flowering with aquaponics, revisited

I really appreciate the advice!! I will definitely take all of this in and use your steps as a jump off point. I'm still a bit paranoid about posting on these sites with pics, but I'll document everything and make sure I keep detailed notes. Hopefully, I can get a journal started when I'm ready to begin, but for now I'm a student at all of this until I'm comfortable enough to take the plunge.

still no flush, no H2O2, no bennies.
system stable, chemistry stable.
solid nutrient uptake.
still need to hook up top-off res.



great white shark, getting sticky.



silver haze done stretching and filling in nicely.



roots just hanging out. photo color is a little off. roots still white, healthy, just hanging out with no airstones in the immediate vicinity and exposed to plenty of light. no algae. water clarity excellent without any more issues of food "crumbs" settling everywhere. i credit the barley/peat humates extract and pellet food. no issues with algae despite exposure to light.



canopy leveled off nicely with LST (supercropping, bending).

Are all those vortex filters and high pressure pumps necessary? My system is considerably smaller than most (it fits in a small stealth cab) but I haven't had a need for sediment filters.

I use a chift-pist (constant height in fish tank, pump in sump tank) setup because I had planned on making a bell siphon for the grow bed. I never got around to making the siphon and just left it running as a constant underflow with a standpipe to regulate water height in the grow bed. My grow bed is a 12qt sterilite tub that is set inside a 19qt sterilite tub (my sump tank) with a small 80gph pondmaster pump. My tank is one of those critter carriers kids use for catching insects and small reptiles in. I am using two 1/2 pvc slo (solid lifting overflow) drains in the tank to keep the water height constant and to clean the poop off the bottom.

When it comes to this setup I like how simple it is the most. All I really have to do is feed the fish and train the plants. The fish poop, the overflow sends it to the grow bed, the plants filter it before it drains to the sump and the pump sends it back around again.

For the fish I have been using guppies. They reproduce every 28 days and whichever ones they don't catch and eat the overflow gets. I keep finding little babies that make it all the way through the grow bed into the sump tank. I leave them there as they seem to help keep the sediment that used to settle there cleaned up.

Do you think I should start a separate thread or should I post updates in this one?

Constant underflow sounds cool. No problem with roots drowning? I use a low pressure pump but for his stuff, he's planning on cramming it in a closet. Just don't think he can get adequate filtration without going with a higher pressure setup. I'm surprised you don't have problems with root fouling. I started off with no filtration, and got away with it for couple months, but eventually the roots suffocated. That's why I thinkusing roots to filter solids is a bad idea. Plants don't use the solids, they use the soluble nutrients that get dissolved in the water.

And I don't mind you posting to this thread. Anything AP is cool with me!

Oh and the vortex filters are low flow rate, low pressure. They work best with a really slow flow rate.

For higher pressure, the spindown filter or whole house filter would be ideal.

What are you growing in your system by the way? Veg? Flower?

Here are some pics of my current setup. It is an NGB style cab with a remote ballast 42w cfl for flower and a 13w cfl for the fishes. The lights make it hard to see but you get the idea. The grow bed is a tub stacked inside a larger tub leaving a sump tank underneath.


This is the third AP grow in my cabinet. It is a Power Skunk and I am still unsure of the sex. I plan on filling the screen to about 75% and then flipping to 12/12. I only plan on letting the buds grow up along the sides of the 42w cfl and making it a micro vertical grow.


The first AP grow I supplemented some FF Big Bloom but not much as I didn't want to hurt the fish. It was also a vertical grow around the 42w but I let it get somewhat out of hand. I think I ended up with 13g off the one plant but could have down better had I trained it better.




The second grow was a male plant and it grew like crazy without any supplements. I cut it down as soon as I had some pollen.

Here is a pic of the inside of the fish tank (sorry the pic is sideways). You can see both of the solid lifting overflows. They suck up everything off the bottom of the tank and leave it clean. They dump straight into the grow bed without any filtering. I am also experimenting with using the fish tank for rooting clones. I figure if I let the cutting touch the water it might grow roots.



The plant looks nice and healthy and has a pretty good growth rate for how small the light is. Most of my posting has been done on ICMag. I don't know if I am allowed to link to my thread but here it is https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=138436 Most of the AP stuff happens at the end. Enjoy!

Nice! What kind of food are you using? Switching to a pellet helped out a lot. Have you considered using a smaller hps that you get in outdoor lights at home depot? I forget the wattage, but I think it was around 50-75Watts, maybe Less. We really need an AP subforum at riu...

I am using a guppy growth mix that is preservative free right now. I also have some grow-max pellets that I give them for treats. Smashed peas and ground up worms will be added to the diet when I get around to it.

Yeah, if you read the thread I have a couple small hps and cmh bulbs to play with. Bad ventilation and 100% stealth are the reasons for the small bulb during the summer months. I am thinking about just tossing in another 42w on the right side of the main compartment when I switch to 12/12 and growing some clones around it. It doesn't take much supply to meet my demand.

On the road for another few days. My surrogate reports that the sump went dry after about 4 days. I guess i'm used to topping it off daily. trays were flooded for about 24hrs, but everybody survived. He reported a film on the surface, which i'm guessing is from anearobic activity. wish I had some enzymes, but told him to add the humic acid pond clarifier instead. Film could also be related to a dead crab he found in there

I really should've hooked up that top off res before I left! First thing I'll do when I get back.

