Leaves falling off and neglible growth

[mmchupp]

..oops "Negligible" growth.

My system is about 5 months old. I have pea gravel in a feed trough, and a 50 gallon tank with 5 bluegill. We started tomatoes, green beans and pepper plants from seedlings and then transplanted them into the grow bed. We had too many seedlings to fit into the grow bed, so I built a small box and filled it with soil.

Plants did very well at first. Our system is indoors and we just had flourescents to start with. Green beans did fine, but only got about 2 pickings off them and then pulled them. The tomatoes and green peppers did okay, and then we added an HPS light and the tomatoes took off too.

But the green peppers seem stunted. The lone pepper plant I planted in dirt is doing great (outside the system completely, but gets the HPS light) has grown to about 18" tall and blooming. The two in the system loose their leaves on the bottom portion of the stalk after turning yellow brown, and the plants are still only about 8" tall.

Any thoughts on why the peppers aren't doing well when the tomatoes right beside them seem to be doing just fine?

Thank you for your input!

[Ravnis]

I'm not an expert on plant problems. Something you might check:

Nitrate levels. I have had problems growing peppers when the nitrates dropped to 5-10 after I had harvested some fish.
I believe peppers are a slower growing plant than tomatoes too.

I find that the regular additoin of magnesium, via epsom salt improves plant growth. I add 1/3 cup to 1000 gallons weekly, so it wont take near that much for your system. Liquid seaweed extract is considered a good additive too. Brands I've heard others mention are seasol or maxicrop.

Fishfood had a good post on here about plant deficiency that is real helpful.

http://www.aquaponicshq.com/forums/showthread.php?546-Mineral-deficiences-in-plants

I think this will take you there.

[mmchupp]

Some pics of my pitiful puny pepper plants