Seed Germination

Finally got my set up ready and about to start germination so I can plant... just wanted to clear up some things ive been hearing alot of different opinions. Im just going to list what ive been told to do, so correct me if im wrong.

Soak the seeds for 24 hours in distilled water, then soak rock whool plugs in dis stilled water. Let them sit in the dark for 3-4 days (with no lighting) then once they start to break through transfer to DWC setup (can you fill the tubs up with water so the rock whool plug sits in the water, or will that be too much water?) and cant forget to bring the light closer.

Ive also heard using paper towel is a good method, just dont know how to transfer that to a DWC.

Im sure im making it harder then it is, but just want to be safe rather than sorry.

Thanks in advance.

I dont think that soaking the seeds in distilled first is a big help. the main thing you left out was that it is important to soak your rockwook in ph bufferered solution, and change it out a couple of times to condition your rockwool. distilled water wont condition rockwool. also, for the dwc, I always run a top drip of some sort untill the roots hang down out of the net pot. you can hand water the rockwool cube/other media several time a day too. Ive seen people raise the water level up so that the bubbles sort of mist the bottom of the rockwool or the media, and thats ok, but its easier to get the optimum water in your starter cube by manually watering, or a timer on a top drip setup.

Thanks Foaf for replying. Another question I thought about while reading your response, does it matter if the its tap water if im still hand watering the rockwhool plugs? (they just broke and the little roots starting to come out so I put them in the PH adjusted rockwhool plugs and plan on putting then in the pots on my DWC, hand watering them with tap and giving them a little light with my fluorescent light lamp till they grow a bit bigger then switching to 600w HPS) Correct me if im wrong.

Thanks again for any advice/help.

Hey Majorgrow3 just do like I do which usually leads to 100% germanation.I myself just use lil oasis cubes soaked in reg tap water for a min or 2 then poke a hole in the cube with an ink pen and drop the seed into the hole 1/2 way through the cube,I then put these into ziplock baggies ,close them and place on top of my hot water heater where it's dark and warm.Usually in 3 days I see lil sprouts coming from the cubes.These I place in my DWC container with the bottoms of the baskets barely sitting in the nutrient solution which is 1/2 strength so as to not burn my lil babies up.I myself veg with 78 watts of compact flourescents.Got a few grows with just this but now got a 150 HPS moving on on to bigger better buds LOL.Read my intro in introduce yourself tell you all about the grow box I had built.Any ques feel free to PM me.Later bro and happy harvesting.

Thank you mad dagger!!

I actually like the idea of soaking seeds, but not in just plain distilled water though. I use water at the rate of about a cup and a cap full of liquid sea kelp. I don't know if it's the 20 or so different strains that I've tried or the liquid kelp additive. Yet, I tend to get around 70% or so females in most cases. I pre soak for around 12-18 hours prior to adding the seeds to any medium or system. I usually have the seeds pop at 3 days or so after soaking. I have old nirvana packs that i've had for over a year that pop up just as quick with a soaking. So, I think soaking is a good thing.

Hey MG3 what's up snorkeldorf? (LOL) Doing my thing today, had my last 2 Aurora indica seeds germanating and they both had poped.I as of rt now am drinking a brewski and hoping I get at least 1 fem from them,wish me luck.In fact not a 1/2 hr ago I set them in my cabinet to start the vegging.
If I do get a fem outta them I'm going to harvest, regenerate her and keep her as a mother for clones ,Aurora indica is one killer strain,I love it.Well buzz you take it easy later.

Thanks chosen for your reply!!

Maddagger, sounds like a chill day homie. Wish I could get down on some brewha with ya but im still kinda hung over ( heads killin me! )

Anyways got another question for ya, maybe you can help two heads is better then 1.

I just went a picked up some bottles of PH up/down and Im going to start adjusting it today.... dilemma is my seeds have been germinating for 2 days now and they are cracking ( in my soaked paper towels of course ) and well I was gonna try and move them to my rockwhool plugs later tonight so they dont get too big and its harder to move them but I dont have my PH adjusted water to soak my plugs in, is it safe to use the water with those chems in it or will that burn my babys up? What about vinegar and water to quickly adjust it... or is that not safe eaither?

Thanks again!