He also reported some yellowing, which could be related to the stalled flow. Maybe low d.o. Caused lockout. Maybe not related

So far, only had mild yellowing in the beginning, which I determined was sulfur deficiency, and quickly corrected with epson salt. Hoping its just the same thing.

He also said the silver haze was still stetching, the great white still going nuts, and the clippings also getting some bling

Should get the next update tonight...

so i'm back from my roadtrip and the babysitter did a good job keeping things alive. the sump went dry twice which caused the flood trays to stay flooded the first time and to stay dry the second time. luckily, the res was topped off in time to keep things from getting too wet/dry.



roots still look great, and still haven't flushed in almost 7 weeks.



great white shark looks good, but pretty far away from lights since the silver haze is so tall. might use some supplemental lighting.



the silver haze still stretching. looking like it needs at least another month. the little bud leaves have a downward curl. anybody know what that's all about?

That clone on top of my tank is now sporting some nice roots. I flipped the flower switch on 10-15 and will soon know if its a boy or girl.

grouch said:

That clone on top of my tank is now sporting some nice roots. I flipped the flower switch on 10-15 and will soon know if its a boy or girl.

Click to expand...

what was the mother? if it's a clone, it's going to be genetically identical, including sex...

so nearly 8 weeks with no flush, no H2O2, no bennies, no problems. they're sucking up about 10gallons/day of water and about 100ppm/day of nutes. this is the most successful grow i've had to date with the most tric production. this grow might not win the pepsi challenge with others, but it's a personal best for me!



silver haze was getting too bushy with no light penetration, so plucked a lot of fan leaves, which i've always been against. trying it this time around and tric production still seems great. calyxes swelling and buds starting to fill in nicely. about a month to go, i think.



great white shark is just too far away from light. growth slowed, but still healthy. hoping to get around to putting in some side lighting with a spare 600watt reflector and ballast i have sitting around. that should get it to finish strong. amber trichs already visible, so maybe just another week. hoping to get all indica clones for the next round, which should keep things shorter and allow me to keep the lights right on top of them.

haole420 said:

what was the mother? if it's a clone, it's going to be genetically identical, including sex...

Click to expand...

It's a clone of the same skunk plant in my flower room. I should know sex soon.

grouch said:

It's a clone of the same skunk plant in my flower room. I should know sex soon.

Click to expand...

then it should be female. sex of a clone won't change.

haole420 said:

then it should be female. sex of a clone won't change.

Click to expand...

The plant in the flower room was grown from seed. I hope it is a female and you are right. I understand how clones work though.

grouch said:

The plant in the flower room was grown from seed. I hope it is a female and you are right. I understand how clones work though.

Click to expand...

Any news? Is it a keeper?

9wks and no flush. Pruned all the bigger fan leaves about a week ago. Stalled growth and nutrient uptake, which was about 100ppm/day. About three days after pruning, roots showed a lot of new, thick fish bone branching, then another three days later, new pistils and buds started really filling out. Nute uptake now 20ppm/day without fan leaves. I'm now a convert to pruning fan leaves, just not all at once, like i did this time.

Those ppm/day rates are only relevant to one's particular system. it's dependent on not only plants and solution, volume of system, number of plants, etc. Just mentioning those numbers here to illustrate the fact that plants with fan leaves were consuming 5x more nutrients with good trich production but not packing on a whole lot of bulk where it counts.

Water consumption also dropped from 10-15gal/day to about 2gal/day.

pH has been very stable. I top off with tap water that's been gassed off for a day and adjusted to 6.0. each day, that will nudge the ph upward. When i get to ~5.8, i switch to tap water bubbled and adjusted to 5.0 until my system gets down to 5.2, then back to 6.0 adjusted tap. I bubble the tap water 20 gal at a time in garbage can.

Cooler outdoor temps allowing me to save a little power by dialing down the light cooling fan as well as the room exhaust fan. Having trouble keeping up with low humidity though. Thinking about putting triple ultrasonic fogger back into action.

8x high output t5 fixture is hanging sideways, adding plenty of supplemental light to the indica, which was so far from the overhead 600w hps that it stopped growing. T5 is an inch away and shortie is now going nuts again.

Clippings that went straight under 12hr are all rooted and popping all kinds of pistils. None of them stretched at all. cloning straight to 12/12 without rooting might be the way to go next time with sativa. Micro sog?



fish putting on lots of weight, looking healthy and happy. all three crabs are now dead. pleco still doing great, snails laid some eggs. scavengers i put in the actual flood trays are looking pretty skinny, but i see them taking a dump all the time, so they must be eating something. they look pretty content and adapted to the constant ebb/flow. they pick at debris and algae on the roots, but don't really chomp on them or disturb them in any way that the plant seems to mind.



great white shark, with 8X HO-T5s to the right. you can see the old pistils dried and turned orange. introduction of side lighting brought it back to life. all the white pistils are new growth from the last few days. rotating 1/4 turn every other day.



silver haze continues to fill in. every day i go in there, it looks different! in some of the photos, you can see trichs already turning amber. still a three or four weeks away from the chop. going to let them go until they start to kick the bucket or thanksgiving is upon us, whichever comes first.

Very nice grow. I am also doing a T5 grow and have been thinking about trying aquaponics.

Very nice grow. I am also doing a T5 grow and have been thinking about trying aquaponics.