Waterfarm Users

[CLDBD]

Hey guys and gals.

I am just getting into hydro. I posted a thread about it here that covers equipment and strain info.
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=110915

One thing that I am still uncertain of is starting seedlings. I have rockwool plugs. They are not cubes but little round guys that are split on one side to make placing things in them easier. I have no experience with hydro or rockwool except the only time I used these plugs was for a failed cloning run. First off what would be a good method of starting my seeds? I use the paper towel in a tupperware method and have had near 100% success. So once I get a taproot what does a fellow do? I know to soak the rockwool in a ph adjusted solution for a bit before use. I guess I am looking for what happens after I place the seed with taproot in the plug. I am sure it could grow in the plug for a couple days. Should I keep the plugs in a shallpw pan of water or should I just make sure they stay nice and moist? I think once that is done I am comfortable with planting it in the hydroton. That leads me to my next question. Does the waterfarm get solution all the way to the middel of the bucket. The drip ring is on the outside and with no experience I am afraid that the plug/seed would not get much liquid in the center of the bucket. Do I need to help it eat for the first little bit or does the rockwool hold enough fluid to sustain it until it grows out a little bit? Or does the drip ring do a good job of hydrating all of the hydroton? Thanks in advance for any help guys. Looking forward to getting this started.

 

[copperheadroad]

I used a hydrofarm for my first grow with hydro and worked wonderfully, you got the right idea id go papertowel to sprout and get you a nice lil half inch tap root or so then gently place your sprouted seedling in the rockwool tap root down of course and the lil head sticking up and then make sure you keep the rockwool atleast moist for the first week or so. what I did was take 3 rockwool cubes with seedlings in and put them down in my hydrotron for the first week or so i would just turn on the drip system for a few hours 2 diff times a day and i placed the cubes around the outer ring so when it woudl drip it would hit the cubes or in your case plugs this way i was assured that my lil gals wouldnt dry out too fast and it seemed to work perfectly as the gals grew their roots worked thier way down to the resivor and i had the pump running with the lights 16/8 then 12/12 never had any problems at all. Hope this anwsers some of your questions if you have anything else or if i was unclear please feel free to elaborate and ask Id love to try and help further, have gotten alot of good advise and read and learned everything i know from these fourms and enjoy tryin to pass along any info i know.

 

[glacier]

i germinate my seeds in paper towel aswell... after i see the taproot, i put them in small rockwool starter cubes... and put them in a humidity dome in a warm area under a small fluorescent lamp... checking every day that the cubes are damp, but not soaking wet.

once i see some roots at the bottom of the rockwool, i put the cubes in the waterfarms.... when i fill the waterfarms with water, i turn the pump on and add water until water just starts to drip from the ring, then add about 2 cups extra. then i set the timer to only 15 minutes on every 2 hours, gradually increasing the time as the plant gets bigger until the pump is on 24/7. and i also put an airstone in each waterfarm and keep that on 24/7 from day one.

 

[CLDBD]

I used a hydrofarm for my first grow with hydro and worked wonderfully, you got the right idea id go papertowel to sprout and get you a nice lil half inch tap root or so then gently place your sprouted seedling in the rockwool tap root down of course and the lil head sticking up and then make sure you keep the rockwool atleast moist for the first week or so. what I did was take 3 rockwool cubes with seedlings in and put them down in my hydrotron for the first week or so i would just turn on the drip system for a few hours 2 diff times a day and i placed the cubes around the outer ring so when it woudl drip it would hit the cubes or in your case plugs this way i was assured that my lil gals wouldnt dry out too fast and it seemed to work perfectly as the gals grew their roots worked thier way down to the resivor and i had the pump running with the lights 16/8 then 12/12 never had any problems at all. Hope this anwsers some of your questions if you have anything else or if i was unclear please feel free to elaborate and ask Id love to try and help further, have gotten alot of good advise and read and learned everything i know from these fourms and enjoy tryin to pass along any info i know.

