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how am i doing for my first hydro grow? my roots sit in a little puddle of water under my pots, is this ok? the bottom of my plant tray does not have ridges, it is just flat, and holds a little puddle under each pot. btw, it is an e & f.[attachment=o175038]
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My bins hold a little less than a 1/4" of water in them and I have had some problems that may or may not be related to that. The thing I find is that a lot of slime and nutrient deposts build up in there and make the roots all slimy and nasty which probably isn't good for the plants. My veg bins drain completely but my flowering ones hold some water so I try to clean them out after 4 weeks and again before the final flush during every flower cycle.
well my tray doesn't hold water at all, just under the pots. it drains very well except for that. i thought about taking a refridgerator shelf and putting it in the bottom of my tray so that the pots don't sit directly in that litlle puddle. just don't know if it would hurt the pH since it is a metal shelf. Any other thoughts i could do with that would be much appreciated.
updated pics.
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You don't want ANY standing water. Tilt your entire tray by sliding a piece of heavy plywood and a couple 2x4s under there so that it drops an inch or two from back to drain. Puddles lead to slime, rot, and yes oh yes the disgusting fungus gnats. Blech.
If you can, swap out the black plastic with a sheet of panda film white side up to both reflect mroe light and keep the inside from heating up. Heat + standing water= slime and gnats much faster than without the added heat! Just like an oven, baking up yoru next batch of disgustingness.
thanks stinkyattic, yeah i kind of figured the black plastic would generate to much heat to my roots, it was just temporary until i found something more suitable. what is this panda film, and is it something i can buy at the hydro store, or like a lowes/home depot type place? also, need to set up a flower room for under $300. Actually call it about $175 since i have to buy a 360w HPS bulb for my lamp. Any helpers that can help me do this, would like it to be an ebb & flow, but if you can think of something cheaper let me know and i'll run with that. PLEASE, I NEED YOUR HELP, plan to flower in a just about 2 weeks.
In the grow log section there's a thread of mine called stinky's adventures in noob hydro or something and there's a parts/prices list in there somewhere.
You can easily modify that system to ebb n flow but the containerized NFT shown is quite forgiving. And you can get away with a MUCH smaller reservoir... nice if you are upstairs or away from your water source. I designed it with help from the hydro shop guy to be CHEAP, easy to build AND decommission, fit in the trunk of a small car, and be hard to screw up.
Panda Film is a hydro shop item.
At minimum you'll need tubing, a pump, a res, pots, media, nutes, and a catch tray. You can use a underbed storage bin for a catch tray (not the wheeled type!) and a 5 gallon pail for a res if you go NFT but you'll need something much larger for ebb n flow.
With a containerized NFT you depend on the POTS to provide lightproofing- you can put your whole net thing into a gallon pot with ore hydroton, plop it on a catch tray, and away you go.
I have been very happy with Canna Aqua nutes as being super noob friendly and giving a lovely tasting product. My buddy doesn't even flush his, lol, and it's the best herb I have personally ever seen/smoked. He's been growing... a year. lol~
i believe i'm just going to build the same system i already have, it's pretty simple, very few things to go wrong with my system. easy to change the resevoir, no moving parts except air and water pump. it's pretty idiot proof. anyways, plants are doing great, just lst'd them tonight. will post pics tomorrow. Stinkattic, was wondering something, if i were to buy some of them very small airstones from like wal-mart, and carefully sealed them in the plant tray around where the pots would be sitting, and set the air pump to come on for the 15 mins. the water pump is on, would this be much more beneficial to my plants oxygen uptake than just filling and draining and only having any oxystone in the resevoir?
I have never seen this done but it is a GREAT idea! I like it a lot. How much additional benefit it would have is a big question but you would be then running a hybrid DWC/ebb n flow system- And that is super neat. Extra O2 delivery to the roots is always a good thing!Quote:
Originally Posted by basementbotany
Edit, turn on your rep, smartypants!
rep? SA, also love the idea in your noob hydro thread about running 3 flowering tables, thought about setting up 2 of them, and doing weeks 1-4 and 4-Harvest. i believe i will need to have bud coming in every 4 weeks with the size system i have, not sure if i'll pull more than 2-4 oz per harvest. smoke about 2 oz's per month, share 2-4 oz's a month with close friends/family. will eventually upgrade my whole setup, just need some quality smoke for now.
go into your user cp and under options you can enable reputation and see what comments people have left you. then your square goes from grey to green. Hell, you probably have another square by now.
Ahhh, Gotcha! so what exactly does the square mean? going to take new pics right now and update here in about a half an hour.
just a quick pic update, pH 5.8, ppm:unknown (and will remain unknown for quite awhile, probably pick that up sometime in flowering) Temp. 72 degrees. Plants drank about 2 gal. of water the past 24 hours.
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don't mind that little chica in pic 5 on the bottom right, she's just an expirement, probably won't last much longer.
few new pics
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probably wait until i flower before i post new pics. thinking about lights out friday night for 24 hrs, then lights on saturday night for 12/12. good/bad idea?
You look like you are ready to flower at any time. Go for it! (you probably already did... :D)
no, haven't flowered yet, need to take some clones first. my humididty dome isn't sufficient enough for clones, it's not air tight all the way around, so it let's too much humididty out. i'm ready and excited to flower, just know it's not exactly the right time yet.
stinky, you think i should wait and take clones b4 12/12, or take clones through flowering? don't want to make any mistakes at this point in the game. i have always heard it will not affect the plant to take clones within the first 2 weeks of flowering, but not to mess with them much after that. is this correct, or bad advice?
