Beginner Hydro grower, help needed

[SmknWhiteWidow]

Hey everyone, I just started my second attempt at a hydro grow after growing soil for a few years. Haven't been in here for a while and would really appreciate some help here. I want to start with what we did first time around and see if you guys can pin point our failures.

First try:

waterfarm 8 pack, 1000 watt MH, HPS conversion light. roughly an 8 foot by 5 foot grow room completely sealed with walls covered with white panda paper.

started from seed and after germination put them into little inch cubes in a tray under CFL lighting to get them started. They all sprouted but got little growth after about a week or 2 under CFL lighting. we watered enough to keep the cubes moist but were sure to drain run off water. we then decided to transplant into our waterfarm and move to the 1000 watt hps. after several weeks of no noticeable growth and having to hand water do to the cubes not getting watered by the waterfarms ring, they were pretty much fried. (Note: we keep the light about 3 feet off the plants)

This try:

still want to use the waterfarm and 1000 watt light, we germed the seeds and plan to plant them into the little cubes again under CFL lighting and once a decent amount of growth starts we will plop the cubes into 4 inch rock wool cubes and continue CFL lighting. we then plan to put the cube into the waterfarm but we bought wick paper stripping to set the cupe on to catch the water dripping and bring it to the roots and cube. we plan on gradually introducing the 1000 watt light by rasing it as high as we can (approximately 5 feet off the plants) and increasing the exposure the plants have to the light. hopefully we will have healthy enough plants to fully expose them shortly.

My questions:

what happened the first time? did we just burn them up to early with the 1000 watt light?

did we somehow over water them?

does the second strategy sound good so far? If not, what should we do differently?

I will get pictures up for every stage as we go, and will try to post pictures of the grow room and cubes and things tonight or tomorrow. I REALLY appreciate everyones time and thoughts. happy growing!

 

[Growdude]

My advice is just start them in the 1" cubes and once there is some decent roots coming out of the cube just plant that in the hydroton in the waterfarm.

Off set it enough that the drip ring will drip near the rockwool cube.

Let your drip ring run 24 hours a day or when the lights are on. It takes a few days for the roots to find the water and offseting it a bit helps, try to avoid it spitting on the plant when its small (heap up hydroton over the drip ring).

Should work, pls post pics Ill be glad to get your waterfarm working.

 

[CasualGrower]

you put in the waterfarm before you saw green I am thinking by what I read???? You reallyt do not want to introduce your lil ones to light till they have some sort of green to be able to use it. ...

I will tell you how I do it, I do not use waterfarms, but it all works pretty much the same. I germ the seeds, they crack and when i get 1/3 to 1/2 inch tap root I place them in the 1 IN cube. you can still leave them in the dark if you want, but once int he rockwool, i place them under a CFL on a dinnerplate, I keep them moist and maybe leave a lil pool in the plate IF I am gonna be gone for a day or 2..... once i get the cotyledons out I start in with the CFLs at closer range and then i put the small cubes into a 4 in cube... takes a couple days from there to get the first real leaves.... Once I get there I put them in the hydroton and place them in there new home....... MAke sure you keep them irrigated till they get a couple more leaves..... after that, you can start dropping your water levels and moving your drip ring farther from then to get them to chase the water with roots..... Second set of real leaves, I start with MILD nutes..... just a splash and then you work up from there... the more they like it, the more ya give them...


Hope this helps.

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

thanks for the help guys, we're having camera difficulties so once we get that fixed i should be able to post some pics of everything. thanks again!

 

[GeezerBudd]

I've got two waterfarms.
Right now I've got two sprouts with coly's coming on.Got them under couple cfl's for now.
The drip ring on the waterfarm can be a PITA.
And I am thinking of getting some tubing and fittings and redoing it-I post if I do.
I piled up the hydroton and it seemed to help.
I also set the pump on a timer so it runs 2 hours then off four.(dry cycle)
The cubes hold alot of water.
I used rockwool plugs, then put them in 3" blocks-one with the hole.
Hope this helps.