Hey they thanks for stopping by. I have been very successful with my method of germing. I put them in wet papertowels and into a tupperware and then throw it on top of the cablebox. Since I picked up again almost three years ago I have had 100% success doing it this way. These last seeds popped in less than 24 hours. What I did with my plug is soak it overnight in a low ph water and then I shook it out and threw the seed in. It was not wanting to stay closed so I tied it shut and put it next to the soil cup under my seedling/veg lights. It seemed warm under the lights but I had to crank up the temp in the room a little bit today. They have been planted for just over 24 hours so far and neither has popped up. I fully expect to wake up to some green in the morning. I have been dripping a little water on the rockwool plug every once in awhile. I am concerned about it drying out. The whole water thing really confuses the crap out of me. I have had the best luck with germing when I got the papertowels nice and wet. Also when I got these plugs it was for cloning and it was a major failure. I then went back to the tried and true throw it in a cup of water method and I have not lost one yet. To me I would thiink the rockwool would only hold what it could take. As in if it it is not dripping then should it not be fine. I hear allot of folks say to keep it just damp. I would think that could leave a possibility of drying out. I would rather the seedling have a little too much than not enough water. I understand the reason for not wanting to waterlog things but just like with soil if you have it set up properly with good airflow and or drainage it should be just fine. I did allot of testing with soil and I beat on a couple plants on purpose by overwatering. I only saw signs of overwatering when I would dump allot of water at once. As in after 3 gallons. I then tested to see how they did with constant watering. Watered enough everyday to have drippage at the bottom and after the season they did not do as well as the others who got prime treatment but they did fine and had no signs of rootrot. I would hate to see what some people do to these plants to kill them from overwatering. Probably has allot more to due with lack of proper drainage than overwatering. I still am worried about the rockwool since I am new to hydro and I had a tough go of it with these plugs before. Hopefully I am not hurting them with my soil mental but I don't see any logical reason why I would be.

I am going to plant the plug in the waterfarm when some roots start showing. I am going to plant it right in the middle. I think I am going to make a small diverter to route some water to the center of the container to not drip on it but directly around it. There I go worrying about the moisture again. I can't wait to get to a few weeks in so I can feel better about leaving the pump on. The whole moisture issue is what has we worried about the pump timing at first. I hope I can settle on something before that time comes. Seems there are different schools of thought on the pump timing. I did get the waterfarm all cleaned up and put together and I tested it without the pebbles in the bucket and it works fine. I think I am going to go find a suitable pump to have for a backup. It would suck to find the pump took a dump right after all the stores close at night. Would a pet store be a good bet for that? It came with a pump that says it is for a 10 gallon aquarium. I figure that should be a common item at most pet supply houses. I bet even malwart sells them. Well thanks again for stopping by. Stay tuned for results and maybe more questions.

 

[copperheadroad]

sounds like you got the general idea down (not sayin im an expert by any strech of the word) but i think as long as you keep the rockwool somewhat moist your fine. and yea wiht puttin it in the middle of the hydrofarm id put somthing to divert a lil water to the middle too least for first week or two till it gets those roots good and established. well im figurin by now you got it goin just figured id check back in on ya and see what kinda progress was goin on. wish ya the best man and kinda curious to see how its going. oh and just cause i like to tell some one at the moment i got me bout 20 under a 600w light about 2 weeks in veg some AI, NYCD, white rhino, and M x A ha ha wish me luck hopefully well be pulling some nice big dense buds down about the same time.

 

[onahah]

Off the bat

Off the bat

For everyone that puts their seeds directly into the waterfarm from sprout, how do you choose what seeds to put in so you don't get males in the farms! I have always had to either put in a solo cup or 1.5 ltr too pre-sex and then into farm. May cause shock but I don't know. In several days end up with bushes growing

 

[CLDBD]

sounds like you got the general idea down (not sayin im an expert by any strech of the word) but i think as long as you keep the rockwool somewhat moist your fine. and yea wiht puttin it in the middle of the hydrofarm id put somthing to divert a lil water to the middle too least for first week or two till it gets those roots good and established. well im figurin by now you got it goin just figured id check back in on ya and see what kinda progress was goin on. wish ya the best man and kinda curious to see how its going. oh and just cause i like to tell some one at the moment i got me bout 20 under a 600w light about 2 weeks in veg some AI, NYCD, white rhino, and M x A ha ha wish me luck hopefully well be pulling some nice big dense buds down about the same time.

Thanks for stopping by again. I have had a really bad go of it so far. My seeds are really fighting me. I have always been really good at germing and starting seeds. The only problems I have ever had came later in the grow. I am now on the 6th seed and I think I have a couple winners. So I killed four. I switched from rockwool to peat pellets. I have had no problems with the peat pellets. So I am starting to get some confidence back. 3 of the 4 seeds killed were in soil. I threw that shit out. I just got the waterfarm plugged in today and put my little guy in their. The soil one started earlier in the week and is doing great so far. I am using an airstone in the farm. I am using just ph'd water for now. Don't know when to start really but I will watch the plant. Plan on two weeks and starting with 400-500 ppm. I am just trying to get an idea now of what I should do with my pump timing. I have it set on half an hour on and 1 hour off all day. If I think it is drying out too much I will increase the on time. I will let the plant tell me what it wants later. There were allot of setbacks at first but I am off to the races now.

