First Hydro Grow Ever

[californiajoe]

Day 4:

Leaves still a bit droopy, so cut watering back to 30 seconds per plant. ph was still way too high so i added 1 tsp of ph down, 1/2 tsp of macro nutes, and 1/4 tsp of micro nutes. the ppm was around 330.

 

[californiajoe]

also, will be picking up two purple kush plants to add along with the bubbas on monday.

the plants are all showing signs of growth and plan on letting them veg for another three weeks.

 

[californiajoe]

Day 5:

watered each plant for 30 seconds. The new growth is a lighter shade of green, almost yellow. Ph was still too high at 7.5, so I added more ph down, 1/4 tsp of macros and 1/8 tsp of micros to hopefully lower the ph.

 

[EvilTwin]

Day 5:

watered each plant for 30 seconds. The new growth is a lighter shade of green, almost yellow. Ph was still too high at 7.5, so I added more ph down, 1/4 tsp of macros and 1/8 tsp of micros to hopefully lower the ph.

Hi CJ,
So time to bump up the nutes, I'd say. They could probablly handle full nutes right now, but slowly easing them up is better.

I had a buddy that hand-watered coco and he just mixed a few days worth of nutrients in a bucket and didn't even bother with a res.
ET

 

[californiajoe]

Thanks once again, ET. I'll bump it up again tonight, if needed. How crucial is a stable light cycle right now? I know that during flowering, there can be no light intruding during the dark cycle, but what about during veg? I just opened it up to snap these pictures real quick after it had been dark for a couple of hours.

Day 6 pictures:

http://icmag.com/ic/attachment.php?attachmentid=22778&stc=1&d=1251762346

http://icmag.com/ic/attachment.php?attachmentid=22780&stc=1&d=1251762346

http://icmag.com/ic/attachment.php?attachmentid=22779&stc=1&d=1251762346

I will post my nutrient adjustments later tonight after feeding.

 

[EvilTwin]

CJ,
Plants in veg can handle some light irregularities. It's only when they get into flower is it crucial.

I'm a little concerned that the yellowing is on some upper leaves. N deficiency usually shows up on lower leaves. Also they aren't very perky (meaning a little droopy). How saturated are you keeping those cubes?
ET

 

[californiajoe]

they stay pretty saturated, which is why i cut back the watering to 30 seconds per plant. i think the light effected or exaggerated the yellowness in the pictures though, as it seems they actually got better since i first posted about it. i'll check the ppm and ph again tonight and add nutes, if needed.

 

[californiajoe]

alright...new growth is yellow, but seemingly getting better. the ppm is about 360 and ph down finally to right around 7. i added 5 more tsps of macro and 2.5 tsps of micro nutrients. that brings my total to about 9.75 and 4.875 tsps total of nutrients.

i don't want to change the ph too much too fast since i am slowly adjusting the plants. i hope i can wait until the weekend to change the reservoir, but im worried i may have used too much ph down and the ph will get too low, since im at about 50% of my suggested nutes. i hope to have my babies worked all the way up by the end of the week to full strength nutes and can then change the reservoir and re-fill with full strength nutrients.

 

[EvilTwin]

CJ,
You mentioned awhile back that your system is all set up to operate as an automatic E&F, but you're choosing to do it manually. So you do that by plugging in the pump and letting it flood to the normal height? I'm wondering how high that is? The time it floods isn't the whole issue. If you're totally submerging or flooding right to the top...I think that's too much.

I only use rockwool for cloning and seed starting, but I give a good wrist flick to shake alot of the water out. I Googled flood height and got a few opinions out there. I think you should flood to about half the cube height. I don't think you want to have the cubes saturated. It might involve some modification to your system. By that, I mean that you'll need to put a shorter tube in the return flow fitting.

There are some good rockwool discussions on the forum. Guys that know way more then me. Here's one...
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=131298&highlight=rockwool+flood+height
Cheers,
ET

 

[californiajoe]

actually what i am doing is top feeding via 1/2'' tubing from the reservoir each plant for about 30 seconds. this does end up flooding the tray a quarter to a third of the height of the 6'' rockwool cubes.

interesting thread too. i guess i need to start looking for signs of algae growth. i'll also take some tests of the runoff tonight.

 

[EvilTwin]

CJ,
If you mean running a half inch hose right on the block for 30 seconds...well then that's over-watering according to what I've read.

I appreciate your enthusiasm CJ, but why do you insist on just making up your own shit when there are loads of useful grow threads...with success to back it up?

