First Indoor Grow - Aeroponics/T5 Fluorescents

Howdy all,

My buddy is new to indoor gardening and this is his first attempt at hydroponics. The Brick around town is beginning to get on our nerves and we figured growing our own would remedy that. Budget is tight, so everything is non-prefabricated except for the lighting fixture.

Frame is all 1x4 pine $30
Tubs are both rubbermaid I believe. $20
Reservoir is "plastic tub" from Lowes 30 Gal $15
PVC and nozzles from Ace $10
6 tube 4' T5 fixture $248

Pumps hydroton filter and tubing and fittings $50

Eventually the T5 lights will be supplemented during flowering with 4 more tubes of warm white, 2 tubes draped along each side of plants.

Seeds are bagseed and have been soaking for almost 36 hours, starting to crack and show some legs.


Picture 1 is complete setup... Notice nozzles within tubs, (tubs will be blacked out) http://boards.cannabis.com/members/p...5-dsc01966.jpg
Picture 2 is Hydroton soaking in ph5.6 water trying to leach out the high PH.... Do I need to cover my res during my grow???
Picture 3 are the tubes of light...http://boards.cannabis.com/members/p...7-dsc01969.jpg

Picture 2.... sorry timelimit got me along with trying to post...

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/p...6-dsc01968.jpg

My design has two tubs that drain by waterfall back into a central reservoir...I'm wondering if the entire Res must be covered/lightproof??? I will be using Foxfarm Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom.... My water is from the tap. PH7.8 and using a TDS my baseline PPM is 700... I'm not sure how bad that is.. After soaking my Hydroton in PH5.6 water for a couple days and it still seems to be raising the PH by 1 point per day...

Still waiting on germination.

yea cover your reservoir from light or else algae and mold will grow

Alright, thanks man...Do you think my tapwater is gonna give me problems?

your supposed to let it sit for 24 hours before you can use tap water, like put all your water in a large container and let it sit out before you actually put it in the reservoir

Quote:

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Originally Posted by InspectahEX

your supposed to let it sit for 24 hours before you can use tap water, like put all your water in a large container and let it sit out before you actually put it in the reservoir

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That's news to me, thanks...

So... Let me start off by saying "I've never grown without dirt"...LOL Starter plugs are not familiar to me and out of my 12 bag seeds, 2 :( yes 2 finally gave me something green to look at.... But 2 is better than nothing, and I can finally be grateful for all the seedy shit I've been buying for the last couple of years. I think I've grasped the plugs though, lots of attention.

The two babies are approx. 2 inches tall and I decided to throw them into the net cups with hydroton keeping them up. They are sprayed with tapwater that has been ph'd to approx. 6. every 3 hours for 30 minutes... no nutes yet. First true leaves are deployed and they are looking to give me a couple more... Green is throughout. Stems are a little purple. I currently have 2 tubes (1 warm, w cold) on a 18/6 schedule which I decided to go with just because it's cheaper than 24/7 and I haven't heard any definitive closure in that argument.

I will eventually have 10 4' tubes by the time flowering comes about. For now I have 2 tubes maybe 3-4 inches above tops of the siblings...It's a little warm, but i have a fan softly blowing through the "foliage" :O) My question is, should I go with all cool tubes right now? And if that's the case... Should I go with all cool tubes until flowering and then warm? Or, is a mixture with maybe a periodically changed ratio an ideal setup?

:stoned:

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/p...s-plumbing.jpg

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/p...hly-wetted.jpg

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/p...-2-6-tubes.jpg

http://boards.cannabis.com/members/p...21-youngin.jpg


One of Two.... they look the same..... Someone please tell me how to make these thumbnails.:)

http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/89/testkl0.th.jpghttp://img375.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif

Hosted on Imageshack. They do it by having a smaller picture be a URL to the larger picture. If HTML was allowed it would be very easy, but HTML is dangerous for forums.

I'll be watching this log, looks good :thumbsup:
Nice move sealing light out of the rez. You can also put an airstone in your tap water for 24 hours to increase oxygenation and get rid of chlorine and such.

Some pics of the little kiddies... plus the setup in action. First pic is the baby it came out a day or two after it's taller sibling....It hasn't dropped any roots below the bottom of the net cup yet, but it's looking healthy... The second picture shows "stretch" which is I'm guessing the result keeping the lights away while the little one caught up...BUT, Roots are dangling already... many. And Finally the third picture shows my setup... The water falls out of the tub onto the plastic sheeting covering my Rez and naturally funneled to the middle where I've cut a hole for it to return to the Rez... I figured this would keep things properly aerated, but I don't no what y'all think about the water mixture coming into a lit environment, even for a little bit.


http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/th_Right.jpg http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...cs/th_Left.jpg http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...h_DSC01966.jpg

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...pics/Right.jpg http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...bpics/Left.jpg http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSC01966.jpg

ONCE AGAIN... I'm not too Forum savvy, so THIS is picture number 3.

