ikeepfish's 2014 grow log...season's end is nigh

JJJessee · May 19, 2014

Sweet operation, Rich.
Great score on the free compost from old JM

My daughter lives up near Leesburg, I may have to swing by Montpelier and mooch a load on my way back from visiting this summer.

I'm lovin' the holly tree and aquaponics.

When I was in 9th grade I talked my parents into opening a tropical fish store. We kept a few years and sold it.
I haven't kept fish since. I wanted to pursue Tilapia a while back but, just couldn't swing it logistically or $$$.
But I may look into a more limited plant centric test operation in the in the next year -toget my feet wet. Always loved the cichlids and odd-ball African stuff.

I've been studying and blending soil this spring with more intend than in the past.

Your soil blend looks pretty good as is. You might consider using that exact blend 2:1 or 3:1 with sphagnum moss if you have any issues with moisture balance or nutrient burn.
Also they say granite rock dust (about 4 cups to 7.5 gal of soil) is excellent in helping the microbes establish in any organics medium. It has to be dust. Chicken grit is too coarse.

Plants look great. I wanna see your Black Krim in production this year.
Good Luck.

Helvete · May 19, 2014

JJJessee said:
Sweet operation, Rich.
Great score on the free compost from old JM
My daughter lives up near Leesburg, I may have to swing by Montpelier and mooch a load on my way back from visiting this summer.

I'm lovin' the holly tree and aquaponics.

When I was in 9th grade I talked my parents into opening a tropical fish store. We kept a few years and sold it.
I haven't kept fish since. I wanted to pursue Tilapia a while back but, just couldn't swing it logistically or $$$.
But I may look into a more limited plant centric test operation in the in the next year -toget my feet wet. Always loved the cichlids and odd-ball African stuff.

I've been studying and blending soil this spring with more intend than in the past.

Your soil blend looks pretty good as is. You might consider using that exact blend 2:1 or 3:1 with sphagnum moss if you have any issues with moisture balance or nutrient burn.
Also they say granite rock dust (about 4 cups to 7.5 gal of soil) is excellent in helping the microbes establish in any organics medium. It has to be dust. Chicken grit is too coarse.

Plants look great. I wanna see your Black Krim in production this year.
Good Luck.

Hey Thanks!

I used to live in Northern Virginia during my crazy high school years, I don't miss it up there in the least. Montpelier seriously has more than enough poop to go around...
The thing about tilapia...even though they are one of the more commonly kept fish in aquaponics systems is that they are in fact a tropical fish. People like using them because they are fully grown and ready to harvest/breed in about 11 months. It's one thing to keep them indoors like my system is, but I've watched loads of youtube vids where people are constantly fighting the battle of keeping them warm outdoors if they don't at least live in a subtropical climate. For this climate here, if I was going to do outdoor aquaponics, I'd go with bullhead cats or perch...or at the very least anything that wouldn't get too large that could withstand the sub freezing temps we get. There are tons of videos on how to get a starter aquaponics bed going, beerbreath81's system from last season was just made out of a single 55 gallon blue drum. It's usually best to start with a handful of goldfish because chances are pretty high of losing some.

I almost did go with the peat moss and decided against getting a couple of bales of it...mostly because the horse compost itself is very fibrous and keeps it pretty loamy along with the perlite. I have some oddball sacks that have different soils in them so I'm seeing what the best results are. So far my soil blend is outperforming Ocean Forest by a long mile.

I'll have about 10 Black Krim plants this year, I've got one in my pepper rows for seed isolation in one of the fabric sacks. I've been saving seeds for them from the same strain for a few years now and haven't gotten any F1 surprises.

Helvete · May 25, 2014

First pod of the season! Not from a plant I started myself but hey! More pics coming soon!

Sangria

More pics! Just after a really gnarly thunderstorm!

Side by side Fataliis...left is my soil blend...larger growth...right is Ocean Forest...smaller growth but darker green.

Reaper

buried this Black Krim about 8 inches deep.

