Help with PH & watering, soil and aeroponics

[Tammy1126]

First couple questions relate to soil growing, which is what I'm doing with my ladies. (My husband went hydroponics)

1. What is better to grow in, drain pots or grow bags? Or does it even make a difference?
2. My plants are in a closet that measures 41" wide, 41" tall, 22" deep. How many plants can I comfortably grow in this space? I currently have 3 babies and 2 clones.
3. Should I be misting the leaves? If yes, with ph balanced water or with nute solution? And how often?

This set of questions is for hydroponics. My husband has a Rainforest 66 system, it's more aeroponics then hydroponics. He has 6 clones in his system in veg. growth, all were rooted in rapid rooter and then placed in Rainforest 66 system. He is not growing organically, he uses PH down solution and Eco-grow part A & B chem nutes.

1. Is there something other then hydroton clay pellets that can be used in this system? Currently the rapid rooter plugs and all their roots sit inside a basket full of these pellets. I was told these pellets raise PH in the water and I believe he's experiencing that problem.
2. Currently he sets the PH to 5.5 in the morning, by evening it has risen to 6.5-7.5, this happens daily. Could something other then the hydroton pellets be causing this?
3. Is it natural, or ok, for this kind of PH fluctuation?
4. Should he be lowering the PH back to 5.5 every morning or will that eventually cause nute issues?
5. Should he be misting his leaves? If so, with ph balanced water or with nute solution? And how often?

I think that covers all our current dilemmas, at the rate we're going I'm quite sure there will be more. We've managed to kill many, recover a few, and keep a couple safe

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Stress_test]

Wow Tammy that is a mouthful.

Well from your post I am assuming that by having "a couple safe" you have some mother plants in soil and doing well?
If not then I suggest that you make arrangements to do so.

Now.
Bags or pots is pretty much a preference issue. However if you are planning on a sea of green or a scrog then you can usually pack more plants into a smaller area with bags.
At 41" tall you are kinda limited as to strains you will want to select. Hopefully yours are of smaller stature strains.
Misting: Well I personally mist babies with bottled water and aspirin. I crush 1 aspirin in a gallon of water and aerate it for an hour or so to completely dissolve the aspirin.
Set your nozzle to the finest mist possible and either just before lights on or after lights off, mist the undersides of the leaves. Just don't do it when it's hot or close to a light or you will burn em.
It's funny that I saw your questions because I was in the middle of an article about ‘Systemic Acquired Resistance’ (SAR). When I have finished the article, I will post it here as well.
But in short:

Plants make salicylic acid to trigger natural defenses against bacteria, fungi, and viruses. However, plants often don’t produce the acid quickly enough to prevent injury when attacked by a microbe. Aspirin is an activator of ‘Systemic Acquired Resistance’ (SAR). Therefore spraying aspirin on the plants speeds up the SAR response. Tests have shown this works on many crops, producing better plants using less pesticide.

Later; after they are bigger you can switch off to a mild nute solution applied in the same way.

Now what you have described isn't aeroponics. I run an aeroponics cloner and am in the process of building an aeroponics grow system.
Mine and all the aeroponics systems I have seen use no medium. They are suspended completely in net-baskets or plugs.

Without more info on the system I wouldn't even attempt to second guess it. The more stable the ph, the better for the plants. Aero will allow higher concentrates of nutes and almost always a lower ph, but when you introduce medium that will hold nuts/water to the roots all variables change. Aero's huge advantage is that it allows maximum doses of nutrients and oxygen between cycles. If you capture water and nutes in medium it will definitely impact plant health.

I hope this is some help...

 

[Tammy1126]

Hi Stress,
Yes, it did help a lot thank you!

The Aeroponic system he has is a Rainforest 66. It has 6 net baskets suspended just above a 13 gallon res. A sprayer sprays the baskets for 1 min. on, 4 min. off. We have also added a thermometer, heater, and air stone/bubbler to the res.

