Aquaponics - Let fish be your Nutrient!

[ThePreacher]

Long time since last update. Had some issues with a neighbor that was complaining about noise from the exhaust fans and a landlord not happy paying the electricity bills for our grow :pirat:

We put the grow in stealth mode, the temp have risen to 26-27 celcius in the canopy but this is only for 5 more days.
The water temp is also around 26-27, which I guess is not that good. Don't really matter at this moment, tho, because most of the fish have died because of the pH issues. Two comets are still barely swimming. Not eating, but the plants are loving it.
This is going to look like a pure copy of your former grow Stut! :D
This is how the canopy looks like 22 days in flower:

PPM is around 550
pH is crashing down to around 4.3 if we let it, but I try to bring it up from 5.8 to 6.5 every day. This is of course not good for the fish, but since it is only 20-25 days left of flower and the fish already are not eating, I am thinking more about the weed then the fish/system.

Some close ups:





The Hypoaspis mites are doing one heck of a job!
The gnats are loosing this battle for sure!
I think I may have gone a little over the top with the mites, tho. They are being flushed out in the system and there are hundreds in the water surface. If the fish would have eaten I am sure they would have loved it!


And here is a youtube of the mites:

 

[stutter]

my fish are dissappearing from my outside tank. need to put a mesh screen over it today

 

[ThePreacher]

Stutt, do you have some pesky lurkers lurking around ?

Would love to see some pictures of your outside plan!

 

[ttystikk]

thats going into the dusty corners of my brain for later use thanks seamaiden

On permanent file. You know it!

 

[stutter]

just veggies outside.

its either the neighbours cats or wild birds getting my fish?

 

[ttystikk]

just veggies outside.
View attachment 337797

View attachment 337798

its either the neighbours cats or wild birds getting my fish?

Or polecats or raccoons... depending on where you call home...

 

[stutter]

australia.

is that a happy looking tomato or what?

 

[Seamaiden]

my fish are dissappearing from my outside tank. need to put a mesh screen over it today

Yep, you've got a fisher. Likely it's a bird, less likely it's a cat. Bird is quick enough to be able to perch from high to see the fish, then nail them faster than they can escape. I assume you have hidey-holes for the fish, yes? Getting gray-colored, more wild-looking pond comets helps tremendously with this if it becomes a big problem. My mother's pond was pretty much gutted by a small heron, and of all things a Cooper's hawk (I never had any idea they fished, but she watched one come down and pull a fish from the side of the pond), so now it's all turtles.

I found a system on Craiglist:
Price seems a little rich, but it also looks like a system I could possibly keep outside. Knowing me, I'll probably want to put it together myself. I should call some of my old fish contacts, shouldn't I?

 

[stutter]

Yeah they have hidey holes but now they just hide all day. All the bright orange ones are gone now. Its just yhe mottled shubunkins left

 

[ttystikk]

We get both herons and raccoons here. The key is to have both cover and depth. I was told by one chagrined home owner that the pond needs to be deeper than 18" so the fish can dive away from groping claws and stabbing beaks. He told me he had let the water level get too low in his- and apparently a family of raccoons cleaned him out!

Maybe there's more than one way to skin a raccoon... big pacu aren't afraid of having a bite of pretty much anything, just to see, right? HEE HEE... I would get famous with the video showing what happens the first time a raccoon chances upon the tank!

 

[ThePreacher]

Pretty nice Stutty! Are you going to put up some climbing racks for the tomato ?
A mesh net would pretty much do the trick regarding the kidnapping of fish, think.

Tystikk, you are just loving the idea of having the human bucktoothed creature rambling around in your system aren't you! DO IT!

 

[ThePreacher]

Yep, you've got a fisher. Likely it's a bird, less likely it's a cat. Bird is quick enough to be able to perch from high to see the fish, then nail them faster than they can escape. I assume you have hidey-holes for the fish, yes? Getting gray-colored, more wild-looking pond comets helps tremendously with this if it becomes a big problem. My mother's pond was pretty much gutted by a small heron, and of all things a Cooper's hawk (I never had any idea they fished, but she watched one come down and pull a fish from the side of the pond), so now it's all turtles.

I found a system on Craiglist:
Price seems a little rich, but it also looks like a system I could possibly keep outside. Knowing me, I'll probably want to put it together myself. I should call some of my old fish contacts, shouldn't I?

That system looked very dandy indeed!

I am looking for a IBC ( ? ) connected in Catalunya, Barcelona area. I was told from one second hand place that they are not allowed by law to sell them if not a special chemical cleaner company is checked. Even tho the ones that he sold had just been used for raw cocoa powder.

