FIRST TIME HYDRO GROWER - all advice welcome. Started germination last week

yea so definitely going to flip by next week at the latest, just added about 1 and 1.5 gal of water to the two plants with 6ml pg of nut and 8 mls of the florabloom- next feeding will probably go double on the Fbloom. Thinking I will put up a scrog and lollipop a bit this week. Maybe top one or two more branches and then adjust training wire too.
Any guess on how long flowering will last?
Also suggestions for my baby seedling in the tent? started it late bc i had lots of seeds in case these plants died or are both male... not sure what to do with it next week when I switch the light from 24 hours

JadedMarxist said:

Here my set up with a pic of the difference in height of the tote and bucket and a pic of one branch where I bent it twice

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sweet thanks, was planning originally on 4 buckets in this tent, may go with the tote next time

Aqua Man said:

Yep I would be flipping soon

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ppm btw is about 550 right now, keeping it there until start of flowering then will increase a bit more...

Coukd put outside on the deck maybe? Or just finish it with your others. I just started a Bruce banner auto a ethos mandaine cookies clone and 2 blueberry clones out side. Because someone helped them sells to my green house last week they gonna finish small but they wiki finish

citygrower18 said:

Growing for my first time ever, and decided to go HYDRO DWC 4 buckets with no reservoir and a aeration bubbler system. At this point I have germinated seeds with rockwool about 4 or 5 days ago and they are starting to grow about 1/2 inch to 2inches from the rockwool.

I am trying to figure out the next step as I plan to set up my 32x32 tent in the next couple of days.
I have 2 1000W giixer LED lights (full spectrum)

How do I know when exactly is best to transfer rockwool to pellets? And are there any tips for putting in clay pellets and adding water in any way?

Will have more questions to follow regularly, any and all help much appreciated

cheers

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what are you using for a nutrient line up? are you going sterile? what kind of water are you using tap or r/o. these are the questions i ask myself before i start any hydro grow. i personally dont use a sterile set up, i use microbial mass for establishing a strong microbiome of beneficial bacteria. their are other products out their that do the same thing, but other then ph this is the most important step in a hydro set up. in the past i managed bad bacteria with bleach, about half a cap per 10L of water (dont freak out commercial greenhouses do it as well, as long as you dont use to much the plant will not be hurt).Even then i had minor slime problems. this in turn causes ph to swing fast. another thing to note is a sign of a healthy set up is a slowly declining ec, or a EC that doesn't move, combined with a slowly rising ph. ph should move from 5.5-6.2 in approx 2 days, but this really depends on the plants uptake of nutrients. if its feeding heavy ph will rise slightly faster, if their not feeding much then it will rise slower.if your PHing the buckets daily then something is wrong, change your ph down/up line up, if their is no evidence of slime/bacteria in the reservoir. finally if your using r/o water then you will need a cal-mag supplement otherwise your plant will not be able to produce new foliage and will struggle to create chlorophyll. i still use a cal-mag supplement with tap water i just use it at 75% (.75x recommended dose). these are some of the most important aspects of a hydro grow, they indicate plant health and vigor and can also indicate defects/problems are on their way unless you act quick. i forgot to mention it but i rising EC (or PPM) also indicates that you might have to much nutrients in the water, try adding 80% of the recommended dose if this happens when you next change the res.

citygrower18 said:

yea so definitely going to flip by next week at the latest, just added about 1 and 1.5 gal of water to the two plants with 6ml pg of nut and 8 mls of the florabloom- next feeding will probably go double on the Fbloom. Thinking I will put up a scrog and lollipop a bit this week. Maybe top one or two more branches and then adjust training wire too.
Any guess on how long flowering will last?
Also suggestions for my baby seedling in the tent? started it late bc i had lots of seeds in case these plants died or are both male... not sure what to do with it next week when I switch the light from 24 hours

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If the seeds are photoperiod as I assume they are they will need to be moved and given thier own light source. All your parameters look good and so do the plants so I wouldn't change anything. 600ppm should be all that's needed through flower. The simple way is run grow nutes until the end of week 3 from flip and then switch to bloom nutrients. This being the first grow keep it simple.

need to do a bucket/res change- ppm ph EC and water levels all been falling past few days

citygrower18 said:

need to do a bucket/res change- ppm ph EC and water levels all been falling past few days

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Yep sounds like that's in order. Your gonna end up doing then very often here soon. I would say likely every 3-4 days max

also thinking about cutting out the R/O water and just going purely tap

citygrower18 said:

also thinking about cutting out the R/O water and just going purely tap

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What was the ppm again? That could be your issue with ph dropping. I forget if you are adding a buffer back

Aqua Man said:

What was the ppm again? That could be your issue with ph dropping. I forget if you are adding a buffer back

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not sure what you mean by a buffer, like calmag?

citygrower18 said:

not sure what you mean by a buffer, like calmag?

