grow beds just not growing very fast.

[Gary Keen]

Hi There, im a bit new to these forum's but would llike some help to get my system more effeciant.

Im breeding goldfish and have had my system running now for most of the summer. the water stays very clear and my fish look great, but I have been very disaponted with the speed of growth with my vegitables. they slowly get there but at about 1/5 of the spped you would expect in a normal garden.

I have added seasole and iron but every thing looks week. I have had some problems with high alkaline, but have solved this in the last three weeks. Still very poor growth. I have 35 medium to large fish in about 50 gallons with about 100 gallons of grow beds. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

Not that this will help me solve your issue but, what is the temperature of the water and the concentration of nitrates? Those seem like two variable that would make a difference.

[Gary Keen]

I would say that the water temperature would average out around 15 celsius. I feed the fish a lot to keep them growing but not shore how to test nitrate levels.

 
Jonathan Kadish said:

Not that this will help me solve your issue but, what is the temperature of the water and the concentration of nitrates? Those seem like two variable that would make a difference.

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

At 15C you are at the very bottom range of acceptable temperature for lettuce... spinach will do ok down there. Do a google search "optimum growing temperature" and you will find that many plants don't like it at 15c. I hope that helps.

To test your nitrates get your self an API Freshwater test kit. It is a must have to make sure your fish are safe and it can help you adjust your fish feed to manage nitrites and nitrates.

[Gary Keen]

ok that sounds good advise, I may set up a heater in the water this week and keep it around 20 c and see what that will do. thanks

Gary
 
Jonathan Kadish said:

At 15C you are at the very bottom range of acceptable temperature for lettuce... spinach will do ok down there. Do a google search "optimum growing temperature" and you will find that many plants don't like it at 15c. I hope that helps.

To test your nitrates get your self an API Freshwater test kit. It is a must have to make sure your fish are safe and it can help you adjust your fish feed to manage nitrites and nitrates.

[Jonathan Kadish NYC AA Chair]

Let us know if the heating helps... we all will learn.

[TCLynx]

To get good growth from plants you need

1-plenty of sun light

2-enough nutrients

3-appropriate temperatures

Get the API freshwater master test kit and it will allow you to test for

pH

High Range pH

Ammonia

Nitrite

Nitrate

which will help you to know if your system is functioning properly and if you have enough nutrients for your plants.

With warmer temperatures your fish will probably eat more and produce more waste which will likely provide better nutrients for your plants as well as better growing temperatures for them so the other thing would be to make sure you have enough light for them to make good use of the other things.

[Gary Keen]

ok thanks very much for your comments, I will start working through the options and see how things go.

TCLynx said:

To get good growth from plants you need

1-plenty of sun light

2-enough nutrients

3-appropriate temperatures

Get the API freshwater master test kit and it will allow you to test for

pH

High Range pH

Ammonia

Nitrite

Nitrate

which will help you to know if your system is functioning properly and if you have enough nutrients for your plants.

With warmer temperatures your fish will probably eat more and produce more waste which will likely provide better nutrients for your plants as well as better growing temperatures for them so the other thing would be to make sure you have enough light for them to make good use of the other things.