I'd say hook up your pump and hose to your ebb&Flow table and flood that way...only half way up. Once a day or even once every two days. The rockwool will wick all the way up but not to saturation point like you are now.
ET.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

The biggest issue you're going to have here is oversaturation.

Those 6" cubes were "designed" to be placed on larger rockwool slabs that wick the extra moisture from the smaller cubes. The bottom of your E&F tray doesn't 'wick' anything and actually prevents the cube from draining properly..... so yeah, the cubes stay waterlogged.

I know that's your problem and I know slabs would fix it...... not sure what else you could do. Hell, if I didn't have anything at all, and only a few bucks, I'd get some lava-rock from the hardware store and rinse it well. Put a layer of that under your cubes. It won't be perfect but it will drain a whole hell of a lot better.

Stay Safe!

 

[lysol]

Hi, I see you already got some good responses & EvilTwin asked me to come back and comment,

when re-reading the thread I saw u might get only PH down, get hte up too. when you are feeding strong you will need to PH up instead of down. You can use regular tap water in place of PH up but that lowers your TDS so PH up is more convenient.

Seeing as hydro-soil already hit the nail on the head I think, pretty much all I can offer is put your cube on top of a bed of perlite so it can drain down. Another thing I did when I was starting seedlings was water to runoff / saturation, then place on a bath towel for 100 seconds or so to let the towel wick about half the water creating lots of nice air pockets.. with those little cubes even moisture was my main issue.

Placing the cubes into my bubbler straight away eliminated the human element my cubes were no longer over / under watered, just a constant mist from the bubbles below and all the grow rocks help wick excess moisture out of hte cube.

I would fill your E&F tray with grow rocks, perlite, or get the slabs like HS suggested. Hope this helps

 

[californiajoe]

wow, well things sure make a lot more sense right now. the "stoner" moment i mentioned the other day with the flood was not necessarily a stoner moment. that flood, as i realized it again today, was from the condensation from the a/c duct to the tent. the fact that i haven't seen it in the morning when i check on my girls too, means that it obviously occurs during the hotter part of the day...

this time it got the carpet wet though...fuck! drying everything out again...moved the tent over so that i could get the part of the carpet below the a/c vent. the babies are stuck in the dark and won't get fed until i get up in the morning and everything is hopefully dry. i soaked up what i could from the carpets with towels and have two fans blowing on the area now.

jesus christ. this will be a great lesson for n00bs like myself...

 

[ColBatGuano]

It might be from the weather. I've had icing on my AC and water running out of the front of it--a first for the unit--because in this heat wave, the AC never gets to cycle itself properly. Check your filters/vents. I had to clean mine because spiders made a web over the fins and it made a dust-catcher. When I put the AC back on power-save mode after cleaning, no more icing or condensation.

 

[lysol]

wow, well things sure make a lot more sense right now. the "stoner" moment i mentioned the other day with the flood was not necessarily a stoner moment. that flood, as i realized it again today, was from the condensation from the a/c duct to the tent. the fact that i haven't seen it in the morning when i check on my girls too, means that it obviously occurs during the hotter part of the day...

Have you noticed growing is addictive? What else is like that? Gambling. What do they have in common, the chance element debugging is fun charge it to the game and have peace of mind knowing you taking away new knowledge from the experience.. and damn thats a lot of condensation sure you have it hooked up right? Try a dehumidifier to supplement the AC?

 

[Bogie]

You may have already said so in this post, but did you condition the rockwool cubes in PHd water before using them. I had this same problem with rockwool in an aero system. IMHO your PH is way to high, and from the look of the plants The PH seems to be locking out your nutes(mainly the nitrogen) i keep my PH between 5.5 and 5.8, and I have quit using rockwool. If you dont condition the cubes for atleast 24 hours, the rockwool will cause the PH to spike. I have started using rapid rooter plugs, and will never use rockwool again.

 

[californiajoe]

thanks so much et, lysol, and hydro-soil!

i will go purchase either mats or buckets/perlite to put them into tomorrow. the girls actually look better today, im assuming b/c i didn't feed them last night.

day 7:

completely cleaned res and added full strength nutrients. ph is still a bit high, but i think the once the nutes settle it'll come down. if not, i'll add some ph down. a lot less yellow is visible now.

i also finally just hooked made it an actual ebb and flow system scheduled to water once per day. the reason for hand feeding them earlier is that the local hydro shop said rock wool was not good to use in ebb and flow systems b/c i'll have to flush the cubes once a week due to salt build up.

i really appreciate everybodys help!

 

[californiajoe]

...and, i now realize why i shouldn't have top fed...there are roots starting to come up out of the top of the cube...

 

[2fast4u2]

Hey californiajoe, here is my setup