ph is almost impossible to keep at one stable point and isnt good for your girls anyways. I run ebb and flow buckets and when I set my ph after rez fill set it at 5.2 then let it drift to 6.2 before readjusting. doing this lets all the nutes in. If you try to keep it at one point your more likely to get locked out of something which compounds by locking others out.
Experienced with hydroton, but rockwool has me stumped
- Thread starter Hackk
- Start date
did you ever fix the problem? based on your first few posts id say overwatering like the rest of the guys, untill you have roots developing throughout most of a larger cube or the bottom of the smaller cubes you dont need to keep the block that wet. its only when you have lots of root you gotta worry about em drying out fast.
Hey man,
you keep the blocks moist, warm & in high humidity, dont let them dry out, as soon as you see roots in the small prop cubes, they gets transplanted into the bigger cubes & back into a propagator(heated preferably), again, you keep the blocks moist & warm in the proagator with a mild EC solution & the RH high while they root. As soon as you see roots poking out of the larger 4"/5" cubes, then it is time time to transplant into your growing system ie- NFT,where the roots start to grow into the spreader matt in the aqua duct channel. Simple, effective growing system as long as everthing is kept in check ie- RW is leach/flush cleaned every 2 weeks or less, with a mild EC nute soltion(EC0.2 etc).
Ive read PH swings of more than 0.5 in one hit are known to cause unessasary stress to the plants, these days i adjust in smaller increments over a longer period of time, say a couple of hours, usually in 0.2 incriments as to help minimise stress. 6.2 - 5.2 is a big jump, do you see any stress for no- apparent reason?
or do you adjust PH in smaller drops/incriments too.?
I do exactly the same with running it slightly lean letting PH drift up slowly, but with smaller upward drifts 5.5 -5.8/9 in 24 hours using NFT.(i adjust EC untill its closer the mark & PH slows)
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stony2
i've grown a lots of strains and since i've switched from soil to hydro with coco, i've seen that a lot of strains (phenos, more exactly) behave differently on different mediums
for example my cloud 7 pheno does great on soil and is a very high yielder, and on coco it had deficiencies at flowering day 30 already
on the other hand, the hashberry, no matter what soil (although i always used good ones that have good structure and are not over-fertilized), always looked sort of burned on soil, and on coco it just looks so healthy from top to bottom
so, your problem might be solvable, but it is also possible that your strain just hates rock wool
greetz
stony
Mr. Stinky
Member
ive found its better to keep a highly oxygenaten reservoir and flood more often than to let them dry out before reflooding. i use h202 now at 1tsp/gallon twice a week. with the h202 and my res temps in the 60's, i can flood every hour if i want to. when theres lots of o2 in the solution its better to flood them more often to keep a steady ph and nutrient profile in the block where it counts. a res with low o2 is a handicap thats hard to get past. kill just a few roots and the rot will stop everything from growing for a month...
http://grodan101.com/Grodan.php watch the videos and read faqs...
Hackk
Member
I guess I'll update you guys with what has progressed...
Well, they havent died yet, so thats good news. After I made this post I just transferred them to 12/12 five days ago, and so far they look fine. December 28th was when I made this post, and that was also the day I stopped watering them to let them dry out... Well, I didnt water them for an ENTIRE month and they still were very damp. I just watered them 2 days ago when I transferred to 12/12, and that was purely to hydrate the surrounding media. On top of that, maybe only a few plants had roots coming out of the bottom, and even those roots were like a single hair popping out. Overall, I am extremely displeased with my performance with rockwool. I really hope they can make it through the flower cycle without causing me much more trouble.
I guess the last question I have for you guys, this failure was with the "Pargro" brand rockwool, compared to "Grodan" brand. Has anyone else ever compared the two and noticed a difference of any type? Honestly, I just dont think my strain/pheno likes rockwool... in fact, I think she hates it!
Well, they havent died yet, so thats good news. After I made this post I just transferred them to 12/12 five days ago, and so far they look fine. December 28th was when I made this post, and that was also the day I stopped watering them to let them dry out... Well, I didnt water them for an ENTIRE month and they still were very damp. I just watered them 2 days ago when I transferred to 12/12, and that was purely to hydrate the surrounding media. On top of that, maybe only a few plants had roots coming out of the bottom, and even those roots were like a single hair popping out. Overall, I am extremely displeased with my performance with rockwool. I really hope they can make it through the flower cycle without causing me much more trouble.