 

[copperheadroad]

ha ha well glad to hear your having better luck im sure once ya get back in the swing of things they ll take right off for ya. my girls and prob some boys are boomin flipped to 12/12 bout a week ago so far can tell 2 girls and 1 hermi i think will give lil while longer before i yank it thought just to be on safe side. well give me a hollar and tell me how you operation s goin i gave my hydrofarm a round to set out went totally soil this time so may be commin to you wiht questions plannin some indiana bubblegum hydro style next

 

[CLDBD]

ha ha well glad to hear your having better luck im sure once ya get back in the swing of things they ll take right off for ya. my girls and prob some boys are boomin flipped to 12/12 bout a week ago so far can tell 2 girls and 1 hermi i think will give lil while longer before i yank it thought just to be on safe side. well give me a hollar and tell me how you operation s goin i gave my hydrofarm a round to set out went totally soil this time so may be commin to you wiht questions plannin some indiana bubblegum hydro style next

I have been making some headway lately. The soil grow is going well. I had to use some mg soil since my other soil seemed to kill everything I put in it. It is showing some signs of problems from the low ph. Now that it has gotten a little bigger I am going to do a big flush right before flower. That should get it where it needs to be just fine. The hydro has been tough but not really bad. It was going real slow for awhile and the leaves were real light so I put it on 24/7 watering and added some nutes to bring it up to 500ppm. I was having some major ph drift as well. I got some minor burn from the nutes but I kept an eye on the ph and it started growing much better. I took some water out a few days ago to drop the ppm down to 300 or so. The nute burn has stopped. It is growing good it seems but the leaves are still light with darker marginal veins. I checked yesterday and my ppm was back up to 500. My ph has remained at 6.3 for at least 3 days. That is on the high side but I don't want to be adding down every day like I was doing. I just put in an RO system so I will be doing a flush and clean in a day or two and I will then see how it acts. At least it is growing. I may not have a great plant but I am determined to keep it alive and learn from it. I only have one room to grow in at the time so I want to switch to 12/12 soon but the hydro is still a little behind. I topped the soil plant so hopefully the hydro can catch up. We will see.

 

[copperheadroad]

well good to hear things are startin to straighten outa lil for you. and yea id prob just let them all catch up and veg alil before flippin to 12/12. wish i had let my 6 or so lil ones catch up a lil more before i went in to flower. and the mg soil is what i have always used wiht good results, it seems to get a bad name around most of these boards but works fine for me. and the ppm when i used my hydrofarm i never monitored that lol just kinda wung it and worked good. shewww startin to get a few boys in my mix thoguht had to kill 2 last night and still lettin my hermi go gonna use lil of its pollen and make some hopefully fem seeds, but things arent quite goin as well as i had hoped just few more boys then i had anticipated and still waitin on my 6 or so youngins to show sex hopefully the majority of them turn out to be lil girls. either way just need to get some good bud to hold me over and get some seeds of each strain, next time i think im gonna go 10 bubblegum and a few nycd and veg for about a month try and grow a few trees to really get some weight oh and not tryin to take over your thread just like to tell some one how things are goin ya know--- Thanks man and ill check back in a week or so and see how your gettin along wish ya the best

 

[CLDBD]

Checking back in again. I have been having issues with both the soil and hydro. Nothing I can't get under control. The soil plant was really headed downhill after a good flush to get out the mg nutes. I fed 600ppm after and then pure ph'd RO water after. I figured I was going way too light on the nutes since I started to get a rapidly spreading,uniform yellowing of the newer leaves. I did some reading and bumped that badboy up to 1000ppm and it started coming around pretty fast. PH has been ok for the soil plant as well. Just jumped it up to 1200 tonight. I FIM'd the soil plant a little while ago and it is a great bush. The hydro got FIM'd the other day and is coming along nicely.

The hydro is getting some rapid yellowing and what looks like a magnesium or calcium problem on the bigger fan leaves with many rusty color circles and yellowing and drying out. The upper leaves are yellowing from the tips inward. I have a few ideas but I am not sure. The most it has got so far is a 1000 ppm. Now it's leaves are so much bigger than the soil sister and the stem is easily twice as thick even though it is a week younger. I am ready to switch to 12/12 any day now but want to get this problem under control.

