My aquaponic adventures

[luxton]

Getting frustrated that I’m still seeing thrips (I’m way too impatient), so after reading a few reviews, instead of leaving them whole, I cut open several packets of predatory mites and spread the eggs around through all the plants, and in the “gutters”.

To the pics!

Afghani is getting soooo close. She’s almost eaten all the nutrition in her last leaves and I’d guess about 25% amber trichs

Diggin the colours

DCFD#1 is ready, I’m going to be cutting her down in the morning

Purple Nurple is budding up nicely, but she has a bit of a weird structure

DCFD #2 still has some time to go

GSC is starting to show buds, really hoping she shoots up a little bit more, but I think her stretch might be all done

Blueberry is still mostly preflowering, she’s going to take a while!

And finally, the mystery plant… Loads of buds, and she looks like she might stack up a couple nodes deep on each

And then there’s Oats X Rolling Thunder #1… Outta nowhere, with 3x her height in stretch! She has full buds going and is STILL stretching half an inch or so a day!

My lil garden

[luxton]

Got some close up’s of mystery plant

Kinda looks like a sea anemone

[luxton]

Purple Nurple was getting tall in a bit of an odd way and the bottom buds weren’t seeing as much light as I want, so the main stalks got bent over and the smaller ones are standing tall, and with it STILL stretching, I don’t think I’m too late. Should give even light to all the buds . I also took half a dozen leaves off of her on the bottom that had thrip damage

Big apt to map nerves in my back today (very painful), so I kept my self baked and asleep all morning to pass the time without stressing . I didn’t get a chance to take down DCFD #1 yet, I’ll have a look in the morning. All that stress and he ended up testing all my reflexes and ordering an MRI for higher up in my back, he agrees there’s something wrong, but he doesn’t think it’s where the obvious and known injury is, which means I’m broken in lots of places… Weeeee.

[luxton]

Today was/is the day, Drunken Cherry Fog Dog #1 has come down…

I feel like she’s done enough, I just wish she were bigger (I’m sure that’s the first time that’s been said about an auto, lol)

Afghani auto isn’t quite ready yet, but she’s close!

And DCFD #2 is pretty close behind too

The new gals () are chugging along in their area, I’ve also added the Blueberry clone into a pot in here

I’ll update the rest of the plants in a few minutes, when I get more pics

[luxton]

Mystery plant is looking good, pumping out buds

Afghani auto is close

Purple Nurple bent over, hopefully I didn’t just fuck up

The last little buds from DCFD #1, I’ll see if these will finish up

DCFD #2

GSC

Blueberry - she gets spread out in a sec here

Oats x Rolling Thunder #1 🤷🤘

Blueberry spread out again

[GreenGardenerGuy]

That mystery plant is looking fantastic! Happy growing!

[luxton]

Thanks . And thanks for stopping by

I was trying to keep her small and topped her about a dozen times, lol… She’s going to be fun watch fill out

[luxton]

It’s been a few days since an update here…

Afghani is sloooooow to finish, lol

DCFD #2 is taking her time to finish up too

Blueberry is doing some awesome stretching and stacking, pistils are coming out… I’m excited how she’ll end up

Mystery plant is stacking up too, she’s looking wicked

Purple Nurple is tied up… I should not have supercropped her, that was dumb. She’s still stacking bud though, so she’s not dead

What’s left of DCFD #1

Oats x Rolling Thunder #1 outta the gutter 🤷. She’s tall and building bud, so she’s also now tied up, I’m curious what she’ll do!

GSC is stacking the up nicely as well

All-in-all, I’m pretty happy with the state of the garden. Thrips seem to be dying off. The blue stickies definitely have some adults, and opening the sackets of predatory hugs is definitely the way to go, even though the instruction say to keep it closed and water it… Nope, open’r up, dump in the eggs and water

The front area is looking pretty good too, although the predatory mites need to get to work up hertooe

[crunkyeah]

spot on with your setup now really awesome to see !

i just have to point out that it’s incredible that little stunted plant grew [purple nurple] like it did and turned into a fine weed. good on ya lady! everything else is impressive but considering the size difference just a couple weeks ago…

you’re going to have a bit of trimming to do in a few months excited to see what’s next after this batch! you know once you get the currently flowering plants out, and the new plants in… you’re going to have to sprout more seeds…

[luxton]

@crunkyeah

good on ya lady

I think you mean laddy, and thank you! . That lil purple nurple definitely caught up, eh??

@crunkyeah

considering the size difference just a couple weeks ago

When an aquaponics system is fully settled in and producing, man, plants grow sooooo fast! It’s definitely time for me to throw a couple strawberry plants in

@crunkyeah

you’re going to have a bit of trimming to do in a few months

I’m so stoked I got that trim bin! I’m picturing sitting at my computer desk, feet up, movie on the computer, blaaaaazed, with the trim bin on my lap . And because I’ll have to do it while the kids are out, it’ll be an AM thing, so the rest of my day will spent burnt out, in bed with my pups

@crunkyeah

excited to see what’s next after this batch

Haha, me too . I have a couple I need to run as testers, and then a variety of purple crosses I think… I just have to figure out where I’m going to pop all those seeds, I was going to use the front area, but that’s now filled with autos and a Blueberry clone, lol. I think I need to expand my little area under my monster fish tank, lol.