I guess the last question I have for you guys, this failure was with the "Pargro" brand rockwool, compared to "Grodan" brand. Has anyone else ever compared the two and noticed a difference of any type? Honestly, I just dont think my strain/pheno likes rockwool... in fact, I think she hates it!
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greenmatter
how big are your blocks/slabs? a month w/o watering? how big are your plants?
This is extreamly unlikely, RW is an inert media, runs perfect with all plants*(certainly MJ), never heard of/or cant imagine a plant not acctually liking RW. It may be that the way in which the rockwool was first treated wasnt good enough for that paticular brand or that the brand contains levels of something it shouldnt. I just cant see a plant not liking it, maybe it is the brand. I can certainly vouch for Grodan. have a word with Krunchbubble he luvs blocks in E&F tables, personally i prefer NFT, get many more roots going.
Never had any issues with Grodan RW at all, i soak/leach(which i always do well) & PH adjust & im good to go, MJ loves the stuff as long as its looked after, RW has a habit of accumilating salts & needs periodic leachings(every fortnight) to remove salt build-up.(often you see this visually on top of the blocks, a film of salt), easy to take care of. Drip Clean would prolly be the one to fix that problem.
You might find reading about the properties of RW helpfull, this will surly convice you that is very unlikely that a strain of MJ doesnt like this paticular medium, heres a helpfull link.
http://www.hydroponics.net/learn/rockwool.asp
Good Luck man i hope you get it worked out!
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In hydro a pH of 5.2 is ideal. I believe the 5.8 number is cited from outdated/inaccurate charts being circulating in the community (the nutrient pH uptake range charts.) I don't have a reference for this. I just tried 5.2, 5.5, 5.8 and the plants responded best to 5.2. I use maxibloom, maxigro, calmag+, floralicious+
What really matters is keeping pH below 6.5. Ideally you want it to start low, 5.2 and go up day by day to cover a broad range (5.2 - 5.8 is good) and back down at the res change. Exceeding 6.5 is bad for chemical nutes as it causes precipitation (though today's nutes probably don't suffer from this much.. not IME anyway)
Every 2 weeks my pH goes up from 5.2 to just about 5.4. I only bring it up/down on res change. During veg my pH would rise by .5 everyday. Still haven't figured out why but it stabilized after 12/12 so I stopped caring.
Didn't have to water for 2 months doesn't sound right. Does the res and/or blocks smell funky? sickly sweet (bacterial infection) or any weird smell?
Have 1-2 fans circulating air. Eventually you should be able to go up to 1-2 floods a day, esp when the plants are in flower and have big root masses taking up a lot of water.
Transferring small plants into big mediums causes issues with watering, like popping seeds in a 5 gallon bucket would cause the bucket to stay wet with only the top drying out and requiring more watering. Perhaps this is what happened here?
I had a similar problem when transplanting rw starters to hydroton. The roots wouldn't go down into the hydroton. I guessed it was the because the cubes were always soaked (I flood rockshale/hydroton 8 times a day.) I fixed this by re-transplanting, having the cubes sitting very in the pot, some on top of the hydroton. I hand watered for a week while flooding just below the cubes. Now the hydroton is gets flooded and the rockwool cubes are always bone dry.
They're doing pretty damn good for a ghetto $30 hydro setup. Can't go wrong with tables. the only downside is I only have to check the plants once a week and so most of the week I completely forget I grow. It's a weird feeling. Kinda dissociates me from the plants.
In your situation, I would carefully tear apart one of the cubes to see what's up with the roots. You can transplant it back into a new cube afterwards.
Pics of the medium/plants would really help.
What really matters is keeping pH below 6.5. Ideally you want it to start low, 5.2 and go up day by day to cover a broad range (5.2 - 5.8 is good) and back down at the res change. Exceeding 6.5 is bad for chemical nutes as it causes precipitation (though today's nutes probably don't suffer from this much.. not IME anyway)
Every 2 weeks my pH goes up from 5.2 to just about 5.4. I only bring it up/down on res change. During veg my pH would rise by .5 everyday. Still haven't figured out why but it stabilized after 12/12 so I stopped caring.
Didn't have to water for 2 months doesn't sound right. Does the res and/or blocks smell funky? sickly sweet (bacterial infection) or any weird smell?