He got 6 clones, all rooted in rapid rooter plugs. The roots were healthy and well extended around the plugs. We brought them home and placed them in the net baskets with hydroton clay....found out after the fact I was supposed to soak the dang clay first which is one reason for the higher PH.

 

[Stress_test]

Okay... After some reading I have a better understanding of the RF66. The RainForest 66 aeroponics system was designed for plant propagation of cuttings or quick-starting seeds, rooting transplants or seedlings.

I use a similar system for my cloner, except that I only use net-pots with inserts and no medium.

Rumpleforeskin, has a great thread running that may help understand better how aeroponics systems work and even instructions and parts lists to build your own inexpensive system.
I think it it probably a pretty killer system but I question the use of any medium for aeroponics, as in my experiences medium won't allow you to really take advantage of the real benefits of aeroponics.
In fact by using medium I always run into ph and nute overdose issues and in trying to correct those issues the plant health suffers because I always had to decrease the nute ppm to keep from burning.

I think if it was myself I would move the plants into soil and take cutting when available, then use the RF66 with net-pots but without medium. I think it would perform much better because most cloning machines don't anticipate the use of anything but very mild nutrients. AND the RF66 was actually designed to be used for propagation rather than full cycle growing.

 

[jm420]

if rinsed properly the hydrotron will not fuck with ph,

 

[runningriot]

1. Is there something other then hydroton clay pellets that can be used in this system? Currently the rapid rooter plugs and all their roots sit inside a basket full of these pellets. I was told these pellets raise PH in the water and I believe he's experiencing that problem.

I run high pressure aero and I only use 3 inch net pots, not medium. They just dangle in the air inside 5 gal buckets. I suspect the plugs you have will be just fine.

2. Currently he sets the PH to 5.5 in the morning, by evening it has risen to 6.5-7.5, this happens daily. Could something other then the hydroton pellets be causing this?

Yes! Its probably just the water fluctuating tempeture. As it warms and cools it effects the PH. I use a 55 gal drum and it goes from 5.6 where I set it to 7.5+ right before lights on. It has caused some problems but I'm still growing trees right now.

3. Is it natural, or ok, for this kind of PH fluctuation?

You should probably ask someone else. I use botanicare pure blend pro and it doesn't seem to hurt it too much.

4. Should he be lowering the PH back to 5.5 every morning or will that eventually cause nute issues?

Yes lower it every morning! Make sure the ph is between 5.5 and 6.0 at all times possible.

5. Should he be misting his leaves? If so, with ph balanced water or with nute solution? And how often?

I love foliar sprays. I use a rotation of two, first a humic acid based spray, and also a kelp based spray. I spray everyday in a cycle like day 1 kelp, day 2 water, day 3 humic, day 4 water, and repeat. As far as ph'ed water, I just use water straight from the hose, seems to work fine. I suspect if the water was ph'ed it might work better. I spray up until the 2nd week in flower. If you are going to be spraying a lot like I am I suggest using a fungicide like procure of eagle 20ew on your plants to knock down a chance of powderly mildew


cheers!

 

[Tammy1126]

Hi everyone,
Sorry it's been so long, my internet was off for almost a month :*(
Anyway, we got the PH under control - finally! I had no idea the RF66 was not meant for full growth cycles, I swear hydroponics stores tell you whatever you want to hear sometimes That could explain why they did not double in size when put into flowering. They started flowering at about 13 inches tall and now we're a month into flower and they are only 16 inches but they sure have some nice looking buds growin'!
Tried the foliage spray until the buds started to devolp, then I stopped using it for fear of mold inside the bud issues. The F.S. was helping a bit but hardly curing my problems.
I've killed every dang clone I've taken. I've put them in potting soil, rockwool cubes, rapid rooters, and just in cups of water. I've had them in humidity domes and out of the dome, on heat pads and of heat pads, and no matter what I do the dang things die. Perhaps once the ones in the RF66 are done I'll try using that system for cloning.
My PH is now 5.8-6.0 and they are on 1/2 str. bloom nutes. Pic of the ladies below.

 

[Stress_test]

Ummmm... I have an idea.