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q.../th_TheRig.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...ics/TheRig.jpg

TEST. Failed... I still don't get how some people can do the "attached thumbnails."

http://img366.imageshack.us/img366/5931/deletemepo3.jpg
It is on the bottom of the page on the left side. The Rules are important as sometimes they say things like
Attachments - Off
[IMG] - OFF

So you can't attach a file, and you can't embed images in the post. But in your case, just attachments are off. Admins toggle the on off things like this. HTML is always off by the way (can lead to viruses in picture files and such).

Thank you Canna. I think I've figured it out.

My patience is being tested, I seem to remember things growing faster in dirt... I have to maintain it daily and that's probably the reason for my increased awareness of the slow growth of the newborns. Oh well.

The plants are still green throughout... stems included. Tall plant is growing mad roots...Shorter plant is developing a two sets of it's 2nd "true leaves." I wonder what's going on there... It's been a while since I've seen plants, so bear with me.


My question still stands on whether I should use 2 cool whites right now, or one of each warm+cool?

there gonna have a growth explosion soon, just watch, and if you do it right your plants will look way more luscious then dirt grown

That sounds great!! I can't wait to see how well this setup works... Hopefully I can just stay with the fluorescents and keep it simply. I like the Hydroponics, "working water" Seems so easy. The Ph seems to have settled to around 6.5 so I added a couple gallons of fresh water (since I had lost some volume) and brought it all down to around 6.0.

if you get an hps or mh light then there's nothing that will grow faster then that setup

Quote:

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Originally Posted by InspectahEX

if you get an hps or mh light then there's nothing that will grow faster then that setup

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I totally would if I wasn't going to be moving this whole op into a spare closet that is 2x6 with only 48 inches of vertical height... The flouros are ideal for that situation... I can't keep things in the garage over the summer because it gets pretty hot here. Maybe when my fiancee moves out I'll use an entire room.:thumbsup:

Day 10 since Germination...I've decided to change my res water... It's beginning to have almost like a fishtank smell and my plants are looking a little stressed.... If someone could chip in an opinion on what the symptoms point to, I would be grateful....

I picked up some Superthrive and thought maybe adding that to the water rather than going to 1/4 strength nutes yet would be a good idea... Any thoughts?

Picture 1 is the shorter plant that has finally given me multiple roots peeking beyond the net cup... It's leaves are a bit yellow near the base.

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...h_DSC02005.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSC02005.jpg

Picture 2 is the taller plant... It is still working on it's second set of true leaves that appear to be stunted.... Many roots have worked their way beyond the net cups and some have reached 1/2 inch beyond. It's leaves are also yellowing near the base. I think they are hungry. But I'm waiting for advice.

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...h_DSC02002.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSC02002.jpg

Just a thought, you may want to put more row rocks into your cups, around the base of your plants. Fill those cups up as much as you can because humidity is seeping up through those net cups. Maybe your lower leaves are yellowing because they are close to the humidity near the grow rocks. Also, maybe its time to start giving regular doses of nutes, maybe theyre about to go vegative stage and are now looking for more nutes. Just my guesses. And if you have those long fluorescent lights i would suggest keeping them very close, like an inch or 2 away from the canopies.

Well, they've been on 1/4 nutes plus Superthrive for 2 days now... THey look much healthier today... The Taller one looks like it took a beating, but I've still got hope... The shorter one is growing all sorts of bushiness.

Picture 1 is the "taller one" which is quickly losing ground to it's smaller, far more bushy sibling.. It's second set of true leaves if you remember were very small and it looked like it's time was ticking. They've since unfurled quite a bit more, and now they look a little crispy on the edges... but much better.

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...h_DSC02041.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSC02041.jpg

Picture 2 is the "bushy one," Don't have much to say about this one as it appears very healthy... Coloration is good but lights give it a yellowed look. Without lights it's all green.

http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...h_DSC02033.jpg
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/q...s/DSC02033.jpg

hey dude, very ambitious set-up for a first grow, i wish you luck and if
i can help, i will

that's what this is, lol

to attach photo's, after you type any text you want to post, scroll down below
the 'Submit Reply'\'Preview Post' buttons until you see 'Additional Options'
it's in that box where you'll find a button marked 'Manage Attachments'.
click that and you can post your pics the usual way.

you can also just look above the text you just typed and click the paperclip
which should also bring up the dialog box to attach pics

So I've decided that my plant that is growing stunted is maybe a little too hot... The plant closer to the fan is growing like gangbusters and the other one that was ahead for the first week or two is not doing so good. I moved it closer to the fan to see if things will improve... I've that's the case, I'm gonna have to implement maybe a second fan from the other side of the setup.... I didn't think heat would be much of a problem.... and the T5s are about 4-5 inches above the tops of the plants.

