Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone. I have recently started growing salad and leafy vegetables recently,but I have encountered a few problems and would require some advice. I have 5 200liter-barrels of water in which I keep about 15-20 tilapia fish. They each supply nutrients for 25 PVC pipes,each containing 20 netpots. My first grow was with pakchoi,and the results were promising,but the second,again with pakchoi,and third,with lettuce,were of very poor quality.What could be the issue? Do I have to change the water more frequently?(I change the water about once every month,and each time the water is a bit dirty) Please advise.

Hi Crasher66, have you done any water tests?
It probably wouldn't hurt to change some water out but without knowing what the problem is specifically, you are just postponing things (you shouldn't need to change water so often if your system is in balance).
Do you have any extra filtration?
Could you please supply more information such as filter material you are using,, water test results, maybe a diagram of what your set up is like so that someone can then more easily point to a possible area that might need attention?

Hello ,it depends on how big your fish are ,you may not be getting enough nutrient if they are small. If this is the case you would make it worse if you changed the water. I have had a couple of things happen and lost most of my water and everything looks worse for a while until it builds up again. I rarely change the water when everything is going good for that reason . With hydroponics they change the water about every month or more because the plants use more of one element than others and they can get too much of one and not enough of another.

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Cheers,Don.