 

[ttystikk]

Pretty nice Stutty! Are you going to put up some climbing racks for the tomato ?
A mesh net would pretty much do the trick regarding the kidnapping of fish, think.

Tystikk, you are just loving the idea of having the human bucktoothed creature rambling around in your system aren't you! DO IT!

MANEATERS IN THE MOAT! BEWARE, MATIES! Mind yer appendages if you're partial to keepin' 'em!

A buddy of mine had an Oscar in his fish tank for years, it was easily the most entertaining pet fish I've ever been around. His cat would not agree with me, however, lol.

 

[ThePreacher]

Quick update on the grow!

The move to the new house was not without issues, but I think it went quite well, all consider.
The power adapter for the HPS went AWOL during the move, still looking for it, in the meantime we've plugged in the O'trusty LED :D

I was in a rush this morning, so the pics are with LED light on.
Here some ultra violet pics!

Purple HAZE!


Overview:

 

[ThePreacher]

Update time!
43 days into flower, the end is near!

The previous updates have been quite short so will take some time to add more details in this one.


With all the rackus with the neighbor, cops, moving, cleaning old apartment etc, sadly to say the grow has been somewhat neglected.
It is still running of course, but with a slight limp.
The grow has had 3 different homes in the last three weeks, and that is of course far from optimal.

As of right now we do not have any fish, these will be bought today tho.

We have added some MaxiCrop Seaweed Extract, so there should at least be some nutrients in the water, and also the natural nitrates that comes from the seaweed ext.

Since the fish are no more, the pH is not syncing. This is what I was expecting during the last wiggle-days of the fish.
If anyone out there who have been running AP without adding something to stabilize the pH, please let me know. Because what I have been reading up on is that the ammonia - nitrates process, "nitrification", destroys alkalinity and produces acid which in turn lowers the pH.

This is where the Calcium and Potassium Hydroxide comes in to play, they will raise the pH and also add calcium and potassium that usually are two of the 3 trace elements that lacks in AP, third being iron(could add chelated iron).

After the seaweed extract and some RO water the pH crept up to 7.5.
PPM around 550.




It looks like there are some Potassium deficiency also, should be fixed with the hydroxide mix.

Overview of the SCROG:



Close-Up's!




I took some pictures of the new garage as well.
Will be setting up two or three rooms here,
thinking of three because then we can have one mother / clone / seedling room, one flower and one nursery, any inputs ?
https://invalid.com/a/QkM7K#0

 

[ThePreacher]

Iiiish, have some spider mites crawling around.
On the positive side of things, this grow have been a perfect stepping stone for me, experience and learning curve.

Already made a mixture of garlic and chili that I have smeared on the underside of the leafs.
Bumped the temperature down to 21-22 degrees celcius to halt the production of new mites.

The harvest is only a week away, luckily.

 

[Seamaiden]

Thanks for updating us, Preacher! Sorry you've had to spend so much time jumping around, it's difficult keeping a system stable when doing that.

You can actually keep the nitrification cycle going by adding something to decompose. Commonly added things were urine (yes, it's how we started some large fish holding systems for ornamentals back in the day--everyone had a pee), fish food, pieces of fish, shrimp or other quickly decomposed flesh. I think urine would be your best bet, believe it or not.

I'd suggest that the deficiency might include phosphorous, or may entirely be P...? But with harvest only a week away, there's really no more need to worry about it. They look like some pretty decent budulars to me. :)

 

[ThePreacher]

Thank you for the kind words and motivation. Seems like this grow have been my most experience rich so far.
What I recently found out about the ProGrow 400 LED light is that even tho I turn both veg/flower switches off these days (the timer was buggin' out), there is still some light coming out from the LED diodes. It looks kinda like light being reflected from the light diodes but it is actually light output.. This may have been the case for around a month now, ...dunno if this have had a big impact on the flower, but it's far from optimal.

 

[stutter]

i have seen a few people complain of the same thing with LED's. i couldnt say which brands though?

 

[Seamaiden]

Thank you for the kind words and motivation. Seems like this grow have been my most experience rich so far.
What I recently found out about the ProGrow 400 LED light is that even tho I turn both veg/flower switches off these days (the timer was buggin' out), there is still some light coming out from the LED diodes. It looks kinda like light being reflected from the light diodes but it is actually light output.. This may have been the case for around a month now, ...dunno if this have had a big impact on the flower, but it's far from optimal.

I have this happen with some LED replacement bulbs we've put in a ceiling fan in one of our bedrooms! If the fan is on but the lights are off, they still emit light, enough to see by. I fucking HATE IT because I need it to be very dark to sleep, and I like having some air movement. I was hoping we could switch to all LED replacement bulbs (we got 'em at Costco) but after seeing the light coming from the one room, I said no way ho zay!