First Grow Need Help

Hi! I am new to this and have been doing research on whether to start my grow in soil or hydroponics. I decided to start my first grow in soil. I have already bought for my first grow the following:

1) Fox Farm FX14049 Liquid Nutrient Trio Soil Formula
2) 100 liters Growing Perlite
3) Aluminum Foil UL Listed and Marked Duct, 6-Inches by 25-Feet
4) 4 400 watt HPS/MH with 4 400 watt ballast with 4 air cooled hoods
5) PH control kit
6) humidity monitor
7) 2 mylar 25 ft x 50 inches
8) 4 fans
9) 4 timers

Here is my question, once I have my grow room set up. I have seen different feeding schedules which is a little bit confusing to me. I want to use the one that has fox farms placed.

But what days do I feed and what days do I water and how much do I give each plant?? And what else am I missing to start my first grow?? ( I have my seeds and pots )

Thank You for your positive feedback

According to the master growers, weed likes to get wet and then kinda dry out before it's next wetting. So you feed/water (they are essentially the same) as and when they need it, which is a large variable! It might help you to get a cheap moisture meter (you can find one in any local nursery or plant store for less than ten bucks) and use that to help determine when they need watering...eventually you'll be able to just pick the pot up or tilt it and know by the weight of it whether you need to water or not. Some soils will pull back from the pot sides slightly as they get towards dry.

Now feeding. You will be mixing the nutes in with water and feeding them in this manner, so the question is, do you feed every watering? Every other? Every third? There is no set rule for feeding! You will have to learn to "read" the plants and they will tell you when they are happy and well fed, and they will also tell you when they are burnt up with too much, or sickly from too little nutes. Only you will be able to tell that. Usually when they are nice and healthy and green, you're fine. If they get yellow or leaves starts dropping off unusually, they may need a feeding. When they are nice and healthy, and just the very tiny tips of the fan leaves are yellow, they are at maximum nutes and should not be fed more than ph'd water.

These are just general rules of thumb, as different strains or types or hybrids will act slightly different and use nutes at different rates, so it's best to learn to read the plants and adjust accordingly. Hope this helps!

Some people follow a feeding schedule. The use of liquid fertilizer isn't easy. It's hard to know when to feed and when not to. Best thing to do is use common sense and don't overdo it. I don't think you'll really need the humidity meter. It's more important to create a lot of fresh air in and stale air out. You're going to need something like rockwool or rapid rooters to get seeds started. I don't think you can put them in perlite and get them to grow, but then I've never heard of that so try that if you want. rapid rooters are great because they hold water for several hours. I'd go with a light mix of water and fert, like maybe 1/4 strength that might be recommended on foxfarm feeding schedule and see how that works. Just water at first for a while, get the seeds sprouted and growing and fert some several days later. A flouro light is usually used for sprouting seeds, not mh or hps but you can use those, just don't put them real close to the seedlings. That's all I can suggest for now.

So, where is the soil? Plenty, plenty perlite. I think 15% is plenty in a soil mix. Some others like more because it makes it less likely to over water.

If you are set on growing in 100% perlite consider a Hempy grow. Look it up.

[quote=Shovelhandle]So, where is the soil?

Yay right...where's the beef..I mean dirt. Don Henley almost got right...Dirt is dollars.