I consider 'super gentle' not providing food for hydro seedlings for "the first two weeks". I really think that is a myth that has been confused with soil growing. Potting soils usually come with at least trace amounts of food in them which should cater for seedlings over two weeks. I see so many new growers combating deficiencies in hydro seedlings and others chiming in to say it must be nutrient burn. Seedlings are usually slower growing and harder to diagnose. They can however grow quite well in adverse conditions until they start spreading their first set of wings before grinding to a halt and deteriorating rapidly. That confuses new growers. I only recommended using a higher EC because you said given the size of the res and the size of the plants you weren't able to accurately read what they were taking up. They were also looking stunted with some purple/yellow and you even had decided at that point to increase it from a 'super gentle' low base by close to +100%. They subsequently looked better within a couple of days. I know the method you use works for you, your environment and with DWC in general but half strength for seedlings when you can't gauge what they are using is quite safe. It will at least quickly nurse them to the point where you can better run with your strategy. Keep in mind I'm not trying to push using a higher EC on you because in general your plants typically do well nor do I cook my plants and limp them to harvest. I just want to make sure that new/inexperienced growers (especially ones not using DWC) don't think that the holy grail to healthy plants is using quite a low EC then fine tune upwards from there. Plenty of those growers aren't using simple one part base nutrients like us. They often buy complete nutrient lines with additives and use tap water. This may mean their EC needs to be higher to ensure appropriate macro and micro nutrients are available. Also, most nutrients tend to provide some kind of pH buffering. Without the correct dose their pH could potentially be swinging all over place rendering the nutrients ineffective as well. I did find it a little strange that you'd use such a large reservoir for such small plants. It seems like you're more likely to waste nutrients. Was it just to combat heat issues? I would have thought that at first maybe the temp is lower for a bit longer but very quickly you'd be back up to the same problem temps and then require more energy/ice bottles to bring it down. I assumed you could read the change in ppms, change the solution more often and control temps better in a smaller res? Wouldn't it have been easier to stash a smaller set up for the electrician visit than a larger one? The story about the tomatoes was just throwing out there the possibility that maybe the environment the seed starts out in could affect it's behaviour for the rest of it's life. eg. If it 'wakes up' to an abundant food source it may condition the genetic to enjoy a slightly higher EC than it otherwise would. To be honest I don't really subscribe to that but it's not without a small amount of merit.
I often see people recommend DWC as the cheapest, easiest and best way for a first timer to introduce themselves to hydroponics. This kind of information usually fails to accompany the recommendation and is why I stand behind soil-less. Nothing nudges growers back to soil faster than root rot and a completely failed harvest.
I do agree that it is kind of an assumption but I wasn't prepared to buy a meter just for this. I have no reason to think the nutrient manufacturer would lie about the strength of their product. It has behaved as one would expect in various different conditions, with different types of plants, indoors and outdoors etc. Do you have different meters to verify one against the other? Does your nutrient line match with what is claimed according to your meter/s?
Man that's a long one, ill try and respond to the key points.... It's no myth. It's a fact that seedlings under a week old only take up water. No nutes. I have measured this myself countless times. When they start taking up nutes I match it. This usually occurs between 7-10 days. It would be a rare occurrence to get a deficient seedling (under 3 weeks old) in soil. However nutrient burn is extremely common. I don't need to accurately read what they are taking up at this stage, I know what EC plants take up when they are this young. The EC of what plants take up really doesn't vary much between strains, size is the number 1 factor. The purple you see is from the LED lights. I don't know what you mean about the 100% thing. The yellowing was a clear sign of low oxygen. This was due to the small pump I was using and wasn't helped by the recent heat problem. No, half strength (EC 1.00) is not safe at all for plants that young. This will cause real damage, or at best slow growth. You say you aren't trying to push a higher EC, yet you keep telling me to do it on all my journals and you already know how I run my EC levels. They are governed by what the plants take up, not by you. I wish you would stop suggesting it. Once is fair enough but why keep going on about it? You will not change my mind. As I said, I used to grow your way but I have moved on. I don't know what you consider the holy grail, but I do not consider the EC my plants choose as low at all. As far as I am concerned anything above is too high and everything below is too low. The large res was to make the nutrient solutions temperature more stable. The LED light was cooking the buckets I had them in when this journal was started. The LED light output is static, for it to increase the temperature of more water it would need more energy. Or to put it another way, more water meant it would take more energy to get it up to the temperature it was before. It plataud at 24 degrees if I remember correctly. Now it plateaus at 20 degrees. The larger body of water was changed for this reason. How would a larger body of water waste nutrients? I don't understand why you would think that. To control the temperature by changing out the water would be a crazy. That would be wasting nutes. plus I would have had to replace each of the 5 buckets 4 times a day. There is no smaller or bigger set up to stash. All my grow equipment will be packed away when that happens, so what the plants are in now doesn't make any difference. It doesn't have any merit because if that were the case seedling nutrient burn would be nowhere near as common as it is. Wow I'm exhausted after all that. I'll reply to the other posts later
Reservoir temperature is irrelevant for 10 months of the year for most people. Soil grows will never give the yields hydro can. You simply can't get the oxygen and nutrient levels as good
So you're not prepared to spend £3.60 on a meter even though the experiment is worthless without it?
