My aquaponic adventures

[luxton]

Ok, thank you for confirming… With everything I was reading, I was staring to think I might be doing damage to the plant by pruning to early or to much… It didn’t make common sense to me, but these days 🤷😂. A clear case of why WebMD is a bad idea, lol

[Magu]

There is an active thread about “ to defoliate or not to defoliate” or something like that.

[luxton]

Sweet! It definitely helps, searching with the right term, lol 🤦

[Magu]

Its “defoliation vs no defoliation .

[luxton]

Sweet!! I found and bookmarked that one, thanks!

2200+ comments, I have some reading to catch up on

[luxton]

Oh wow, this post is brilliant… I’m copying it here so I can find it right away again (and I’ll probably print it out and stick it to my tent so I don’t decide to be dumb again, hahaha).

@PlantShepherd

This is from a cat that went by the handle nmeeks. Thought he did a really good job at explaining this.

Sources vs. Sinks

First of all, you will need to understand the concept of Source vs. Sink within a plant. Pretty self explanatory, a source is any part of the plant that generates more photosynthate (sugar) than it requires for growth, and a sink is any part of the plant that requires more photosynthate than it can produce (or is producing). What is key to understand with this is that a plant tissue can change from sink, to source, and back to sink all as part of the plants natural process. For example, a newly forming leaf (fan leaf or bud leaf) is always going to be a sink, requiring more sugar to grow than it is currently producing from photosynthesis. . . but once that leaf has reached close to its mature size, it is producing much more sugar than it requires because it is hardly growing at that point. . . .and then again as that leaf becomes older and cells start to get older, the chlorophyll will actually lose effeciency and although the leaf may still look green and healthy, it is no longer generating more photosynthate than it requires to stay alive, and therefore older leaves become sinks again!

There are also parts of the plant which will almost always be sinks. Those are things like the roots (obviously no way of producing photosynthate, but still require it), the flowers on most plants because most flowers contain very little to no chlorophyll compared to a leaf, and seeds are always going to be sinks (the strongest sink).

The important reason I am explaining the Source vs. Sink relationship is because when you have too many sinks and not enough sources, your yield goes down and the overall vigor of your plant is reduced. So to maximize yield and sugar content in the final product (the buds), growers should try to eliminate other sinks as much as possible, while maintaining as many strong sources as they can without risking poor airflow or reduced efficiency with too much shading.

Keeping all this in mind, you can guess that a leaf which is receiving less light (heavily shaded) is most likely going to be functioning as a sink in the plant, drawing sugar away from other sinks that you may be more concerned about such as the buds. Removing leaves above the shaded leaf may give it more light, and maybe enough to start generating more sugar than it needs, but the lower down the leaf, the sooner it will be past its highest efficiency and the closer it is to becoming a sink permanently because of photosynthetic efficiency loss. Therefore, I tend to remove older fan leaves (less efficient) first before I go removing mature newer leaves higher up on the stems because they are more efficient.

Now, once you have removed any leaves that are past their prime, you may still have some fan leaves shading other bud sites, which in cannabis do produce their own smaller bud leaves. The larger fan leaves are MUCH more efficient at producing photosynthate than the smaller bud leaves, and because they tend to be more exposed to air flow they will also transpire more, meaning they help more water and nutrients move through the plant compared to bud leaves which have much less surface area and transpire/photosynthesize much less. So, that means it is better to keep large fan leaves, even if they are shading a bud site or two, because they will function as a source for the bud site (sink) and send its excess sugar to the bud. If you remove the fan leaf, the bud is already functioning as a sink, and so will have to get the rest of the sugar it needs from a different fan leaf on the plant (different source required), meaning a different sink is now getting less than it was because it is sharing its sugar supply from its own fan leaf. . . . this kind of sharing and relocating of sugar pathways takes extra energy in itself, and is not beneficial even if the bud site is no longer being shaded and can produce slightly more sugar on its own from the small bud leaves.

In conclusion, remove old fan leaves especially if they are no longer receiving any direct light. Try to maintain as many sources on the plant as possible by getting as much light and air flow to the newer mature fan leaves as possible. Remove any very low sinks that are far away from any strong sources because they will generate almost no photosynthate on their own, along with drawing photosynthate away from other sinks that are more local to the source leaves higher on the plant. And don’t worry if your bud leaves are shaded, because they are sinks anyways, so the plant is pumping all the excess sugar from local fan leaves to the nearest/strongest sinks it can find (your buds)!!

[luxton]

A couple more pics with more detail of my current setup… It’s working well, but I want to figure out a container so I can get a much larger grow bed so I can have more plants growing with more space.

