Lesson #2
Ok is everybody fixing their buckets up yet or have you decided its too much work? THis post will deal with a simple approach to the chemistry involved. Why simple? Becuase I'm not smart enough to make it hard, my young grasshoppers.
To run a BB you absolutley have to have a pH meter. You can try to get by with a pH tester kit or pH strips, but in the long run a nice pH meter is worth the cash. look all around you wnat but
www.colepalmer.com has plenty of meters, a $50 to $75 handheld meter is all you need.
An EC meter is handy to have, but absolutely necessary. If you purge your nute reservoir on a regular schedule of 7 to 10 to 14 days, EC doesn't get out of hand. If you don't dump on a regular schedule or your bucket is too small, get a EC meter so you don't burn up your plants. Cole Palmer has them too for the same price range.
The most important ingredient for a BB system is???? Anyone, anyone, anyone???
WATER
Your water source you need to use should be clear, clean, and healthy. You can buy distilled water at the store, collect rainfall straight from the sky, melt snowfall, etc, etc. But make sure it is clean. Tap water is OK as long as you let it sit for a day or two to allow the chlorine to evaporate. Preferably, if you use tap water, run it through some type of filter like a Brita system to remove suspended solids and to remove impurities. In the beginning, you shouldn't use much water but as your plant grows, it drinks a bunch of water, up to 1 gallon a day.
Nutes: IMHO, any type of hyrdo nutes work fune and whatever brand you choose will work with almost similiar results. Plenty of folks will argue this, but for the average grower, I see no difference between one nute brand and any other. The 3 part General Hydroponics is a good brand and there are plenty of nute recipes for it on the net. Try Highgrades recipe at the Grow FAQ at overgrow, it works as fine as any.
Anyone not sure on a recipe, just ask up and we'll answer.
And I just about forgot. All these recipes talk about 5 mil of this to 1 gal of water, etc.. How the ehck do you measure out the proper level of nutes? You need to get you hand on some type of syringe that is graduated into mils or cc'c. Most of them fit aquarium airline tubing perfectly, so you can suck up you nutes out of their bottles, measure out the right amount and then squirt it in your bucket.
You will also need some pH up and pH down to maintian proper pH in your system. Proper pH is between 5.2 and 6.0 with 5.5 to 5.8 being optimum. It takes a while to get the hang of adjusting your pH, an extar syringe comes in handy here. A few drops at a time, measure pH, add a few more and stir measure pH, etc.... This is where a pH meter beats out test strips.
OK where are we up to date? We covered buckets, pumps, water, meters, nutes. What next? the pot, rockwool, and stones.
In a lot of hydro discussions, it refers to net pots. Net pots are just small plastic pots that are designed for orchad growth where the root system of a plant needs lots of air contact. You can buy a net pot for your growth, but any 6" nursery pot will work. Just clean it out thoroughly, and add a few more holes to the base. You need to cut a hole in your bucket lid that is bis enough to sit your net pot in, but not too big where it fall through. Put your pot on the lid, big side down and trace it out. Cut just inside your trace line and try fitting you pot. Be conservative on your first, and trim a little as you go till you have a good tight fit.
Rockwool: I believe rockwool is a good invetsment. When you buy your nutes, spring the extra $ for some rockwool to start your seed or clones in. Rememeber to pre-soak your rockwool in an acidic solutio tp bring its pH down before putting in your seeds. Rockwool normally tuns a 10 pH which will burn your seedlings. Let it sit in a glass of water that is pH 5.2 overnight and it should be OK in 24 hours or while your seeds are germinating in a paper towell.
OK, so after you clean and fix you net pot and your rockwool, put the rockwool inthe net pot and fill up the surrounding empty space with clean gravel. They make a special hydro gravel that you can use, but whay spend money when you can go out and find a clean gravel for free. Don't use limestone or sandstone gravel, a good clean quartz river rock is fine.
Poke a small hole in your rockwool and drop a seed in about a 1/4 inch deep. Now here is where I'm different from everyone else. If you use a big bucket that is at least 5 gallons or larger, plant 3 seeds in your rockwool. One of them should be a female, and the bubble bucket system can support 3 plants thru the veg stage until the sexes appear. I wouldn't want you working all this hard for just one plant, And then it turns out to be a male. Plant yourself 3 plants to hedge against the males. And if you wind up with more than 1 female, you have the choice of killing the extra ones out, or working extra hard keeping an eye on the water level and nute level to support more than 1 plant in 1 bucket.
Any questions