Guppyponics in an Aquarium

I have a 55 gallon aquarium with assorted cichlids, guppies and algae eaters as well as a few plants. The fish are fed flake food and earthworms from a compost. A filter with no activated charcoal sprays water from the aquarium into 3 small pots which drains into the top of the aquarium. The first pot had tomatoes, the second has thai chiles and the third has Blackberry Kush marijuana. I removed the tomato plants as i read somewhere that it contains a toxin and about 3 weeks after i put it in the pot my fish began acting strange. The Chili plant hasn't grown much at all and has had slight yellow discoloring. This might have been because of an aphid problem. Thankfully the Blackberry Kush is growing without any problems . There are two 100w equiv. 6500k cfls shining into the tank and a 120w Philips Agro-Lite bulb on top shining horizontally on the Chili plant and the Cannabis.

I dropped a seed from a bag of shake into the pot and within the first 24 hours it had cracked and sprung a root. It took three days before it was an inch tall plant with 2 round leaves. It only grew about a half inch over the next week, i'm guessing this is due to it putting most of its energy towards growing a root system. By then the 1.5 inch plant had an 8 inch root with reached into the aquarium water.

The water looks very oxygenated but Im not sure if it is enough. The fish have pecked at the root but only when it barely reaches the water and makes the water raise up to cling to it. The plant is now 4 inches tall and has its first set of true leaves. It kinda looks a little stretched and the stem is curvy because i have moved the light several times. The root hangs about 3 inches in the water and has two thinner roots branching off of it. I plan on growing the plant sideways across the 4 foot tank with the 120w agro-lite bulb on the opposite end shining horizontally and the 2 cfls equally spaced apart shining down vertically above the plants and into the tank. A sheet of plexiglass or chicken wire would separate the bottom of the grow box from the top of the aquarium. Does this sound like it would work?

Does the plant look healthy? I'm still a novice grower and have only grown a few plants in soil in the past, never hydroponically or guppyponically. Im planning on building a grow box for the top of the aquarium to coneal the top and keep more light shining on the plants. Would it be hard to keep it from reeking up the room? I think I'd add small fans, like those in computers, to the grow box, one intake and one exhaust. Should i try to make a activated carbon filter for the exhaust?

Not sure about your grow technique, good luck. But I can assure you good pot will stink up the room. Buy a real filter, personally I like Can Filters. Thats not much light I would not expect much.

Jmoore, good shit!!!! Love the idea and wish you the best of luck. I had a 150 gallon tank with a Silver Arrowana and 4 Frontosa fish. THat was until I got divorced...LOL I also use to breed Chocolate Chilids and Green Terrors. Now I focus all my attention on growing fine buds.

Keep me posted, I am sub'd.

Peace

BKB

http://www.aquaponicshq.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/53-AQUAPONICS?

Maybe this will provide you some good info.

Thanks for all the input and thx for the link Snew.

I'm thinking of not adding fans and making the growbox on top completely closed off and accessible with cabinet doors . It would then be a completely closed system. The co2 would be added by the fish and the organic soil (I put organic soil under the sand in the aquarium, its broken down by anaerobic bacteria and releases co2) and used by the plants. The o2 would be added by the plants and used by the fish. What do you guys think?

i've been running aquaponics in my grow room for cloning and veg, even adding nutes. currently running at 1200-1400ppm. about 500-700ppm is from the fish (when heavily fed). mostly feeder minnows (which are indestructible), a few feeder goldfish (most died), and an algae eater.

to me, your water looks a little green and stagnant. any way of adding an ebb-flow biofilter? doesn't look like your current filter is cutting it. you don't need carbon. biofilter will improve your water clarity, take out solid waste, and help aerate the water (depending on how you return it back to the tank, preferably, with lots of splashing). you could probably also use another algae eater or two. they're also good for picking up what's left on the bottom from overfeeding (which you want to do). lots of food = lots of poop/ammonia = more usable N for your plants. and with more ammonia, you're going to need more surface area for ammonia-eating bacteria to hang out.

yellowing of leaves says that the plants aren't getting enough food. yellowing+wilting means it isn't getting food+water. do you have a ppm meter? what's your TDS/EC? temp? my guess is that you're running somewhere around 200ppm. quick fix: reduce the amount of water that's in the tank. fish waste will become more concentrated. option #2: add some high quality micro or grow feed to the tank to about 500 or 600ppm. some calmag wouldn't hurt either. if you're really into your fish, you might not want to do this, but as far as my feeder fish go, they don't mind a bit. i suspect your fish won't mind either. realize that these aren't "chemicals" but pure, isolated molecules of nutrients that occur naturally in nature. nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, as well as trace minerals won't kill animals (and humans) because we all need them. they're not poison.

the other thing that could be causing yellowing is the fact that the roots supplying the lowest/oldest leaves are the uppermost roots. if your roots are barely touching the water, they plants are getting water, but might not be getting nutes. hanging the basket above the water makes sense if you've already got tons of roots. from what i understand, the "active" area of a root is at the tip, where new growth is. at this early stage, though, i think the plant is using almost the whole length of the roots, as they're short and thin and there aren't so many of them yet. i'd have at least the bottom of the baskets slightly submerged in the water and filled with something that can wick like rockwool croutons to make sure they get food/water.

as far as fish eating the roots, you'll have to either partition your tank with some kind of fence or barrier or move your plants to another container connected to your aquarium (biofilter).

in my experience, DWC isn't ideal for seedlings/clones, especially if you're not running at the ideal temp (with a chiller). they seem to just sit there for weeks not really doing much. ebb/flow (flood/drain, whatever you want to call it) works better since roots get a lot more air. no need for airstone/airpump as the bell siphon will aerate the water when it dumps it back into the aquarium and because the roots actually come into contact with air. as this setup is gravity-fed, the biofilter/growbed will need to be above the aquarium.

my biofilter consists of a black plastic tote with a lid on it that is about 1cuft filled halfway with hydroton (aquarium gravel or coarser gravel like lava rock would work too) with a 3" bell siphon. the lid has 3" holes cut out to support 8 baskets. i flood the biofilter almost to the point that it is going to overflow to make sure the entire basket gets saturated. takes about 7min to flood and about 30sec to drain. no problems with stem rot since they're not soaking in water, they're only momentarily dipped as the flood peaks. once the roots reach the hydroton, i'll transplant the basket to DWC.

hope this helps! good luck!

Thanks for all the info, its all very useful. The only plant yellowing is the chili plant, which i could care less about, i already have too many chilis from my outdoor chili plants. The Cannabis is growing fine (at least as far as i can tell) but maybe a little slow. Since this morning, its root has branched off several times.

What light would be better, a 100w equivalent 6500k full spectrum CFL, or a 120W Agro-lite (says for plants and its tinted blue). The CFL runs cool while the Agro-lite puts off a lot of heat.

The Ph in my tank is way too high (8.6!) but it hasn't seemed to cause any problems yet. I think its due to the medium in the pots (river pebbles). I'm going to replace the medium with lava rock this weekend and maybe put in some driftwood to lower the ph.

The tank looks green because the walls of the room are green . The water is actually very clear and i can easily see all the way through the 4ft tank. The water is kind of stagnant because the water drops into the tank vertically and only moves water around under it and on the right side. When i make the grow box for the top i think im going to replace the pots with one larger tray and drill holes only on one side to force the water out horizontally. Hopefully this will move the water around more efficiently. I'll upload some pics in a little.

There are actually two roots hanging down from the pot now.

View of roots from bottom:


View of roots from above the water ( i turned off the filter for a better view) :