7/18/20	week 5	1900, 2000*	77	57	322, 400-410*	75.2	634, 800-820*	263, 400-410*	75.2	532, 800-820*	5.94/5.8, 5.8*	3.5 gal	3.5gal
7/19/20	week 5	1745	78.3	65	395	77	790	386-390	77	772-780	6.07/6.03	just above 1inch mark	just above 1 inch
7/20/20	week 5	16:30	81.3	63	410	82.4	820	386-390	82.4	772-780	6.05/6.09	looks like water went down slightly on both plants
7/21/20	week 5	1330	78.6	58/60	370	77.8	740	358	77.8	708	x
7/22/20	week 5	17:20	81	69	377-386	80.6	754-770	358	80.6	716-726	6.06/6.16
7/23/20	week 5	1540	76.1	69	377	77	754	331	77	662	6.14/6.12		water below 2 inch line
7/24/20	week 6	1700	72.5	69	349	73	680	276	73.4	552	6.15/5.94		about 2.5 gal
7/25/20	week 6	1700,21:45	77	64	335-340, 379*	75.2	634-652, 758*	220, 340*	75.2	475, 680*	6.12/5.59, 6*/5.75*	added 1 gal w/ 3ml pg	added 1 gal w/ 2.5 ml pg
7/26/20	week 6	15:30	77	66	344-349	77	708-716	372	77	744	6.076.07
7/27/20	week 6	14:30	77.2	72	335-349? 356	77	648? 708-716	266	77	532	6.01/5.85
7/28/20	week 6	20:00	80.8	62	322-340	80.6	644-660	231, 370-386*	80.6	468, 750-770*	5.85/5.01		added .75ml Ph up + .6 more
7/29/20	week 6	23:30	79.5	63	284	78.8	574	377	78.8	754	5.73/5.59	added 1 gal 4ml nut pg	added 1 gal w/ 4 ml pg
7/30/20	week 6	20	78.4	65	385-470 470	78.8	940	490-500	78.8	1000	6.3/6.08
7/31/20	week 7	AWAY
8/1/20	week 7	AWAy
8/2/20	week 7	18:00	78.4	74	326	77	662	268	77	536	5.98/4.86
8/3/20	week 7	12:00	74.7	66	244, 520-550*	75.2	488, 1042*	312, 552*	75.2	624, 1104*	5.78/4.66, 6.04/6.15*	1 gal 6ml pg - 8 ml florabloom	1.5 gal 6ml pg - 8 ml florabloom
8/4/20	week 7											1ml ph up	2ml ph up

Date

STAGE

Time

Tent Temp

Humid

PPM-plant a

Water Temp

EC

PPM- plant b

Water Temp

EC

PH

Plant A Water

PLANT B Water

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Like carbonate and bicarbonate sources to create a buffer and stable pH.

only been using ph up and ph down in addition to flora series, probably stop the R/O water then you think?

citygrower18 said:

only been using ph up and ph down in addition to flora series, probably stop the R/O water then you think?

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What the ppm of your tap water? Does it go through a water softener?

If using RO you need to add the ph first to bring it to 75 ppm then add nutrients and ph down after. This should give you an adequate buffer. There are better ways like silica but I'm just to going by what you have.

Aqua Man said:

What the ppm of your tap water? Does it go through a water softener?

If using RO you need to add the ph first to bring it to 75 ppm then add nutrients and ph down after. This should give you an adequate buffer. There are better ways like silica but I'm just to going by what you have.

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nyc city tap is pretty high quality, not positive if it goes through a softener but I think it does. PPM is 60 of the tap. I was mixing 50-50 R/O and Tap, then adding nutrients then ph up/down if necessary... plants seem healthy until now with everything falling including Ph... if you suggest I will eliminate the R/O water and use just tap... or maybe I just need to change the res/buckets.

Not sure how I was change the buckets next if I put up a Scrog this week. Whole different set of questions there though for later

Try what I listed above. You water is lacking a buffer. Add 75ppm of ph up (look into potassium silicate instead it's great for the plants and a great ph buffer) then add your nutrients then ph down and the ph should be a lot more stable.

It is important how you mix your nutrients and in what order.

Do you have a recent pic if the plants and roots?

I feel like we talked about this before.

What I did to overcome the scrogg trellis was build a frame out of3/4 inch pvc pipe but don't glue any joints then I just mounted the scrogg frame to the lids with u cable clips then when I lifted the plant the scrogg moved with it.

Not perfect solution but worked great and if you don't glue the joints the trellis is customizable.

I font have any pics but I can get it up if you need a visual

JadedMarxist said:

I font have any pics but I can get it up if you need a visual

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I did the same thing.

Oh my bad that's just a scrog frame from PVC. Yeah if you mount seperate scrogs to the lid it allows the lid, plant and scrog to be lifted without fuss.