First thing is the temps have gone way up in my room due to switching to the HID and higher outside temps. The air temp is right at 80 out of the light. My res temps are around 75. I know this is high. My roots are coming in great. Filling the bottom bucket well. I have no airstone in there so I am worried about the heat causing root problems. I also have found some algea on the top of my hydroton where the water drips. I sprayed it with some diluted h2o2 and it seemed to kill it. The res is clean though. I bought some food grade 35% h2o2 so I am planning on using this after I dilute it down to 3% in my res. I do not want to add an airstone at this point in the grow. I am thinking this is a decent idea to keep algea at bay but I am concerned with the lack of o2 in the water from the high temps. So I plan on biting the bullet and using an air conditioner in the room to keep the temps a bit better. I have a portable unit that already has the exhaust built into the room. Just didn't want to use that much more power. Also I am thinking of stepping the nutes up to around 1200 to see if that helps her out some. I am so stoked at the size of the leaves and the stem compared to the soil sister. If I can get this latest problem under control I think it will produce very well.

 

[glacier]

u sure it's algee on the balls and not just residue buildup from the nutes? if you keep your airpump on 24/7, there should be plenty of o2 in the water.

that plant must be a monster now

 

[CLDBD]

u sure it's algee on the balls and not just residue buildup from the nutes? if you keep your airpump on 24/7, there should be plenty of o2 in the water.

that plant must be a monster now

Actually the plant is not really a monster due to some early issues and the issues it is having right now. The soil girl is the perfect little bush. I have also done some pruning on both for airflow. I have barely pruned at all in my previous grows but am trying for better yeilds. The FIM technique really works great for making an even canopy. However both plants are about the same height. There is a major difference though. Firstly due to early lighting the hydro started a major lean and never straightened out. Worked out for the better to keep height down. If it had grown straight it would be taller than the soil one for sure. The impressive thing with the hydro so far is both the ease and quickness of fixing problems. Also the size of the leaves and stems. Even though the hydro is a week younger the stem is massive and easily twice as thick as the soil stem. The main fan leaves are huge. Biggest I have seen. Some of them measure near 11 inches across. The root system is awesome too. That is another issue that bothers me. I drilled my holes out bigger and they roots are filling up the bottom res. I have done tons of reading and some think the bigger root mass the better. I would normally agree with that except that it is basically acting like a DWC without the airstone. I don't see this as a problem with the pump running 24/7 but with the temps of my res I do see this as a problem. I hope I am just overthinking it. I do plan on hooking up the a/c soon so this problem will be fixed shortly.

I am 99% sure it was algae. It was on the top of the hydroton in the corner where the most light was getting. I think that has something to do with it. It looked just like the crap I see in the water tanks on the film processors that are out in the villages where they never drain the tanks. Brown and slimy. I sprayed all the affected areas with h2o2 and it seems to have got better. I don't want that crap in the res though so any steps I can take to prevent that I will do. Since it is already there I plan on doing some h2o2 additions to the nutes. That and cooling the room should make that aspect a non issue. Going to pump up the nutes to full strength very soon as well. For my first run of hydro I am happy with what I have done so far. I have fucked up some things but I have learned from them. I have not killed it and don't plan on it. The goal is to get good at it and improve yields and then eliminate the soil grows altogether. Thanks for stopping by.

 

[Wait...What?]

brown slime in a hydro res is sure sign of calcium lockout. raise your pH.

 

[MickFoster]

I have been using the waterfarm 8 pack for years with very good results. I don't get algae on the hydroton because when the roots grow into the rez I remove the drip ring and put an airstone in the rez just like dwc. Eliminates the eventual clogging of the drip rings due to salt build up. Works for me.

 

[CLDBD]

brown slime in a hydro res is sure sign of calcium lockout. raise your pH.

Thanks for stopping by. I have never heard that before but I am pretty new to hydro. I really don't think it is a calcium issue because my ph has normally been on the high side. 6.1ish. I don't have it in the res yet. I am thinking it is the heat.

 

[CLDBD]

I have been using the waterfarm 8 pack for years with very good results. I don't get algae on the hydroton because when the roots grow into the rez I remove the drip ring and put an airstone in the rez just like dwc. Eliminates the eventual clogging of the drip rings due to salt build up. Works for me.

I opened up my drip ring holes a fair bit so I am not worried about clogging. You bring up a very good point though. I am not sure how much root is in the upper bucket but down in the res is a shit ton of roots. So I would bet that I could shut it off and the plant would still get all the nutes it needs. I might go ahead and try that. If I pulled out the lift tube I could nearly throw an airline down the other tube. Thanks for stopping by.

 

[NicholasSmokes]

I've been thinking of getting a Waterfarm or PowerGrower. I don't have a drain in my grow room. Will I have to carry the Waterfarm to the bath tub to drain it and re-fill or can someone suggest an easier way?