I know everyone has their own methods that work for them. This is what works for me.

I take a Tupperware container that is about a quart in size or a little bigger. I fill this with ro water and add one drop of bleach and stir. I dip a small plate in it, and then a paper towel. I put the seeds in the paper towel and place that on the plate. I put this in a big zip lock bag and place on top of my router with a folded towel between them to keep the heat from getting too hot from the router. The seeds usually pop withing a day or 2 (my chronics took 2 days, my ice cream all had popped in under 24 hrs)

Once popped I put the seeds in rw cubes that have been pre soaked and place all in a seedling tray with the vents open. When I drop the seeds in the rw, I do it so the tail is going down into it, and the seed is just below the top of the rw or even with it. I dip the rw cubes every 4-12 hours depending on how fast they start to dry out.

My pre soak and dip is made like this- I take a bucket and add 2 gallons of ro water. I add .25 tsp of gh micro, grow and bloom per gallon to this which brings the ph to 5.5 - 5.7. I soak the rw for about 24 hours in this and use it as the dip until they go to my table with veg nutes. I transfer them to pots once they have roots coming out of the rw. Once in the pot, I remove them from the tray and continue dipping them every 4-6 hrs until the 2nd set of true leaves has come up. Once they reach this point I transfer them to a flood table running my reg veg nutes. If I were using dwc, I would transfer them to the bucket and keep the water level just below the pot so that the air bubbles kept the rocks on the bottom of the pot moist/ wet and wouldn't lower the water level untill roots were making their way into the water.

One thing, Once they are in the rw cubes, I place the seedling tray below my floros far enough to give them light, but not so that it's over doing it. I keep it just high enough so that they don't stretch so much that they aren't supported once in the pot.

This works for me pretty well, but I'm sure there are better ways. I guess just try suggestions given here out and see what works best for you.

If it is your first time, you might want to make a run or 2 with bag seed until your sure you wont kill your good beans. Good luck =)

Thanks happy, going to have to try that next time for sure... but im still a little confused will soaking my plugs in water thats had PH down added to it today hurt my seeds, should I let it sit for a little? Would using vinegar work as a quick fix for bring'n down the PH in my water so I can soak my plugs. ( As stated before my seeds are just popping today so kinda worried about where I can put them ) Sorry for being a noob, Just trying to get a grasp of everything!

Oh and mixing some nutes in the water wont burn them up??

Thanks again for all the help everyone!

What's up?Never grew in rockwell plugs but I have a suggestion juslt slice the plugs side insert the lil babe and go from there.Like I said never grew in them plugs don't know about them .I hope my suggestion works bro.Later,todalou see ya on da moon LOL

Hey buzz never use that PH up or down shit just tap water all the way and can grow some 1/2 way decent buds.

Best Homade Scrubber Pt. 1
Not by me MadDagger from another site works excellent though.

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Had this saved from OG. Thought I'd share......It's what I'm running with excellent results. Thanks Sun is Shining if you see this.......(sorry I stole it) Glad I could save this piece of info. Everything is laid out the same as it was on OG so sorry if the text doesn't go with the pics!

Yet another addition to the family of DIY carbon filter designs.
I modeled this after the expensive professional filter. It's very simple and easy to build. The only tools required are a screw driver and some wire cutters or snips of some kind.
All the materials were just under $50, here's the rundown:
Hardware cloth ~ $6 (the steel, not the plastic. in the fencing section)
6" & 8" duct caps ~ $4 (one each)
6" duct collar ~ $2
6" x 8" duct reducer ~ $3
Hose clamps ~ $6 (two 6" clamps and four 4" clamps)
Three 28oz jars of Activated Carbon ~ $20 (from the petstore)
Small package of Poly-fill ~ $1.50 (from wal-mart)
Two packages(or two-pair) Extra Queen size black panty hose ~ $2

Round that all up to $45

Ok. First to build the "core", get the hardware cloth (WIRE MESH WITH 1/8 TO 1/4 INCH SPACING)out and wrap it around the 6" cap (for sizing, I suppose you could measure instead), and snip. Leave a few inches to overlap to strengthen the seem.
Be sure to snip so as to not leave a row of points, that will undoubtedly poke the shit out of you, not to mention it'll rip the panty hose.
Once the HC is snipped and wrapped around the cap, use a 6" hose clamp to clamp it down. Do the exact same thing on the other end but using the 6" collar - put the crimped end of the collar inside the core, leaving the tabbed end outward.
Cut the legs off a pair of panty hose and stretch each one over the capped ind of the core, stretching them and covering the entire core with two layers.

