Critical time, need feedback on yes/no on nutes

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Originally Posted by tinytoon

I have the same system with 18 buckets running atm and final number will be 21.

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You getting up to 21 buckets....VERY nice.

Some of my seedlings are not looking to good last couple of days and I am heading out of town for July 4th weekend. I was thinking about hitting them with 1/4 strength nutes within the next day or so, I am worried they might be dead when I get back if I do not give little nutes. They will be 3 weeks old this Friday.

Based on these pics would you add 1/4 strength nutes or let them go?? I am going to put them in the buckets on Monday (5th).

add 1/4 str, they are crying for Nitrogen. To my knowledge 3 main things will cause yellowing, lack of N, PH off, and Heat.

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Originally Posted by tinytoon

add 1/4 str, they are crying for Nitrogen. To my knowledge 3 main things will cause yellowing, lack of N, PH off, and Heat.

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Thanks, will do. FYI I have them on a heat matt (80 degrees), under florescent tubes and up to now using distilled water (5.5 to 5.8 PH).

Lose heat matt??

Heat mat needs to go.

I would also add something like CAL MAG...just to cover your bases.:thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by martyrprojekt

Heat mat needs to go.

I would also add something like CAL MAG...just to cover your bases.:thumbsup:

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Thanks for feedback. Heat mat turned off and 1/4 strength Cal Mag added.

Question for Tiny (since he has same ebb/flow setup):

If I am going to run 12 buckets how many gallons of water should I fill up my 50 gallon reservoir with? 30, 40, 50 gallons? Plan to change it every week.

with the buckets and controller box drained as far as they go (there will be about 1" of water in buckets and controller when drained), it took min 17 gallons to flood with 10 buckets so seeing that the plants are still young and not going to drink a bunch I would say about 25ish.

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Originally Posted by tinytoon

with the buckets and controller box drained as far as they go (there will be about 1" of water in buckets and controller when drained), it took min 17 gallons to flood with 10 buckets so seeing that the plants are still young and not going to drink a bunch I would say about 25ish.

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Will go with 25 or so. Thanks for the help.

If you have time and dont mind few cents for the water bill, setup your system and have everything connected and fill controller box until very top float switch looks level (thats when it would shut off) to include all your buckets. The controller box and all buckets will have the same water level. VERY IMPORTANT: Make sure the controller box and buckets all are at the same height. Meaning if the controller box is on the floor, all the buckets go on the floor also. If you dont have everything at the same height you WILL have a flood. Just depends what is at a higher height to where your flood will be. When you have all the water in controller box and buckets, plug electric in for controller and put it on Drain cycle (it most likely already will be) and drain controller and buckets back into your rez. You now have one of the most important things you need to know, how much is the min water you need to flood :thumbsup:. I took about a 4ft section of spare pvc I had laying around from a plumbing thing I did at the house and put in rez to get water line and mark with a Sharpie. You now have a dipstick so you can tell in a heartbeat if water is high enough to flood and also (if you have gallons marked on stick) keep track how fast the lil ladies are drinking. Oh btw on the side of your rez (55 gal barrel) gallons should be molded right into the side of the barrel. You can mark your stick from that so you know gallons in rez for nute mixture. :jumphappy:

Tiny:

Nice bike/paint.

Thanks for the "detailed" info, I guess good news is all my buckets, etc.. are on level ground (spare bedroom). I am going to hook up everything on Monday so if things flood I will be online looking for help. Based on your details I think I will be OK but you never know.

Thanks again for info :)

As long as all same height you be good. If controller to high then buckets flood and if to low then controller floods. You said spare bedroom, is rez and controller in same room as buckets?? I ask because you dont really want to "warm" your rez water and if in same room, unless air conditioned, the rez will heat up and depending how warm it might cause issues.