Hi Folks,
I recently built my bubble bucket system that is located in a enclosed cupboard in spare room in my house. It all seems to be setup properly and I got the nutes added without too much confusion. The ph is a little alkaline but I am using a liquid ph tester so don't really know how accurate that is.
I have a 400 watt hid lamp and the whole space is mylar'd up with silver mylar.
I germinated a couple of seeds in damp tissue paper for a few days and the seeds cracked and the root came out. I then soaked a couple of rockwool cubes in some water over night and then made sure they were not sodden with water. I then put the seeds in to the two rockwool cubes about the seeds hight below the surface and covered them up being careful not to damage the root whch was pointing down the way.
I then put the two cubes at the bottom of my hydropot and filled in the space around it with clay pebbles.
I then put the pot into the bubbler with the water/nute solution with the level just below the pot with the bubbles popping below and spraying up some solution onto the bottom of the pot.
I put my light on and sealed up the closet, I checked each day and made sure not too much water was evaporating but the seedlings didn't grow any more.
So I wasn't sure what the problem was but after reading about lots of sites I think it may be that the room was too hot (not enough air circulation). When I opened it up it wasnt really that hot. My lizard tanks are hotter and they only use 100 watt bulbs to heat them.
So this time I want to do it right as I only have a few seeds left.
So far I have germinated another seed in tissue again in my cupboard in my bedroom which is dark and warm. This time round I put the seed in the rockwool and left it in the cupboard and I know have a little shoot with two little leaves and another couple of tiny leaves just inside these leaves.
The thing i'm scared about is putting this in the room with the lamp and killing it. Do you guys think my problem could be the heat? or lack of air circulation?
I have a fan (small office type fan) in the room which blows onto the top of the bubbler and there is a small gap along the top between the door and the top shelve that the lamp hangs from that lets any excess heat escape from the room. As I said the room doesn't seem too hot.
I'm going to put the light on tomorrow without the plant in it and measure the temps to see what they go up to.
Any ideas where I could be going wrong? Did I just put the first seeds in too early before they had the little leaves on it? and will it just kill my new seedling if I put it in the grow room now?
Any help would be great.
here's a picture of the new seedling, I'll put some pics of the setup up soon.
I have never grown like this before so i'm a bit of a noob but I have grown in soil before with natural light not very successfully I may add but it still managed to get to a few feet tall.
Looking at the size of some of you guys plants after just a few weeks amazes me, that little seedling can get so big in such a short space of time?