Safety of Nitrosol?

[Eco Owl]

My System is up and cycling but I have yet to add fish. The seeds have just started sprouting.

I have purchased some Nitrosol Natural Plant Food which claims to be safe for animals, it is primarily made from bone meal.

Is the safe to use to boost the plants? If not, what about a natural Kelp fertilizer?

Thanks,

Eco 

[TCLynx]

I don't know that particular product (there are many natural things that might be safe to dump on your dog but would still kill your fish. Oils and soaps come to mind as things that are generally thought of as safe for an organic garden but must be used with extreme care within sight or sound of fish water.)  Anyway, when starting up a new system erring on the side of caution is probably a good thing because when you starting playing chemistry set and adding all sorts of stuff to your system and something goes wrong it gets really difficult to trouble shoot and figure out why the bio-filter isn't cycling up or why fish are dieing.

Kelp meal may be safe but since your bio-filter isn't cycled up yet, the nitrogen won't be quickly available to your plants and I wouldn't go adding anything with lots of nitrogen right before you add fish.

Seaweed extract that has numbers like 0-0-1 is generally safe in reasonable quantities for aquaponics.  Maxicrop is what I have used since it has trace elements as well as potassium.  It won't provide nitrogen for your plants though it does tend to help in a new system to get plants off to a good start if you are fishless cycling using some other ammonia source or if you are cycling up with fish.

Here are some blog posts about cycling and fishless cycling

with fish

Fishless

[Vlad Jovanovic]

You shouldn't need ANYTHING for a while if your seeds have just sprouted. The seeds themselves and regular old water have about everything they need as cotyledons emerge. Bone meal is mostly just phosphorous (but not all). Depending on your situation, set and setting, it could be good after they've developed a second or third set of true leaves, (in very small quantities) in a few weeks for their developing roots. On the other hand it could cause you a head ache of an algae bloom and all the subsequent problems associated with that. i.e. eating up all your nitrates, using up ALOT of dissolved oxygen etc...

I'd listen to TC, unless you really know exactly what you are doing and why, or are an EXTREMELY happy go lucky kind of guy/gal and don't care too much about your new system.