I am currently growing some plants in rockwool cubes and hydroton, and i have heard so much conflicting information i want to settle any questions i have once and for all. I am using the Lucas Formula, balanced to 5.8 and hand watered 3 times a day, however these waterings are usually very light, maybe a cup per watering.
First, most people on this forum tell me that to effectively run a hydro setup, i need to water my plants 4-6 times daily and once when the lights are off. Each watering consists of flooding the tray for ten minutes and draining back into the res...CORRECT? Now, one of the main things i was worried about was over watering and root rot, it just seems like thats alot of water to be running through my plants. Are my misconceptions holding me back? Is it perfectly ok to heavily water these babies?? I buy my RO water from Safeway, it costs a dollar a gallon, unless i get an RO filter hydro seems very wasteful in regard to water consumption, one reason i was thinking about switching to soil.
Second, since i am hand watering now, i get very little runoff, and what runoff i do get seems unusable. Maybe i am just a neat freak and my view is totally off, but i have never re-used the solution. One reason why is that i sprayed Pyrithium and Neem Oil, plus numerous fungicides, and all that ended up in the flood trays. Any solution that runsoff and will end back in the res will be contaminated by all the residue in the flood trays. Once again, are my views totally wrong??
Third, it seems like my flood trays are hard to drain. We have holes drilled into them, but the water seems to like to pool up and sit around, plus with all the dead fungus gnats it creates a big nasty pool of dead insects, i really dont want this going into my res! For flood system, how much solution should realistically remain in the flood tray, and isnt this bad because it can raise the humidity around the plants significantly?
After consultation in my other threads, i am already making changes in my grow style. First, i am watering more often in order to keep the rockwool PH stabilized. I am gonna to finally set up my pump system (which sat unused for two months because we were too lazy to set it up and prefered hand watering), i am gonna set the pump on 3.5 hour intervals during flowering.
Heres a few pics of my plants, as you can see they are suffering from major PH problems and nute lockouts, plus the fungus gnat infestation doesnt help at all. I dont want to give up on hydro just yet, even though we are diverting half our grow room to soil.
First, most people on this forum tell me that to effectively run a hydro setup, i need to water my plants 4-6 times daily and once when the lights are off. Each watering consists of flooding the tray for ten minutes and draining back into the res...CORRECT? Now, one of the main things i was worried about was over watering and root rot, it just seems like thats alot of water to be running through my plants. Are my misconceptions holding me back? Is it perfectly ok to heavily water these babies?? I buy my RO water from Safeway, it costs a dollar a gallon, unless i get an RO filter hydro seems very wasteful in regard to water consumption, one reason i was thinking about switching to soil.
Second, since i am hand watering now, i get very little runoff, and what runoff i do get seems unusable. Maybe i am just a neat freak and my view is totally off, but i have never re-used the solution. One reason why is that i sprayed Pyrithium and Neem Oil, plus numerous fungicides, and all that ended up in the flood trays. Any solution that runsoff and will end back in the res will be contaminated by all the residue in the flood trays. Once again, are my views totally wrong??
Third, it seems like my flood trays are hard to drain. We have holes drilled into them, but the water seems to like to pool up and sit around, plus with all the dead fungus gnats it creates a big nasty pool of dead insects, i really dont want this going into my res! For flood system, how much solution should realistically remain in the flood tray, and isnt this bad because it can raise the humidity around the plants significantly?
After consultation in my other threads, i am already making changes in my grow style. First, i am watering more often in order to keep the rockwool PH stabilized. I am gonna to finally set up my pump system (which sat unused for two months because we were too lazy to set it up and prefered hand watering), i am gonna set the pump on 3.5 hour intervals during flowering.
Heres a few pics of my plants, as you can see they are suffering from major PH problems and nute lockouts, plus the fungus gnat infestation doesnt help at all. I dont want to give up on hydro just yet, even though we are diverting half our grow room to soil.
I personally think this type of flood and drain is to hard, keep with it though once you work out the little kinks you wont regret it.