I’ve gotta figure out different power though. I had everything in my tent plugged into the wall in my office, but with my computers, servers, fish tanks, etc, that curcuit pops if you cause a breeze. So, I ran an extension cord through the wall to the storage room next door, turns out that’s on the same curcuit as the bedroom beside that, which belongs to my Mrs daughter… And any time she uses her hair dryer, the curcuit pops and the tent is off. OH the fun of living in a house from the 60s that has been renovated quietly over the years

[luxton]

Random

[luxton]

Random

[luxton]

Random

[crunkyeah]

@luxton

I think you mean laddy, and thank you!

i was directing that statement at your plant so it was intentional i mean you did a great job raising her but you’re not as sexy as she is, sorry not sorry

@luxton

It’s definitely time for me to throw a couple strawberry plants in

would be cool to see some nice vibrant reds in your garden plus, fresh strawberries.

for the trim bin, i find they work extremely well on highly resinous types [modern plants] so you should be set. the trim bin is hands down a better product than the ‘cheap’ versions of them. you can find cheaper-made trim bins and they don’t stand up. the way i do it now… trim bin for seedless buds and i’ll use my gold panning screens for seeded buds. after a couple harvests the layer of ‘good stuff’ in the bottom tray will put a pure smile on your face… if you can leave it alone that long…

@luxton

I’ve gotta figure out different power though.

do you have an idea of the power draw from your aquaponic system relative to everything else? of course electronics and definitely things like microwaves, hair driers, vacuums, and so on will use up some of those available amps. my new system i have planned to run on a single 25w water pump and 2x 100w leds. would love to keep it under $10/mo for electric on my whole setup. will be nice to see what your system draws.

the stoner burger looks awesome.

as for the country music… it’s true plants like metal and classical. science still can’t find out why. seen a couple of interesting articles on that now… of course none i can drum up on a moments’ notice hahah…

all those rainbows are pretty cool. niagara falls?

[luxton]

@crunkyeah

was directing that statement at your plant so it was intentional

OK fair

@crunkyeah

but you’re not as sexy as she is

Got that right

@crunkyeah

do you have an idea of the power draw from your aquaponic system relative to everything else?

My tent at full usage is 880 watts… That’s all pumps, lights, air, everything. Very close to the 500 watts my servers use once they’re up and running. When the lights are all off its closer to 150 watts for the air and water pumps.

It’s not a LOT of usage, this house is just stretched beyond the limits it was built for. I’d really like to do a studs-up rebuild, but it’d be cheaper and easier to just move, lol.

@crunkyeah

all those rainbows are pretty cool. niagara falls?

Maybe? But I don’t see the rest of the falls around… I have no idea where it was taken, but man isn’t it a trip??

[darkillusion]

@luxton

[luxton]

Random

[luxton]

Chop day!!

Afghani auto was first. I pulled her up 6ish inches and found a solid 1/4" tap root continuing into the hydroton, along with various other branches. Instead of pulling up the root ball right then, I wanted to get her trimmed and hung to dry. When I came back, the tap root was half gone and only went another 1/2" into the hydroton. When I sifted through the hydroton, I couldn’t find any other roots, at all. I have no idea what happened to the roots I was looking at when I cut the plant🤷… Trippy.

I got her hung up and decided to pull out DCFD #1 and give her a trim. I was sure how the wine fridge was going to do, this is my first run with it, so I hung the plant up untrimmed to make sure I didn’t lose too much moisture too quickly.

The fridge has been performing phenomenally, holding at 16C +/- 1 and 60% +/- 2 RH.

DCFD #1 was looking bare, but don’t all drying plants? I got her trimmed up and back into the fridge

Next was chopping DCFD #2. I chopped her, put her in my trim bin and pulled her roots right up and out. I didn’t get a pic, but she had a nice, clean, white root system. If I had dipped her in water and cleaned some of the stuff off, she would have been bone white the worms are doing a damn fine job, I’m super happy.

After that, they all went into the fridge where they’ll sit for a few weeks. I need to get a small fan in there that’ll move the air around a bit more, but I even have jars of other bud open in the air and that bud is doing great too

(I just put the plants in, hence the 68% humidity numbers)

I got the mystery plant and Blueberry separated, they’re the only ones left in the front tray, I’m really happy with how they’re turning out.

Mystery plant

Blueberry

In the back is purple nurple, enjoying some more space and recovering nicely from the supercropping, and GSC.

Purple Nurple

GSC

Both are budding up nicely, but out of all of them, only Blueberry is frosting up the fan leaves

And, of course, oats x rolling thunder #1 up the middle. She was a little too close to the light (yeah, no duh, she’s so tall!), so I leaned her over between Blueberry and mystery

She has some crazy big internodal spacing, but each bud a solid golf ball size right now

[luxton]

With the autos gone, theres so much more room for the plants to spread, but damn it looks empty, lol

Purple Nurple is getting some interesting structure, quite spread out now

GSC is showing more bud sites, she’s finally showing she’s in flower

Blueberry is a little monster, also finally really showing she’s in bud

Oats x Rolling Thunder #1 is chugging along. She got some light burn yesterday, so I let her lay down a little more today. I don’t think it’s going to be far enough, and I really don’t want to lift the lights higher as the rest of the plants won’t get the same energy, so I guess she’ll just burn a bit

Land finally, the mystery plant. Man I wish I knew what she was, she’s looking so good.

[darkillusion]

Hey @luxton how well does that wine fridge work for you when it comes to dry/cure your bud?