Gb

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

He'res some pictures of our main grow room with the 1000 watt light. the rough dimensions are 8 ft. X 4 ft. and is about 6 feet tall. this is where we'll put the waterfarm in when its ready.

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

here is our plants planted 8 hours ago under our new cfl its a new wave T5 with 4 bulbs that produce 6,500 lumens each. this is also our temporary grow room where we'll keep the plants until they're ready for the 1000 watt light.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

No where did I see any mention whatsoever of PPMs and pH--something extremely important in hydro. Did you soak the rockwool in pH's water prior to planting your seedlings?

IMO, something happened right off the git-go for them to not show growth after they sprouted.

And JFYI, CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) are those spiral type light bulbs that screw right into a regular light socket. The T5 is a fluoro tube set-up. I veg exclusively with a 4' T5 fixture. I think your plants will like it. Once they sprout, you can keep the light really close to the seedlings.

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

thanks, was really high last night when i posted and wasn 't thinkin when i wrote cfl. we have the 1" cubes currently soaked in distilled water and we tested the ph to make sure it was good. i've used distilled water with all my grows so far. we made sure the cubes were completely saturated but didn't leave any standing water at the bottom of the tray.

just for fun..... our new bubbler.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

thanks, was really high last night when i posted and wasn 't thinkin when i wrote cfl. we have the 1" cubes currently soaked in distilled water and we tested the ph to make sure it was good. i've used distilled water with all my grows so far. we made sure the cubes were completely saturated but didn't leave any standing water at the bottom of the tray.

just for fun..... our new bubbler.

Love your bubbler!

So, what pH are you running? Also, cubes should be soaked in water pH'd to about 5.

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

just re-tested the pH and it is between 5 and 6. about 75% of our seedlings have popped through the soil but a few still have the shell casing on it, i'll give them a few more days to see how they look before touching the shell. .... by the way what is the hydroton? not familiar with the terminology. thanks

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Hydrotron is expanded clay pellets that are used in hydro.

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

same thing as aqua rocks?

 

[NewbieG]

I would suggest using your MH because you can put them in a dome and keep the cubes moist that way. I've had 100% success using the rockwool and dome method for seeds under a 400 watt because it evaporates the water and keeps everything very moist. I will be doing the same thing for clones.

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

thanks. we will use our MH as soon as we can get the plants developed enough where they won't burn up. bought the flouro to help get em' started then we will continue to veg. with the 1000 watt

 

[Growdude]

about 75% of our seedlings have popped through the soil

I thought you were going hydro and were using rockwool?

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

i am, but the little 1 inch cubes that i will put in the 4 inch rock wool cubes are made of some kind of soil. all i meant was that they popped through the little cubes.

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

here's the plants as of this morning. i also included a picture of the soil cubes along with a nutrient the hydro shop gave us. the last picture is of the rock wool cubes they will be transferred into later.

 

[SmknWhiteWidow]

putting the soil plugs into the rockwool tonight. we are going to soak the rockwool in a solution of distilled water and the liquid seaweed stuff for a few hours before we put the plugs in. we will continue to use the T5 for a while longer though to get more growth so the plants down burn up under the 1000 watter. any ideas/suggestions so far? thanks for stopping in

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I wouldn't put into the rockwool until you see roots coming through the starter cubes (which are not soil). I wouldn't use any additives when soaking the Rockwool. What exactly is the liquid seaweed stuff? Little babies do not need any added nutrients for at least several weeks. Plain distilled water probably still has too high a pH to use to soak the cubes--the water should be pH's to about 5. You are going to have to dial you pH in a little better--a span from 5-6 is a HUGE difference. You are probably going to want to keep your pH between about 5.3 and 5.8 for hydro. I never use a dome after the seedlings have sprouted.