First grow useing DWC (bagseed)

[kswissbob]

this is my first grow ever
been watching tons of the journals here for the past month and got an idea for my closet
6 5 gallon rubbermaid totes with a DWC method.
didnt want to test it out on expensive seeds so im useing bag seeds. the seeds just germinated today so i planted them and are waiting for them to sprout!
how does my setup look to everyone?
i know my fluros are not the best but i cant afford to get a HPS yet. im useing 2 soft white bulbs 4 plant/aquarium bulbs and 2 bulbs that are supposed to be like direct sunlight ( look just like the soft white to me)
anyway im useing ionic grow and bloom for ferts and have a hydroton medium with rockwool cubes for the seeds. Ph is at about 5.5 i think (my test strips only show to 6.5 so i had to guess via the color changes on the test strip). Got an airstone in each tote and the plants are in 5.5in net pots.
from the looks of it everything should work out alright shouldnt it? i understand my lights are not the best but its all i can provide for this harvest so they should get the job done right?
anyway here are the pics of my grow closet. (sorry about fuzzy pics they are from a camera phone.)

let me know what you think and ill be keeping this journal updated!

[Whywaitforit]

How many gallons are your air pumps rated for?

[kswissbob]

Originally Posted by Whywaitforit

How many gallons are your air pumps rated for?

each one is rated for a 10 gallon tank they are hooked up to 6 inch air stones and each tote has 3 gallons of water in it.
so for each tote that is a 10 gallon air pump pumping air into a 6 inch airstone in 3 gallons of water

[midgaar]

I started to get algae growing on my rockwool until I put them farther down in the pots with the rocks over it. Also having PH problems in my tank because I didn't soak my rockwool overnight in PH 5.4 water. Otherwise your setup looks solid.

[kswissbob]

Originally Posted by midgaar

I started to get algae growing on my rockwool until I put them farther down in the pots with the rocks over it. Also having PH problems in my tank because I didn't soak my rockwool overnight in PH 5.4 water. Otherwise your setup looks solid.

i adjusted my rockwool PH to around 5.5. there arnt any nutes yet in anything, wait i added 4 drops of ferts to 1 cup of water for the seeds i figured this cant hurt them and it might just help a little bit. the surface of the pots is exposed to light so some light it leaking into the tank but once my seeds all sprout with a few leafs (1 alreeady came up today! with only 1 day in the pot!) ill put a tinfoil cover around the pot and stem of the plant to block all light making it past the base of the plant.

So i was curious if anyone knew. my fluro tubes are 40 watts at 8 bulbs thats 320 watts of fluro light
so say compared to a 400 watt hps does anyone know of a rough % of inefficency my lights are compared to that? (if that sentance made any sense)

[kswissbob]

well i have 4 sprouts up and the last 2 are trying hard to come up.
i pulled one of the rockwool cubes with a seedling out to see how the roots were doing. Well there was only the taproot comming out a inch or two and it was white and covered in a very slight hairy fuzz. i would post a picture but my camera phone cant get a decent picture of it. is this fungus? or is this just how the root starts out? My res is getting pretty hot some im prepping some bags of ice to put in there to cool it down some since it takes about a week to go from room temp. to what it is now.
so tell me what you think?

[kswissbob]

Day 20
well a lot has happened since last update
i had 2 plants donated to me (well 2 plants in 1)
my buddy had a issue where is seemed like the cops were going to show up at his door to investigate something. So i had to take his grow for him.
these 2 plants are kinda remarkable. They were 2 little plants that popped up in his garden (someone must have thrown seeds down) and they have been growing all summer long. they were eaten by bugs repeatedly they were even once ripped out of the ground and the re-rooted themselves. the most remarkalbe thing is that we transplanted them from soil into a DWC bubble bucket. and there was no shock at all to them.

anyway my original plants are doing well. i trimmed all my fan leaves off of one of them to see how it does. and i finally got my extra pot filled with a seedling (4 seedlings died in the process of trying to fill it)

oh yea my light cycle is in 12/12 right now for the bigger plants. my original plants dont seem big enough to flower yet but thats ok they seem to be doing alright
1st pic is my new seedling
2nd is the 2 big plants right after their soil to DWC transplant
3rd is the 2 big plants in there new home on 12/12 1 week after the transplant.
4-7 are the rest of my plants
pic 5 is the one i trimmed all of the fan leaves off of

(+/-) advice is welcome!

[doob3r]

looking good bro.

[kswissbob]

heres a harvest from the 3rd pic in my last post.
one of those 2 plants turned out to be male so it was killed and this is the end result on the bigger female

can anyone give an estimate on how much weight i have dry
just harvested today and they just started drying and im curious to know