Have 1-2 fans circulating air. Eventually you should be able to go up to 1-2 floods a day, esp when the plants are in flower and have big root masses taking up a lot of water.
Transferring small plants into big mediums causes issues with watering, like popping seeds in a 5 gallon bucket would cause the bucket to stay wet with only the top drying out and requiring more watering. Perhaps this is what happened here?
I had a similar problem when transplanting rw starters to hydroton. The roots wouldn't go down into the hydroton. I guessed it was the because the cubes were always soaked (I flood rockshale/hydroton 8 times a day.) I fixed this by re-transplanting, having the cubes sitting very in the pot, some on top of the hydroton. I hand watered for a week while flooding just below the cubes. Now the hydroton is gets flooded and the rockwool cubes are always bone dry.
They're doing pretty damn good for a ghetto $30 hydro setup. Can't go wrong with tables. the only downside is I only have to check the plants once a week and so most of the week I completely forget I grow. It's a weird feeling. Kinda dissociates me from the plants.
In your situation, I would carefully tear apart one of the cubes to see what's up with the roots. You can transplant it back into a new cube afterwards.
Pics of the medium/plants would really help.
Hackk
Member
guys, I really want to thank you for the help. Things are gradually improving, however I still have a very sour taste in my mouth when it comes to RW. I know that most everyone on here has great success with it, but I think Im rockwool impaired. Since I've transfered to flower which is also in a humidity controlled warmer room, the rockwool is finally drying out. Perhaps my main problem for the past few months, was that I had each 5x5 block packed into flood trays, there was zero space between them which gave them no air to breath or evaporate. Now that more air circulation is hitting each block in its own bucket, its drying out more, and doing better. The only problem Im having now is the same as !!!, the blocks on top of the hydroton is eather getting too much water, or not enough. So I just have to figure out the proper flood rate and height to make this work out right.
What Ph do you guys think I should run? The roots arent working into the hydroton yet, so I'd want to run lower because of the rw, but Im not sure...
and to quickly hit on the "salt buildup" idea, I dont think thats the problem since I barely watered them, it didnt have enough nutes running through it to accumulate.
What Ph do you guys think I should run? The roots arent working into the hydroton yet, so I'd want to run lower because of the rw, but Im not sure...
and to quickly hit on the "salt buildup" idea, I dont think thats the problem since I barely watered them, it didnt have enough nutes running through it to accumulate.
PH 5.4-5.6 veg 5.6-5.8 bloom(5.5-5.8-+ is the norm), i always run NFT to great effect at these numbers, but i will say the nute line needs to be considered too.The root matt you get is huge in NFT & will fill the aqua channel right up. It wouldnt be hard to convert a E&F table to NFT, just need a cover for your tray, a bit of tinkeing with inlets/outlets. Ive run NFT with the pump on 24/7 the RW is always wet 24/7. You can put a NFT timer on if you wish to optimise, 2mins on 2 off, or 2 on 4 off even, but i run it on 24/7 with zero issues. A huge rootmatt fills the covered aquaduct channel & a 2mm film of nute solution constantly flows under it. why dont i suffer with the same issues? The large rootmatt maybe? my RW block are wet 24/7!
E&F tables restrict root growth to the media being used, pots or blocks etc, i can grow huge plants producing a large rootmatt with NFT. really is childs play!
I was just mentioning the leaching of RW for proper maintainence proceduce, to keep it clean.
Hope you get it all worked out mate! its a real bitch when things dont go smooth.
btw, i think !!! is refereing to the recommended PH range for water culture like DWC, ive run RW(NFT) at 5.2, it was OK & as low as id ever go in Veg with RW, but the plants always seemed to prefer the range stated above for RW growing. IME. 5.5 being on the money!
Not sure so which chart are you refering to !!! bro, just out of interest?
Also, as long as RW can freely drain, which in your E&F table its going to, RW will hold the perfect water to air ratio, so im not sure why you think the RW is staying too wet, i cant see it myself bro! RW Blocks Packed in with no gap inst a good thing, so it was wise to address that issue imo.
E&F tables restrict root growth to the media being used, pots or blocks etc, i can grow huge plants producing a large rootmatt with NFT. really is childs play!
I was just mentioning the leaching of RW for proper maintainence proceduce, to keep it clean.
