Three gallon buckets with five inch net baskets and hydroton?

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Matthew7

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I have some seedlings in coir (one week since they sprouted) and they've been doing great with just a couple 2' fl grow lights from the local home center. I do cover them with a foil tent when I'm not running the fan, which is about half the time. Heat is not a problem and I'm able to put the lights within half an inch of the seedlings. -Is that freakishly close? They seem to be doing great so I haven't wanted to move the lights higher because I know they don't have a lot of lumen. -One more question: I plan on putting them under a 400watt MH next week sometime in a hydro system with hydroton, inside three gallon buckets with a 6" air stone and the recommended amount of nutes. That will leave about 6" of space inside the buckets below the 5" net baskets I'm using. Is that enough space for roots? Will the 6" inch air stone be enough? Also, the buckets are white but they are not translucent. Some one suggested painting them black(cause you don't want any light penetration inside the buckets) but I worried about the black soaking up heat ...so, to paint or not to paint? Are the net baskets and buckets large enough?
:holysheep:
 
The buckets are not big enough. imo

Your buckets have to be opaque, no light must be able to penetrate.
 
Why the foil tent?

Floros can get real close, your fine

I would do 5gal with round air stones, weighted ones.

Wrap the buckets in Reflectex from Home Center.

GL
 
M7, you will have to add water almost daily when they are bigger and you will have a problem with the roots getting tangled in the air stone. the 6" airsone should do the trick, but how many psi is the pump? and yes paint/black ducttape the buckets. also you may want to consider 5g buckets if you have the head room. hope this helps ...4EVR420
 
Thanks for all the advice. I think I will probably use 5 gallon buckets after all. The one's I have are white but they are opaque, although I will probably drop a bright lite inside one of them and take it inside a pitch black room to make sure no light can penetrate them -and I probably will still use the reflex tape or paint the very top of them anyway. The pump I'm using is pretty strong and seems to have no problem operating up to eight air stones. Right now I'm using a few of them to oxygenate filtered water for the seedlings. -Thanks again guys! Matt
 

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