[luxton]

New light arrived and new little Veg area for 2, possibly 4 plants, is up and running

I’m not holding out a lot of hope for these cuttings. The moms are 5 weeks into flower, and I was able to find a branch on each that was directly under another, so no harm in cutting it away. Cleaned up a few spots with my clippers, coated in rooter and in they went. Fingers crossed

[Alexander]

looking great on the aquaponics indoor grow! my aquaponics systems are outside in my garden area (total of 3 IBC totes (Sump with some goldfish, Main Fish tank with catfish, and 3 grow beds))

I have not yet grown canna for a full grow season in them, but transplanted some cuttings i took from my tent grow into them late in the season, the plants produced well (for the little amount of veg time they had) and the bud has been excellent from them.

on a side note if you ever need any resource for improving the system, or different ways to grow in aquaponics style systems, I highly recommend Rob Bob’s channel on youtube.

[luxton]

Oh nice, I’d love to do an outdoor one, but we have racoons and rats bloody everywhere, and my wife would rather not have “an ugly 55 gallon barrel in my yard” (I don’t entirely blame her, lol). I’m still working on her for a raised bed, but rat crap in a bed of strawberries… 🤷.

I’ve had some fun with aquaponics over the years… I was moving once, and moved my growing plant in an emptied dishwasher, raised on a truck bed, with one of those big yellow topped bins full of water and fish. The whole thing was dwc’d with a pump in the grow bin in the dishwasher to move water . The best part, I didn’t miss a light cycle, hahahaha.

Rob has definitely been a huge influence, I WISH I could build a garden like he has… I’m stoked to see what his new farm is going to be like!

[Alexander]

I sort of like my ugly 55 gallon drums.

barrel systems

overflow system from barrel

I forgot to mention, but used Rob’s design for an all in one system for two drums that stay up on our deck. They currently have a pineapple plant in one and some flowering herbs in the other (not that herb). They do really well with simple leafy greens (bok / pak - choi, lettuce, celery, etc)

[Alexander]

here is a better look at my larger system out in the garden(also modeled on Rob’s systems)

A huge side benefit, I sometimes get to use water from the system, to feed plants out in the container garden.
It gives a nice little nutrient burst, as well as perfect ph levels (my well water is very very alkaline coming out of the hose)

main aquaponics system

[luxton]

Question for you… The white stand pipe with the blue lid in your grow bed of the 55g, is that just your standpipe return?

[luxton]

Your big system is wiiicked… You should do another vid and talk through it what you have where, and why . I’d be curious to know more about that massive catfish too, haha

Honestly tho, once you grow weed in an aquaponics system once, and you find the only thing you’re having to do for your plants is feed fish… No mixing of anything, no watering schedules… You’ll never go back . I’d be totally down to get into the design with you too, I’ve built everything from stealth grows in a fridge to designing and starting the build of a full commercial warehouse .

[Magu]

I would be very interested to learn about and see all those designs. Im sure the whole OG community would also find it interesting.

[luxton]

My first grow… Had to be stealthy due to the exes kids being in the house…

[luxton]

All my pics from then are over the 13mb limit, I’ll throw some more up when I get to my computer in a bit

[Alexander]

Yes, exactly, using a simple bell siphon design that Rob Bob has on his vid’s.

During summer time I had the system running completely on solar, but as the season changed i really wasn’t getting enough light to keep the system running long enough. So ended up getting some super cheap 200-300 gph plug in pumps, i just let them run all the time now.

am currently working to try and meet folks of a similar mindset, and share the knowledge and experience that i have, sort of a WWOOF traveling thing, God willing am certainly looking forward to it.

[Alexander]

The big system really is its own ecosystem, worms in the gravel, snails and other aquatic critters in the water, and the fish. Honestly I am a firm believer in the Law of Conservation of energy, so enjoyed putting in more work up front, knowing that i had a nearly maint free system that would last a long time.

I will do a thorough step by step walk-thru of the system when i can. will post it up here when its done.

[luxton]

How did you find the noise with the bell syphon? I had one setup initially in a little outdoor grow I built (I’ll post pics when I’m done this joint ), but my landlords at the time asked me to take it all down because it was louder than their conversation in their backyard, lol. So, I switches mine to a constant flow… It’s almost a dwc style, but with water constantly moving.

I didn’t catch that it was solar at first (volume was down so I didn’t wake the Mrs), but when I showed her later we both agreed, that was really cool!

I’m always down for a virtual meetup, and I’m definitely down to share design ideas!