1st timer, w/Hydroton, could use a little help...

I tried to use the smaller pump to make a constant drip and it wouldn't come out consistently at each tip. It worked, but it just wasn't consistent enough. "lmao the pump has nothing to do with the drip". unless ur running a ton of shit and ur not so need i say "tips" again.
what do u mean by this?? smaller pump?? the pump don't matter unless u have a real big one, and i can tell by the water flow u don't. so what im trying to tell u is u need to go to lowes/homedepot and buy tips for where the water is coming out of the hose into ur planter, ur letting to much water flow out at 1 time.

when it should be driping out and i just looked at ur pics and thats what i see toooo much water onto the plant, and also by letting it pour on top like that i see the top of ur plugs are soaked, and thats not good to do either, cause it can cause ur stem to rot. the water needs to "drip" off to the side of the plug not right on top of it, and by letting it pour out like ur doing it's getting everything wet.

i think thats ur droopy none growth problem right there. but thats just me but i will say again it's not good to have the stem soaked like ur doing it can cause stem rot.

ps i tried lmao

I'm going to the store tomorrow to get the drippers, I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about.

I changed my reservoir and increased the nute stregnth last night, just checked it about an hour ago and its cloudy and smells a little funny. Is this from the increase of nutes or do I have a problem? It wasn't like this before I changed the water. I fluched everything and cleaned everything with ro water and hydrogen peroxide. I used technaflora Boost, Grow, Thriva Alive B1Red, MagiCal and Sugar Daddy. Temp in the reservoir is 66-68. It smells sour...???

that happened to me but it went away i think it was the nutes as sometimes it will cloud up wheres ur micro?? are u not useing the 3 part nute system?? and if u just forgot to put it in there u do know it needs to go in first and let it mix into the res b4 adding the others 1 at a time don't mix all the nutes if u did'nt know that.

micro? Technaflora says to add their "Boost" first, its on every bottle of technaflora products.

I did it a little fast I guess.

I'm cleaning everything with water and h202 and changing it all again right now. It smelled REALLY BAD, almost like trash, and I can't stand it. All the way to my front door.

A few questions about the cloudy water... I tested the RO water that I used for the change yesterday and it was 120 ppm. This is the water from the water and ice store, which they claim to be close to 0. This sucks...

There was also quite a bit of sediment all over the sides and bottom of the reservoir, it wasn't slimy yet, but it was darker in 1 day, than it was over the last two weeks.

I'm using a technaflora product called Sugar Daddy. This is an organic product right? So if there was enough of it in the tank and the tank has a big light leak, it would start growing shit wouldn't it? Could this happen in 24 hours?

Reason I ask is that the last time I tried to bump the ppms up I went to 700 and the water turned cloudy overnight as well. This was the same day as the ice pop incident so I just attributed it to that. But last night I had the ppm at 650 I think, and the water turned cloudy overnight again... could it be the sugar daddy (if its organic) and the light leak?

should I get some hydroguard?

i would say u need sum cal-mag+ and silca boost and a must is hygrozime

Can you explain?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cyclonite

Your plants are probably fine, try increasing the duration between watering's. Let the roots dry out some and grow in search of water....if they aren't droopy a few hours into your 18 then your water is fine.

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This is the best advice for you that I've read here. It's way more important than most people realize.

You should experiment to find out what the optimum water/feeding schedule is for your plants. You will need to watch them carefully for a few days, so you might want to try this on the weekend or something.

Just start reducing the time between waterings. To do this right you should have a cyclestat timer so that you can have infinate control over the duration and the frequency. However if you don't want to spend the $140, Intermac (I think) has a decent digital timer ($20) that has 14 on/off events for one day. This would allow you about 51 1/2 minutes between an off and an on, if you spread it out evenly. For your setup this would probably be fine. I know it's fine for my bubble cloner. You may even be able to have an off time of several hours. The more off time the better. Once or twice each day change the schedule to reduce the on times a little. As you closely watch your plants, keep doing this until you start to see the first signs of stress on the plants or any one plant. From there increase the on time a little and that is your optimum schedule. This is more important than people realize. The more oxygen you can get to the roots the better. It's the key to big, healthy, well-adjusted sisters and mamas. It will also help reduce instances of root rot, mold, etc.

I just harvested a new strain for me and for the life of me I could not stop the leaves from drooping a little during the entire grow. Meanwhile other strains in identical conditions had no droop.

Hope that helps a little. It's just my opinion, based on experience.

PS.

As the plants grow bigger you may need to increase the on time a little.