I am growing rice. If these work, next year will be the big test.
Rice sounds like a great idea for hydroponic growing.
This is so ironic. I’m growing lowland rice, in the ground with no flooding (upland style); and I’m growing peppers and tomatoes in hydroponics.
(Don’t worry I also have tomatoes and one pepper in the ground )
I have rice I’ll be doing in the ground, but not this year.
Sorry, I don’t know anything about aquaponics, I only know about Kratky (hydroponics). By the look of it they were ready to go into hydroponics some time ago already. That would be using a hydroponic nutrient solution. But you’re after fertilizer balls or fish poo. You could google or experiment, but I have no experience with either. I use Dyna-Gro ‘grow’ and ‘bloom’ - switch to ‘bloom’ when flowering although ‘grow’ will do ok for the whole life. About 5ml of nutrients per gallon of water. It’s easy to use and has all the nutrients and micronutrients required, very high quality.
The most important thing is the level of the liquid. It doesn’t have to keep exactly the same the whole time but topping it up somewhat regularly really helps, and when topping it up, not drowning the air roots is the essential thing, so if you let the level get too low and then fill it up too much, the plant can suffocate. The fine hairy roots above the water are the air roots. They will form over time once in Kratky. Won’t matter if you submerge some of them, it can recover, but too much will kill the plant.
Also some people would start a plant like yours by first putting it in weaker solution, maybe 1/4 strength for some days then half strength then full strength, something like that, although I’m not sure if that is essential. If you did do that, you could do it in a smaller container then full strength in final container so as to not waste nutrients.
Also a very experienced grower says to change out the whole nutrient solution every 3 weeks, and I think the official instructions might even be more frequent. I have managed to go many months with never changing out, only refilling. Though if you see a problem and then check, or if you just happen to check anyway, and the liquid smells bad (perhaps like fish, though that won’t help you if you’re doing aquaponics!) then change it out. And maybe rinse out the roots while doing it.
What is Kratky system
I have experience trying to maintain rooted sweet potato slips in water for a five or six weeks. I don’t have any other experience relevant to this discussion but I would suggest that water changes is a good practice.
I had issues with algae buildup, and topping up the water was not enough to keep the algae or the secondary organisms that thrived with it from negatively affecting the roots and eventually leading to rot of the sweet potato vine.
I was also growing the sweet potato vines in water held in transparent containers, I have wondered if using opaque would have reduced the algae buildup in the water, but ultimately for me water changes seem the surest way to combat the problem I had.
This is an interesting topic, thank you all.
You might want to research other people trying similar methods. I’m going to make a guess that perhaps some circulation or at least more regular water changes that the regular Kratky method, might give increased chances of success.
Hydroponics without circulation and without aeration. Google or another search engine will reveal more info.
One critical thing with Kratky and maybe hydroponics in general, is to stop light from entering the water. So black containers, or even wrapping aluminium foil around non-black containers, can help in preventing algae growth. Also using ‘Hydroton’ clay pebbles around the stem of the plant is common practice, which helps block light from entering at that place.
I think that’s one of the great things about the internet - even when there are very few people doing a very strange thing, many of them are online. A quick google search of ‘organic hydroponics’ brought up this as one of the top hits for example:
And this:
There might be some useful tips in those or other articles or videos, that might aid your trial and error process. Or searching something like ‘organic Kratky’ or ‘fish poo Kratky’ or something… who knows, might bring up something!
Since I don’t know the variables for fish poo, I can’t say much, but for normal hydroponics, you would be guaranteed to have negative consequences if you have that kind of setup, and you would save yourself a whole lot of guaranteed bother by simply wrapping the bottle in aluminium foil.
But, with fish poo, I am guessing that you might need some kind of specific bacterial process to make the organic nutrients available to the plants. So that would be the thing I would start researching first if I were you.
I used ash and eggshell. The amounts were tricky, as too much ash would stop root development cold. Last test I used 1/4 c ash, poured in vinegar to cancel out the alkalinity, and split it between 5 five gallon buckets. I use an almond shell ferment for phosphorus (a 1/4 teaspoon was way too much!) and if the plants need sulfur, garlic puts out sulfur through its roots. One garlic clove was wayyyy too much for a bean plant. I’m still working on that piece.
Nitrogen source of your choice. Your fish poo is much less complicated.
The ash has phosphorus, potassium, and most of the necessary micronutrients. Plants do need additional phosphorus in order to bloom, which is where I use the almond shell ferment.
They have grown for me in my modified Kratly system. Lots of stringy roots, no eating roots.
I tried them in pseudo aquaponics this year and while they did survive and root, the tops were scraggly and sad.
Whether you call it aquaponics or hydroponics, we know what you mean.
@MarkReed you could probably just water it with your fish tank water when you do water change/top off the water in the tank.
I have a couple small ones and tried planted tanks. Fun but didn’t get the hang of it to keep it going. Plus the lights and electricity cost. I’m super tempted to set it up and turn it into an aquaponic system though. Even if it was just minnows and grew some salad greens. The electric cost would be minimal if it could grow food and garden starts.
The hydroponic situation is way way more sensitive than in soil. Not saying you have to measure. But just saying, growing soil plants in water does make things different. But good luck, hope it goes well!
So long as it works, it’s ‘correct’!