my new room

Hi i have a 8X8X9 room i am going to use a drip to waste system. i expect to have 12-15 plants set up in three 2x7' beds. I am thinking of 6 400w lights to good coveage and less heat. Ballasts, resevoirs, pumps all outside the room as well a ducting. Using rockwool as a media. Do i need to do anything to the rockwool or is it really sterile. Also how can i steralize the nutrient lines from the pumps to the plants? Also does this sound like a good set up? I also have co2 emitter.

ajp

Sounds good to me. You'll probably want to soak your rockwool overnight to lower its PH before using. I usually stick in in water around a PH of 4 overnight and it comes out at just the right ph the next morning.

keylime

rockwool should be soaked in PROPERLY pH'd water. 5.3-5.8 for hydro. they make cleaning solutions for hydro systems. or you could make a homemade solution form bleach water. i believe the ratio should be 1:10 (bleach:water).

have you ever grown before?


-shake

sounds good to me just make sure if your doing the 400's for heat that you are yousing the air cooled light fixtures.

ph the water b4 you soak them like keylime says. but i soak them for 4 to 6 hours, I have soaked them longer but when you start handling them some times the break apart. my 2cents

I would use straight hydrogen peroxide, rather than bleach. some plastics absorb CL2, and you will be screwing up your plants, plus make it hard to get the Ph stablized.
If you do use bleach then run a lot of vineger thru afterwards, then copious amounts of water

Daddy

Guess I'll join the band wagon also. Rockwool should be soaked until the water you start with (5.3-5.8) is in the same range when you finish soaking. In other words PH water to specified range, put in RW to soak. After 4-6 hours check PH. It most likely drifted out of range so dump and refill PH'd water and soak, then chaeck PH. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed to get PH to stabilize in this soaking process. It all up to you. You can fix the PH drift issue while soaking or you can do it while your growing and hopefully not to far out of range for plants. Btw while using RW be prepared to do some flushing to remove salt build up on the cubes.
Have a nice day!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tinytoon

Guess I'll join the band wagon also. Rockwool should be soaked until the water you start with (5.3-5.8) is in the same range when you finish soaking. In other words PH water to specified range, put in RW to soak. After 4-6 hours check PH. It most likely drifted out of range so dump and refill PH'd water and soak, then chaeck PH. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed to get PH to stabilize in this soaking process. It all up to you. You can fix the PH drift issue while soaking or you can do it while your growing and hopefully not to far out of range for plants. Btw while using RW be prepared to do some flushing to remove salt build up on the cubes.
Have a nice day!

---

agreed

I actually tend you PH my water a little more acidic than most, more towards the 5.5 range with my rockwool. It seems to have a tendency to go alkaline on me during the day. Almost everytime i draw water out of the Cubes and test it, its at about 6.5-7.

or you could just use rapid rooters and not deal with all that bullshit!

-shake

Ding!! Ding!! Ding!!
Shake wins the cupie doll!!
Oh and btw 600w lamps would be better as the light /cost ratio is allot better!