Best Homade Scrubber Pt. 2

So that's the core, it's finished. Oh yeah, I added a 3rd hose clamp in the middle of the core for additonal structural integrity, though it's not necessary.

Next, take the collar-end of the core and set it into the 6" x 8" reducer as shown. Flip it over and tape the collar to the inside of the reducer. I used aluminum tape, but a good quality duct tape should do just as well. Fill in the space between the collar and the core with Poly-fill (batting or anyting of that noture will work just as well).
Once you have that done, it's time to fix the HC to the 8" reducer. Place the 8" cap in the opposite end of the HC for spacing and structure.
Form the HC around the reducer, just as it was done with the 6", and clamp it down using two 4" hose clamp together-running into each other. I couldn't find 8" hose clamps, so I put two 4" together.

Now take the panty-part of the hose, the waste band and whatnot, and stretch it over the outside of the HC. Repeat with the other pair, so you have two layers.

Now for the exciting part, fill it in with the carbon You may need to hold the core at first to keep the spacing even. This will give you a continuous 1" layer of carbon. Perfect.

Best Homade Scrubber Pt. 3

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Leave an inch or two of space and fill in with the Poly-fill.
*Not* At first I built it using the full 24" of the HC, after filling it in with carbon, I was left with about 6" not filled, so I snipped the HC rolls to a couple inches above the carbon line.

Now replace the 8" end-cap, clamp it down, and you're done
To refill, simply loosen the clamp on the 8" end cap, remove the cap, dump the carbon, re-fill, replace cap.


In my bloom room, I'm running a Hurrican 6" 307 cfm in-line. I have it T'd, one line pulling from the sealed, air-cooled hood (which pulls non-stinky air from outside the room through it), and the other line running to the filter. So the filter is actually "underpowered", but that's fine as it allows for slower, more even flow of the stinky air over the carbon. The open design of this filter creates minimal air-flow restriction.

This guy works like a champ, the stinky-ass air that was being blown into the backyard no longer smells at all.

I'm sure there's a couple things and points-of-interest I'm missing, but I'll get them as I remember

I hope somebody can make use of this, and I hope this is as easy to understand as I think it is.






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I'd rather burnout than rust.

I have used ph down w/o any problems for soaking the rw. I soak mine for about 24 hours, but have been told an hour is enough. The low level of nutes I use don't burn the babies at all. it's 1.25 ml of each. My tap has a higher ppm than my soak and dip.

I have heard others use the nutes for this and gave it a shot, and it's worked great. I use ro water, so adding even a little ph down causes it to drop a lot w/o anything else in it.

Good luck with the beans. Let us know what you ended up doing.

Rockwool isn't bad. I like oasis cubes better though. Rockwool doesn't breakdown which bothers me a little bit. You can also use cups filled with perlite or a perlite/vermiculite mix.

Rockwool is a great asset to many grow rooms, it is definatly important to soak it in PH adjusted water of 5.3 as it is high in PH from the manufacturer. Its totally fine to use PH adjusted water with ur seedlings.
After soaking ur cubes (dont squeeze or crush the wool) lightly shake excess water and put them into ur dome, just keep them raised off the bottom of the tray so they can keep the right moisture. then mist daily and keep covered, wait till the roots are showing then transplant to ur DWC.

I find trays like this help to keep them raised off the dome floor and make the roots easily seperated for trasnplanting.


Once rooted like that ^^ in the 1" cubes, those particular ones go into 4" cubes in a flood table like this....






Once there vegged for the desired time, then there off to flowering table ready to produce like this...

Early in flower...





Late in flower...








Hope that can help a little mate, good luck and im sure you can figure it out in no time. Peace

wow nice job lucky...maybe you can give me a hand growing with rockwool since you have some experience.

My system is ebb and flow with hydroton but I have seeds that I have attempted to germ but have run into some difficulties.

Have you used rockwool with seeds that have just been germed? What method did you use?