You should take your clones right away. It is possible to take and root clones up to about the middle of the 3rd week of flower (before significant bud-set) without too much hassle, so if you take them now and they fail, you can do it again...
BUT! Remember that when you top a plant, you should allow it 3 weeks to recover before flowering or yield will suffer. So if you take the clones now, it would be better to wait 2-3 weeks BEFORE initiating 12/12.
If you are taking clones in flower, you should only use branches that you don't care about (remove a whole branch preferably). For example if your plant has 4 growing tips, and you want to take clones, cut off an entire lead and take all the shoots off that for clones, leaving 3 growing tips on the plant.
sounds perfect! just don't know about the added 2-3 weeks of veg. I only have about
3 1/2 ft. of headroom to play with. another thing, my basement stays about 60 degrees, and i only have a heat mat, so i have been a miserable failure with cloning b/c i can't keep the heat up. any ideas on how i can clone in a cool environment?
Put that heat mat under your prop tray and dome and the temps inside the dome should be slightly higher than ambient.
Another way to cheat is to put your prop tray on a milk crate and put an incandescent light under the crate for bottom heat.
In questionable cloning conditions, fungus becomes a threat, and you should use a cloning solution that contains fungicide. Clonex and Olivia's do NOT. Dip-n-Grow and Rootone DO. Dipngro is better than rootone IMHO but as always, use proper cloning technique and keep your equipment and tray/dome combo CLEAN (Scrubbing Bubbles is a good cleaning agent because it foams and you can see if you missed a sopt).
Limited in height? Train your plants to spread out and lay flat. You can even toss a net over them and then let the buds grow up and through when they form.
Brilliant idea with the incandescent! I was gonna say maybe get a heat lamp for the room since it's only about 2.5'x3.5'. have already lined it in black plastic to keep as much heat in as possible. i'll probably go ahead and take a few clones now, try and get them rooted, that way if i fail again i will be able to cut a lead like you said during flowering.
just took 6 clones, will post pics of them within the next few days.
all 6 clones were looking pathetic as of 7:45a.m. They are all wilted over pretty bad. I have them set up under 2-2ft cfl's with a heat mat under them. it seems to stay fairly humid, and at a temp. of about 75. thought about just dumping the whole cloning idea until i find something that will make it easier for me, like maybe the daisy cloner or something like that, but i'll see what happens with these. seems that all the plants that i took my clones from yesterday shot up an inch or better today, i found that to be pretty strange. though, these are weed's, and you just never know what the hell a weed is going to do!
Too much light!! Those are tube flos, not CFLs btw. You got a dome? Are you misting the inside of the dome twice a day? Read the cloning instructions in my siggy and follow them to the LETTER and you should be okay. That temp is fine. Are you snipping leaves down to 1" to reduce water loss? How many nodes/leaves does each clone have? PICS!!!!
i have followed your advice to the letter. yes i have a dome, yes i'm misting, yes i cut the leaves down to 1" or less. each plant has 2 sets of leaves snipped down like you said. ok, now here is where you got me, how could those 2 footers be too much light?
ok, i have a question! first a statement, then a question. ok, right now i have black plastic covering my plant tray. as stinky said, the plastic will slow cook my roots and turn them slimy. what if i replace the black plastic and covered my tray with straight aluminum foil, would this be as bad or maybe worse than the plastic, or would it be a step up from what i'm doing now?
Whooooo am I losing it or did I just respond to that exact post^^^?
If it's in another thread I should really merge them so the answers are all in one place.
Clones need VERY VERY little light. Light is the fuel that makes them do their metabolic thing, which uses up a lot of water in the process. The point is to give them enough light to just barely function, and do nothing but put out roots. Too much light, and they use up all their available water from in their tissues, and have no roots, so no way to replace it.
Raise the light. A lot!
Girl, I sure love havin' you around! Ok, i figure out a way to keep them from getting a lot of light, what if i raise the 2'ers about 3' above them, enough, too much?
ok, what if i took the clones and just put them on the floor in there dome of course, around the perimeter of the room on the opposite side the light is on, but they still get some good light. still too much light, should still probably construct some sort of cloning box, you think?
STINKY, i need you!
IF you put them around the perimeter and on the floor, make sure they are not cold.
I'd raise the lights to even higher- 3 feet or so if you are going to use them
Or get a clip on desk lamp with teh smallest CFL you can find and use that.
ok, i have a better set-up for my clones now, will try and get pics up today. I took a baby changing table that has 3 sets of shelves. I removed the middle shelf, have my prop tray, heat mat, and clones on the bottom shelf. and one 2ft. Flo tub about 2.5ft. above the clones. also, added a space heater to the room. we'll see how this goes for awhile!
just wanted to post a quick pic update. what do you think?
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i'll go ahead and say, that's a size 12 shoe, just to put the plants sizes into perspective! how they lookin' guys? should the new growth be that light of a green color?
yeah i know stinky, not all of the leaves are trimmed down to an inch, wanted to leave 1 or 2 of them untrimmed to see how they would take. only have one of those 2 ft. flos on; the other is just sittin there. it is about 2.5ft. above the cuttings.
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for all of those who have followed, 12/12 starts tonight. I switched out my MH bulb w/ the HPS already this morning. will do a nute change after the first week of 12/12.