Tomato Plant healthy to sick in 24 hours! ! !

I have a smaller tomato plant that is a couple months old in a grow bed that is about the same age. The plant has been doing very well. I had added some liquid seaweed extract when I first planted it to help it cope with the low nutrients due to the infancy of the system. I also added 1ppt of KCL to the system to help with the elevated nitrite levels while cycling and for potassium for the tomato plant. Both of those additions where done about a month ago the plant had been doing great.



Sunday Morning

Monday Morning

Yesterday I decided to add some worms from my vermicompost bin. I took about 2 or 3 dozen and added them to the grow bed. Since the grow bed is only a couple months old  I know there isnt very much organic matter for them to chow down on. I decided to bury 2 banana peels in the grow bed giving the worms something to eat.
I went out to the greenhouse this morning to feed the fish and the tomato plant looks terrible. It has what looks like necrotic rot on most of the leaves. The stems have started curling down and the whole plant just looks like its drooping. The leaves have stared curling up and are very dry feeling. The brown dead spots appear to be more prevalent on newer growth then on the older leafs near the bottom of the plant.
Whats crazy is that this plant went from perfectly healthy Sunday morning (before adding worms and banana peels) and Monday morning most of the leafs are covered in brown dead spots. Ill attach some photos I took of the plant on Sunday morning when it was looking great and some from Monday morning when I first noticed the problem.Going to do some research and get to the bottom of this!

UPDATE!!!

Okay, after playing detective for about an hour online this morning, I think I have found out what more than likely caused this damage to my tomato plant. Its called Imidacloprid (1-[(6-chloro-3-pyridyl)methyl-4,5-dihydro-N-nitro-1-H-imidazol-2-amine)
Imidacloprid is a is a nicotine-derived systemic insecticide, belonging to a group of pesticides called neonicotinoids. It is commonly used to mitigate insect problems in banana orchards, specifically banana aphids. The banana that I put in the grow bed was not organic and could have been treated with this stuff. As a systemic pesticide, imidacloprid translocates or moves readily in the xylem of plants from the soil into the leaves, fruit, flowers, pollen, nectar, and guttation fluid of plants. This could explain the extremely fast decline of my plant since the product would reach the roots immediately being that its grown aquaponically and not in soil. Bees may be exposed to imidacloprid when they feed on the nectar, pollen, and guttation fluid of imidacloprid-treated plants. Imidacloprid is even said to be major suspect in recent bee colony declines.
A study was conducted on cucumbers and tomatoes grown in greenhouses. Both plants were treated with Imidacloprid at varying rates. Both species developed phytotoxicity symptoms of leaf chlorosis of the oldest leaves and distorted growth and marginal necrosis of newer leaves within 1 week after application. (It takes longer in soil than it does in an aquaponic application for the plant to absorb it.) By the end of the experiment, even the lowest rate caused phytotoxicity symptoms. The symptoms were similar in appearance to Ca deficiency but cucumber foliar analysis revealed no difference in Ca, Zn, Fe, or Co across imidacloprid rates, however, Mg and B decreased whereas K and Mn increased linearly across imidacloprid rates. The data indicates that imidacloprid can even alter plant nutrition.
Here is a picture of a tomato plant exposed to imidacloprid

The necrosis on the upper leafs is exactly what my plant is experiencing. Studies on this have revealed that even the smallest exposure to imidacloprid can cause phytotoxicity problems. So it is very likely that my banana peel has some imidacloprid residue on it and it leached into my system. Im going to leave this tomato plant in the grow bed and hopefully it will continue sucking up all the imidacloprid. If new growth emerges on the plants showing no phytotoxicity symptoms I can assume the imidacloprid has been removed from the water and I will pull the plant and replace with new one. Oh how I hate store bought produce!!!!

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