ATTN: PRO HYDRO GROWERS!!! Your help is needed! (please!)

Ok here is what sometimes happens. Water and nutes are allowed to dry on your media. Once the water has evaporated the nutes are left on your grow media each time you water there after some of these excess nutes become once again soluable and available to the plants roots. This excess causes slow growth, twisted leaves, and deformed plants. I know you said this is your 2nd grow are these the same hydroton balls you used for your first grow? If so how did you rinse them?

PH for max hydro yield is 5.8 - 6.5 or so. Dissolved solids in PPM for seedling stage is 450 - 600 PPM, for Vegg is 600 - 1000, and for flowering 900 - 1400. These figures will give you close to maximum growth with most varieties. I would also recommend the Jorge book it is excellent.

Herbus

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Originally Posted by Herbus

Ok here is what sometimes happens. Water and nutes are allowed to dry on your media. Once the water has evaporated the nutes are left on your grow media each time you water there after some of these excess nutes become once again soluable and available to the plants roots. This excess causes slow growth, twisted leaves, and deformed plants. I know you said this is your 2nd grow are these the same hydroton balls you used for your first grow? If so how did you rinse them?

PH for max hydro yield is 5.8 - 6.5 or so. Dissolved solids in PPM for seedling stage is 450 - 600 PPM, for Vegg is 600 - 1000, and for flowering 900 - 1400. These figures will give you close to maximum growth with most varieties. I would also recommend the Jorge book it is excellent.

Herbus

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6.5 is way to high a ph for hydro (even though it is stated MJ will grow at 6.5ph...It is not an optimum ph for production)...5.4-6.0 max...most experienced growers start as low as 5.4-5.5 and let it rise a little during the feeding period...otherwise, this is good advice.

The question about cleaning hydroton is valid. You use a mild bleach solution, soak it for an hour or so and rinse rinse rinse rinse, to make sure the
bleach is ALL GONE before you re-use it.

LW in my 6 years of experience I've noticed no difference in rate of growth or yeild between 5.5 and 6.5 PH. Nutrients remain in total solution throughout this range. I've tried both (6.5 and 5.5) from start to finish and they are the same in my experience. Bleach does nothing to release bound minerals, in fact it can increase toxicity even when well rinsed. LW I'm a chemist by trade and the advice you are giving may work for you but is in fact not correct. You seem a nice person I'm sure you mean well. Chances are this persons problems are caused from toxic salt build up in the media.

Well, I guess to answer both of you guys, the answer is NO I did not re-use the Hydroton from the first growth. Its new, and rinsed.

However, I am sure one day I will need to wash it, so if not bleach, then what?

Also, if I have build up NOW, what should I do to get rid of it? And how often do you need to rinse the media when growing? Like I said its only been about 13 days and I saw problems at around day 9 or 10. All new growth seems fine other than the fact it is slow as can be.

The only thing I DID re-use from the first growth was the net pots.
And two of the buckets. But the two that I re-used does not seem to be a reflection of a problem at all.

I really need to get that book tomorrow or something!

Well slow growth can be caused by many things but judging from the conditions you listed above the only thing i can think is toxic build up on your media. This is also unlikely as if this is new media toxic build up would not have had sufficent time to occur. The right thing to flush with is something to break the bond between the various calcerous / binder materials. I use Florakleen for just this reason. Bleach's active ingredient is chlorine. Chlorine is a disinfectant and so is useless for this application. The book is great but I think we covered the bases here. I would flush with 25% nute concentration and see if there is any improvement. Also a photo would be helpful.

Herbus

Disinfect with hydrogen peroxide. It's cheap and it works.

I have the Pics attached. These four pics are just the first two babies. I took a top view so you could see new growth, and then a bottom view so you can see the problems that I was talking about.

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I will post another with the other two plants pics in just a sec...

Again, I took pics of top so you can see new growth and bottom so you can see my probs. It is baby 3 and 4 in this one...

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And thats about it. I need these tomatoes to really take off. They are my medicine, and I wish I was joking.

P.S. Today is DAY 14 from the date I placed the seed in the paper towels.

Are there any roots showing yet. If so what color are they? Looks like you may have fungus coated roots. (invisible to the naked eye but roots will be off white or brown because of it) How often are you watering and how?

Herbus

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Originally Posted by Herbus

Are there any roots showing yet. If so what color are they? Looks like you may have fungus coated roots. (invisible to the naked eye but roots will be off white or brown because of it) How often are you watering and how?

Herbus

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Yes there are roots showing.
Its hyrdo... the bucket is filled with water to the bottom of the nets and there is a 4" round stone creating bubbles to the surface...

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maybe that will help.
Looks white as can be to me. And compared to my roots on my first grow (pretty healthy...) they dont look off-white nor brownish.
At least in person they dont... picture makes them look a little off.

If that is the prob, how would the fungus start so soon in such a fresh new environment and how would I rid my system of it without hurting my friends.