Dragon Cayenne

Dragon Cayenne blooming and budding

This PDN is forking

sorry I didn't turn this the right way before I uploaded it...Bhut Jolokia X Pimenta de Neyde

Murupi Amarela forking

Helvete · Jun 5, 2014

So, I did a major prune job on most of my plants getting the old indoor growth off so the nodes can bust loose. Some of them look kind of pitiful right now and aren't very photogenic.....I'm currently struggling to keep one of my Bhut X PDN plants alive. I lost 3/4 of my DWC bucket plants, the white bhut is still kicking. I replaced them with some "extra" BBG7s I had lying around. I also have a white bhut and a BBG7 in the aquaponics now. I have a reaper starting to fork, my speedy fatalii is about to break bad, it's got buds. I have pods forming on some of the annuums I bought live. Otherwise, still doing a whole lot of waiting right now.

In the meantime, here's a pic of an assassin bug I found vampirizing aphids on my speedy fatalii. These guys are so brutal looking, they jab that needle like mouth into the aphid, suck it dry and move on to the next one.

Seacowboy · Jun 5, 2014

Sweet pic of the assassin bug.

Where in nova did you grow up? I was out in Leesburg growing up.

Helvete · Jun 5, 2014

Seacowboy said:
Sweet pic of the assassin bug.

Where in nova did you grow up? I was out in Leesburg growing up.

I didn't really grow up there (or anywhere) being an army brat but I went to high school in Manassas. We didn't move around a whole lot so I've lived in Virginia most of my life but a good chunk of my earliest years were spent in Bayern, Germany. I went to Stonewall. I used to spend a lot of time in Centreville, Fairfax City, and Springfield back when arcades still existed. I still go up there a couple of times a year to visit friends or to go to metal shows at Jaxx (called Empire now and they have more of a crap venue than before)

Seacowboy · Jun 5, 2014

Nice. Lot has changed over the years there, can't wait to leave it behind.

John1234 · Jun 5, 2014

ikeepfish said:
I didn't really grow up there (or anywhere) being an army brat but I went to high school in Manassas. We didn't move around a whole lot so I've lived in Virginia most of my life but a good chunk of my earliest years were spent in Bayern, Germany. I went to Stonewall. I used to spend a lot of time in Centreville, Fairfax City, and Springfield back when arcades still existed. I still go up there a couple of times a year to visit friends or to go to metal shows at Jaxx (called Empire now and they have more of a crap venue than before)

Hooray for metal shows! :hell:

In some places I am known as the one man mosh pit

OneHighJedi · Jun 5, 2014

How big did those fish get? lol

spysee · Jun 5, 2014

Man I got to get a black pearl or Pimenta de Neyde, they look so cool.

Helvete · Jun 5, 2014

miguelovic said:
Hooray for metal shows! In some places I am known as the one man mosh pit

Yeah the only good place it seems in Virginia anymore for regular metal venue is the Norva in Norfolk which has horrible acoustics. I may be going to Charlotte in October to see Amon Amarth though. That's quite a trek from here. They used to play in Springfield.

OneHighJedi said:
How big did those fish get? lol

Butterfly koi can get 15-20" and goldfish can get up to 15" so I'm pushing the limits with the amount of fish I have...that's why I need to consider added more grow bed area or expanding to a larger system entirely, maybe an outdoors one. Carp can handle the cold weather here so I may do the latter. Good thing I don't have any regular koi, those bad boys can reach 30" easily. I also have a pleco in that tank and they can get quite large too.

spysee said:
Man I got to get a black pearl or Pimenta de Neyde, they look so cool.

Haha I know, I'm really liking the looks of them! I'm really curious how the Bhut X PDN pods look...I only have one plant now sadly. The other one is still barely hanging on...I'm not sure what's wrong with it but it's looking grim.

Seacowboy said:
Nice. Lot has changed over the years there, can't wait to leave it behind.