Hope you get it all worked out mate! its a real bitch when things dont go smooth.
btw, i think !!! is refereing to the recommended PH range for water culture like DWC, ive run RW(NFT) at 5.2, it was OK & as low as id ever go in Veg with RW, but the plants always seemed to prefer the range stated above for RW growing. IME. 5.5 being on the money!
Not sure so which chart are you refering to !!! bro, just out of interest?
Also, as long as RW can freely drain, which in your E&F table its going to, RW will hold the perfect water to air ratio, so im not sure why you think the RW is staying too wet, i cant see it myself bro! RW Blocks Packed in with no gap inst a good thing, so it was wise to address that issue imo.
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greenmatter
watering less could be the reason your getting the buildup. the plants are using more water than nutes so the ppm/ec in the block is always climbing. if you water less you also flush less. maybe a product like HG drip clean would help a little. if you can grow in rocks you can grow in wool
he isnt getting build-up greenmatter! i was just mentioning proper RW maintainence procedure/practices.
but yeah if you can grow in rocks, wool should be cool too, with a bit of adjustment.
If it were me ,i'd get yourself a little NFT205 tank(or make one), go with RW blocks as its designed for, run Ionic Nutes & H2o2, run the pump 24/7 if you havent got an appropriate timer, Run Ionic nutes at the said PH & if you get any issues, ill pay you for the kit myself. Its that easy & trouble free.(try an experiment i mean!)
Id definetely be thinking of running another system if i had the sort of issues the OP has with RW. I certainly wouldnt sack Rockwool though, its a great medium, works best with NFT & Drip/Slab imo though, im not keen running E&F with RW, although i see plenty of people getting results doing so, see KrunchBubbles grows, me its NFT for RW, all day! trouble free.
but yeah if you can grow in rocks, wool should be cool too, with a bit of adjustment.
If it were me ,i'd get yourself a little NFT205 tank(or make one), go with RW blocks as its designed for, run Ionic Nutes & H2o2, run the pump 24/7 if you havent got an appropriate timer, Run Ionic nutes at the said PH & if you get any issues, ill pay you for the kit myself. Its that easy & trouble free.(try an experiment i mean!)
Id definetely be thinking of running another system if i had the sort of issues the OP has with RW. I certainly wouldnt sack Rockwool though, its a great medium, works best with NFT & Drip/Slab imo though, im not keen running E&F with RW, although i see plenty of people getting results doing so, see KrunchBubbles grows, me its NFT for RW, all day! trouble free.
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greenmatter
chill scroger .. i'm with you. but he did say he did not water for a whole month. i read enough of your stuff to know how you do things. i don't even know how the plant could make it for 30 days with no fresh something running through it.
Hackk
Member
Green, Im with you bro. I have no idea how they have survived as long as they have, and actually continue to grow as well...
As I said in my original post, my flower room is dialed in to perfection. Nothing goes wrong once in that space. The reason I wanted to give RW a second try was the transfer from veg to flower. I was getting really tired of transferring loose hydroton pots into larger buckets, and was looking for an easier solution while still using my tray...
aaaaand, since I've had these problems, it has kind of pushed me in a direction that I originally didnt want to go, but now Im happy I did so. Im almost finished building a larger veg room, and from there I plan on buying a 3rd ebb n gro bucket system with straight hydroton, and simply veg in the same buckets that will get directly transferred into flower. I was avoiding this plan, because I was happy with my current setup, but I guess its finally time to upgrade. It's a win/win in my book. I get larger veg roots, and less hassle with the transfer.
So for now, I say F*#K you, rockwool! You are my ultimate nemesis...
As I said in my original post, my flower room is dialed in to perfection. Nothing goes wrong once in that space. The reason I wanted to give RW a second try was the transfer from veg to flower. I was getting really tired of transferring loose hydroton pots into larger buckets, and was looking for an easier solution while still using my tray...
aaaaand, since I've had these problems, it has kind of pushed me in a direction that I originally didnt want to go, but now Im happy I did so. Im almost finished building a larger veg room, and from there I plan on buying a 3rd ebb n gro bucket system with straight hydroton, and simply veg in the same buckets that will get directly transferred into flower. I was avoiding this plan, because I was happy with my current setup, but I guess its finally time to upgrade. It's a win/win in my book. I get larger veg roots, and less hassle with the transfer.
So for now, I say F*#K you, rockwool! You are my ultimate nemesis...
