First Time Hydro

[Book]

Howdy. This is my set up:

My seeds are donated from friends and family that show a very strong interest in my success.

My first experiment, failed. I took my seedlings, and put it in the rockwool and then put the clay balls around that. It all grew for a while then it just stopped and then curled up and died. No one on these boards tell you how to deal with the heartache. Anyways, moving forward...Now I have seedings that seem to be doing well in just the clay balls and pearlite. I am spritzing them with a water/nutrient mix (very light on the nutrient) and I will being changing the water every twenty days.

I would like for these to not die, like any parent. So if I can pick your very experienced brains, please toss me some advice. Thank you!

 

[rasta]

?????????????????????????? try me tomorrow ...peace.love//rastafari

 

[massproducer]

Being a DWC grower I can give you a few pointers on growing successfully in the type of system you have. Firstly I would get some better air stones, like the 6 inchers or so at walmart, they are only cheap but give way more bubbles as such more O2. Because your roots will be consistantly sitting in your nute solution oxygen is now your new best friend. With not enough your plants will suffocate and die very quickly.

Where is your perlite, because you really do not need it, perlite works great in soil or soilless mixtures for adding drainage but if you put it in your net pots it will do nothing but fall through into your rez.

Nextly you will want to change your nutes sooner then every 20 days, in this I would say NO LONGER then 2 weeks, and really closer to every week or week and a half. Salts will build up inside of your rez and it will wreck havoc on your ph and your tds With that said you need to get a ph and TDS meter and take atleast 1 reading per day and adjust each accordingly.

Lastly you need to top off your rez with ph'd water everyday once the roots reach the water level, if you are giving them enough oxygen they will eat and drink a lot, maybe 1.5 gallons per day, that is why i suggest changing your water more frequently, because even with a meter you have no way of telling what is in your nute solution until you experience a problem.

Note: You need to have atleast 500-600 cc of air per minute per gallon, so the average 5 gallon DWC bucket works perfect with the elite 802, which puts out 3000 cc per minute and has dual outlet so you can put 2 air stones per bucket.

 

[Book]

Hi Massproducer, and thank you for responding! The reason for the pearlite, is that it was recomended to me by another grower. He said that it makes the stalk stronger when the seedlings are first emerging.
I keep the pearlite moist by constantly spritzing it with that water/nutr mix. A little bit fell into my resevoir at first, but it settled into the clay balls and basket pot.
Love your advice on changing the water more and the larger air stone!
As of today I have a half inch stalk and tiny little green leaves. I need to get a digital camera or something so I can show you what I have so far.
I'll keep on bugging you guys and reading everything you post! Thank you so much for your time.

 

[massproducer]

no problem Book, keep us posted

 

[Book]

I traded my two little one inch stones for two four inch stones...and I'm going to do the daily PH test. Thank you again!

 

[Zarnon]

Great advice massproducer! When you have inert material like hydroton, inorganic salts build up on it. You have to get rid of it. I flush every 7 days. A res system really helps smooth things out.

I also run large flexible airstones and a larger air compressor. I have never seen overwatering damage and the roots go down to the frickin water and sit there anyways LOL...