This is a learning experience for me... I wish I could have more plants going right now, but I'll be happy if I can successfully grow out 1 healthy female.... which isn't even guaranteed at this point.... Next time though... Full Crop.

Thank you Bozo for the new info... I was not allowed to post attachments, but I believe my post count is high enough that I can now... Can't wait to have an Avatar....

Well things are looking OK..... I obviously have too very different strains growing right now.... But, one is Luscious, the other is Sparse.... Luscious got munched on by a grasshopper.... little shit ate damn near an 1/8 of the leaves....Sparse has got really good roots but a totally different color and leaf development. I don't think there is any need to guess which is which.... here's the latest pics...;)

Also, I did a rez exchange and upped the nutes to 1/2 strength... I have a 400 gph pump which I believe is not pushing enough, but I'll wait to see how things work out before upgrading.

Sorry folks....

Things are doing good... Bushy plant is growing great! Sparse plant has been growing good as well... But I tried Fimming for the first time and it did not respond well... I also had a failed attempt with the bushier plant but it just kept growing... Guess I'll stick with simple topping from now on...

My larger plant is almost large enough to get some good clones off of. It's about 8 inches tall and is giving me some good budsites to clones... So soon as I can I'll be putting Bubbler together ala Bozo. TY Bozo.

I also recently purchased a 4ft 2bulb T8 fixture to put over my bubbler and vegetative setup, neither of which has been constructed yet... The T8 bulbs are 6500 k color temp and should do fine for vegging and cloning. I also plan on switching my 6 bulb T5 fixture completely to 3000 k.

Anyway here are some pictures... number 1 is the larger plant which powered through an unsuccessful FIM and is still just 1 growing top...I also trimmed some bushiness from the bottom so I could get a better look at new growth shoots... Plus they happened to be fan leaves that had gotten too close to the T5s.... This is a hardy plant... I hope it's a girl...

Picture two is of the plant I've labeled "sparse".. It was the first to pop and has seemed sickly ever since.. I'd like to strains to clone but, this one seems like a lost cause, but we'll see... It was a LOT healthier looking before I tried fimming it...

Plants have been at full strength FF Grow Big for a week. I plan on introducing Big Bloom to the mix next week at full strength and for flowering switch to Tiger Bloom.
My Ph keeps coming up slowly but surely... My Hanna "Checker" is beginning to give me serious doubts and I'm wishing I had gotten some cal. solutions or a better meter. I think I'm adjusting correctly but my calibration is under question... Things are doing good and I imagine it'll take an catastrophe to motivate me into purchasing what I need... But we'll see..

One question... Should I be misting the foliage at all?.. I don't feel like using anything but water...what do you think?


Thanks to all that stop by and double thanks for comments..


:stoned:

Got some calibration solutions 4.01 and 7.01...some probe cleaning and storage solutions... My suspicions were well founded... My ph was reading 1.7 high so I was overdosing with PH DOWN... my Res ph was at around 4.9 so I added some fresh water to bring it up to around 5.8.... I've gotta say I feel MUCH better about checking my PH now.... I'd advise anybody to invest in the proper maintenance of their equipment, simply for peace of mind. :thumbsup:

Well 4 days after I corrected my Ph problem I'd say things look great... The plants appear really healthy. Here's some pictures... they've grown maybe 3-4 in the last 6 days... Awesome...

Oh, and Happy Veteran's day to all my fellow vets.

So I finally had some time to grab the things I needed to make myself a bubbler... So I did.. and took some clones off my larger plant... Eight in total... and I topped it as well to equalize the heights between the two plants... partly because the 4 ft fixture was tilted at such an angle... it bothered me... So it's level again...

The bubbler is a simple 3 gallon rubbermaid tub that's got 2 twelve inch airstones in it... The top has (12) 3/4 inch holes in the top plugged with rapidgrow superplugs, trimmed down to meet my needs.. the nutrient solution is superthrive only, but the cuttings got a thorough coat of rootech before being plunged through the plugs...and after as well...The pump doesn't perform as well as I'd like. But, with it running, the bottom side of the top is thoroughly wet, so I'd say it'll do...

Pictures are;

1. My 50 gallon aquarium that's on loan from my fungus factory... with the recently purchased 2 lamp t8 fixture atop...
2. The clones...
3. The donor, post-op.