. definitely worth trying. did you say 120 gallons was roughly your amount of water? if so, a 1/10 is a bit undersized to drop your temps by more than 10F.

do you know what temps your fish can handle? do you think 65 to 68F is too low for them?
 

Johnhorror

Active Member
Water temperature is for talapia range from 60 to 80. It's been pretty hot where I live and I am not running in AC, all those factors definitely weigh in on this problem as far as water temp goes I'm sure once I move the chiller clean the filter everything will be fine I will keep the temp about seven days which is a good temperature for the fish and not the worst for the plants
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
how do you like the 550 LEDs? i had one of the original solarstorm 400 mnay years ago. that was a great light. using those instead of the HPS will help out with heat too.
 

Johnhorror

Active Member
Well I actually just installed two of them one on each side of the HPS light, I installed them only last week , I was going to take the thousand watt HPS out but I had already taken one out to replace with the two 550s and I didn't want to put my plants into shock saying that they were already in flower for four weeks. My next run will consist of six of the 550s without any HPS I am hoping that I have better results using the LEDs I was at first skeptical because I have been doing very well with HPS lights over 1 pound per plant so this is a big change for me and a big investment as well I Purchased those six solar system 550s for $3500.00 not to mention I spent $150 on the controller traded a $800 concrete saw for the current culture system with the chiller it's K 12 bucket system but I am only using six, I also ordered my talapia online that cost me $75 Plus about another $200 in miscellaneous expenses. I am hoping that this yield will at least cover the cost of the lights which I don't see a problem there All the reviews I have read it were really good on these lights,so I can't wait for myself to have a full grow under these lights so that I may write my own review lol they only thing that I do not like about these so far is that you cannot like the power from one light to the next like a daisy chain however you can daisychain the controller to control all of the lights at the same time and they have a bunch of different settings as well...for instance you can edit how much blue light or a white light or red light your plant receives which is good for different stages of growth, you can also make the sunset or sunrise with these lights which makes it more natural I'm still learning but I will post my progress !
 

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
My pump goes from the filter on my current culture system to my chiller from my chiller to my reservoir, from my reservoir it is gravity fed to the control bucket, The pump is in the correct spot.
View attachment 4200666
I would highly suggest running a separate pump straight from the reservoir to the chiller, and back to the reservoir. You're moving water way quickly in that setup and it is sufficient enough to warrant going straight from and back to the res. You could real Luvs low the flow down and let that water contact the titanium for longer. It might help you. Try insulating your buckets with windshield sun visors.
 

Johnhorror

Active Member
I would highly suggest running a separate pump straight from the reservoir to the chiller, and back to the reservoir. You're moving water way quickly in that setup and it is sufficient enough to warrant going straight from and back to the res. You could real Luvs low the flow down and let that water contact the titanium for longer. It might help you. Try insulating your buckets with windshield sun visors.
Thanks for your thoughts I think the temperature at 76 is not too high but it is probably the cut off during the lights on cycle usually temperatures are a little bit higher not above 76 though I clean my filter out already and we will see where goes from there if not I will switch it out I don't think I need it down to 66 it's not too healthy for my fish. I made this post because I had a nutrient deficiency and I wanted peoples thoughts on that I can appreciate your thoughts on the chiller and I thank you for that but as I previously stated I am most likely going to run it out of another room eventually after this grow, I am not going to run a separate pump for the chiller to the reservoir the way I have it set up is that the water that flows through the buckets go through the pump then to the chiller the chiller back to the reservoir and then the reservoir goes to the control bucket with an overflow on top of the reservoir to keep a steady amount of water, everybody that I know that runs current culture systems with a chiller run at the same exact way I am using the pump that came with the system the person I purchased it from ran it the same way as I did, my only problem is that I have the chiller in the same room, although I may need your advice on insulating the buckets that may bring down the temperature a few degrees I had already replaced the regular hoses with PVC for that purpose. As of right now I am more concerned on how my plants are going to react to me a raise in the PPM's so quickly and droping the pH, this is a critical time because as I stated these plants are already in the fifth week of flower soon to be sixth. Please excuse my penmanship I am using text to talk
 
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