Yeah I think the area that has shocked me the most is Gainesville, it was next to nothing out there when I left in 05

Helvete · Jun 11, 2014

Some pics

Orange habanero

Sangria, with a little spider sentry in the lower right corner

The speedy Fatalii is about to break loose

this Pimenta de Neyde is my tallest plant right now, I'd guess it's close to 18in tall. And it's budding.

Dragon Cayenne with a wave of pods. I'm going to work on stabilizing this strain. I was kind of hoping it was going to be an upright but oh well.

Aji Pineapple pushing up from the nodes

Can I get a bump plz?

Swartmamba · Jun 11, 2014

Bump.

Helvete · Jun 11, 2014

Thanks!

Reaper, a lot of lower noding going on with this plant in particular, it's just now starting to fork

This Fatalii hasn't started forking, it's just wanting to bush and bush, like the American voters last decade

These peppers are still kind of a mystery, I got them from a friend who got the seeds from an Indian guy who called them Kashmiri. They're definitely annuum but I'm not finding anything specific because it seems there are quite a few types of peppers grown in Kashmir. I'm guessing they're probably the long cayenne types with the hook on the end, I'll find out. I'm saving seeds from these for sure for you landrace lovers.

More pics coming soon, we're under a tornado watch for the evening.
since I'm indoors
HOW ABOUT A 4 FEET LONG STALK OF AQUAPONIC ROMAINE LETTUCE!
it's bolting and has flowers, might not be worth a damn to eat...getting cut probably this weekend so I can throw some more peppers in there.I was using it for filtration mostly anyway

Runescape · Jun 11, 2014

LOL, nice lettuce. Peppers look pretty neat too...

chile_freak · Jun 12, 2014

spysee said:
Man I got to get a black pearl or Pimenta de Neyde, they look so cool.

definitely go for the de neyde the pearl is nowhere near as flavorful, though I must admit they look really cool!
Wow that's interesting!

Helvete · Jun 17, 2014

Ok some more pics. It won't be long and I can post some serious pod porn. We've been having freakish 50ºF nights and that finally broke, I did a feeding of a blend of kelp extract, fermented sugar beet molasses, and fulvic acid and the chinense plants are responding nicely. It was 95ºF today and hasn't been getting lower than 70ºF at night the last couple of nights. I didn't get any pics of the annuum raised bed area but that will come, those are perking up quite nicely too

This is dragon cayenne, not ripe yet. between two plants I have maybe 2 dozen pods right now.

My lone survivor Bhut X Pimenta de Neyde is finally taking off, it even forked when I wasn't paying attention. It's still really short though, maybe 8 inches tall

this red Bhut is finally doing something. I'm anxious about these they're from my own seed stock.

These really weren't liking all the rain we've been getting, the yellowing has cleared up with an epsom salt treatment. Yucatan whtie habanero aka "white bullet hab"

the Aji Pineapples really responded well to our heavy rains and cooler temperatures *shrug* it's budding

my "showcase" plant, this exceptional Pimenta de Neyde is 19" tall and is doing extremely well. It has some torn leaves from the bad thunderstorms but I can't bring myself to pluck them yet.

Reaper is budding. Weird that this one is growing so much faster than even my annuum strains...aren't they supposed to take 900 years to pod up?

Can I get a bump please?

Runescape · Jun 18, 2014

Bump. Damn thats a lot of buds on the reaper...

Helvete · Jun 18, 2014

Thanks! I just hope it's actually a Reaper! Loving the black stem on it...that was the plant that got the homemade antler bonemeal. Hopefully I'll be able to turn it loose in the woods and it will drag back a deer for me

I didn't keep those alive long enough last year to find out if they grew true XD. looks like it's averaging 4 buds per node though!

I take back what I said about Ocean Forest, I have a feeling I'm going to spend a fortune on this stuff next season :fire:

Fatalii in Ocean Forest. not even forking yet

More pics coming tomorrow...

OCD Chilehead · Jun 18, 2014

Very nice plants. Everything looks very happy. Fatalii is a monster. Congrats on the good start.