Yea GG is huge into ec. Lol I use to not use ppm meter ( most important digital reader in my opinion. Ec next and ph is mandatory. Let's Smoke About It.... http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1320164-Sade's-First-Grow-Green-Crack
It's not like it's unfounded, GoldGrower is the only grower on this site I have come across, after reading many different journals, who uses mathematically sound techniques and applies proper sketicism to possible improvements to his setup. Everyone else resorts to talking out their ass and come across like the people at the grow shop who "boost EC with this expensive additive/fert/powder for MASSIVE yields or EXTREME crystals." All puffery.
I'll try to keep this as short as possible and just skip some stuff because I've lost interest. How did you measure what the seedlings were taking up? Do you pH the water? Take in to account evaporation? Does the pH stay stable(with tap water)? I would assume if there was no harm done to the plants except for having nutrients available and a more stable pH due to some buffering then it would be preferable to feed. It looked like there was purple in the stem of the leaf beyond the petiole and other obvious indicators of being under fed. I'll have to take your word that it was due to lack of oxygen/warm water. Half strength for you would not be EC 1.0. Not sure where you got that from given you never seem to go above around 1.2-1.4? To clarify, by half strength I mean use half strength of what you'd use in full veg but with flower nutrients. It is strange how they market LED lights based on running cool but end up causing heat problems vs HID. OK as long as the water stayed cooler. I just assumed it would take slightly longer to heat up but once there take a lot more to cool it down. I only say you could potentially waste nutrients by changing them out if you do so on a regular basis. 140 litres of nutrient solution is quite a lot for a few seedlings especially if you're changing it every week or two. Honestly I don't look around that much any more but in the past I noticed a trend of not feeding hydro seedlings due to a fear of burn. The grower would limp them slowly through seedling stage over many, many weeks with major deficiencies before finally deciding they were in veg and feeding them normally. Of course they'd then take off... if they hadn't already died or given up earlier.
I don't know about that. Lot of places or even simply ones without adequate ventilation could potentially face res temp issues for at least half of the year. New growers are less likely to cater for proper ventilation so IMO DWC is not the best idea. You must live in a generally cold climate. You can burn yourself from cold tap water during summer where I live. 30+deg lows at night is not uncommon. I did mention soil-less not soil. Soil-less is hydro. I believe you can get better oxygen and nutrient levels in soil-less. With DWC you are basically fighting against drowning your plants the entire time. Many hydro mediums however hold the perfect ratio of water/air for plant roots and can not be over watered. There is also very little room for error if you have air pump or chiller problems in DWC. I personally would only recommend DWC for an experienced hobby grower who enjoys being very hands on, not for a first time grower or someone new to hydroponics.
I already kind of answered this but you didn't address my questions. I would buy a meter but I just have no other use for it. I'm prepared to believe the nutrient manufacturers claimed EC over a 3 pound tester as I have no reason not to. This group also has a seedling specific nutrient (which is basically just half strength of their flower). They recommend 0.8 EC. See label.
FYI - I kind of ruined my seedling experiment by my temptation to test out some different nutrients/additives. I'm trying Canna Aqua, House and Garden and some Silikamajic. Once I dial each in I may do a separate experiment using them individually.
Abandoned thread! Update on my seedling experiment anyway. As mentioned above I ruined the possibility of replicating it by testing 2 new and 2 existing kinds of nutrients at different strengths and different times. I've also tried for the first time using silica (for pH up where required). All testing is done by eye. So far my thoughts on the new nutrients are :- House & Garden Hydro A&B - not suitable alone for veg stage but should be great for seed starting, cuttings and flowering. More stretch and less branching. Reduced vigour, seems a little low in N. Good pH stability, requires very little adjustment initially, good root growth, extra odour emitted from plants. Tried strengths from EC 1.0 to EC 1.6-1.8. (1ml/L to 2.5ml/L). Safe to use. Canna Aqua Vega A&B - High in N! Might even be too high. Great vigour unless excess N builds up. Good pH stability, requires significant adjustment initially (would guess it starts at around pH 4), lower odour emitted from plants.Tried strengths from 1ml/L to 1.8ml/L. Much lower EC required or your plants will turn blue and be quickly subjected to tip curl. Will produce a more bushy plant with good leaf orientation. Keep in mind these are just my initial thoughts on the feel of each. I need to do a lot more testing but if you were to alternate between the two you could have some very decent results.
Heya guys, I have been away for a couple of weeks so ill try and get you up to speed. Growth was slow at first but I installed a second reservoir outside of the tent and use a very small (3w) pump to move nutrient solution from the new reservoir to the old one and it overflows back to the new reservoir. The new reservoir has a fan blowing on it and by the process of evaporated cooling the temperature has dropped by a couple of degrees. I also added another 10 litre per minute air pump. Since those changes growth had been good bar a couple of hiccups. The first being some weird necrosis of the leaves on just one plant. To this day I have no idea what caused it but as it only effected the one I figured it probably just doesn't like how I do things so it was pulled before the roots tangled up with the others and I would lose the option. The next hiccup came from me adding hydrogen peroxide, or ar least too much of it. I dam near killed them off. Leaves shrivelled up but after I changed out a few bucket's worth of water they perked back up and growth resumed. I'm quite impressed with this little LED light, it does the job very well. I have changed my plan once again. I am now going to flower these where they are under the LED. It will be interesting for me to find out when this light can produce when flowering. Today I have trimmed the plants right down to bush them out. I also took one clone from each plant, and also one from my blue cheese that you may have noticed sitting in the far right-hand corner. The plants are just a few inches tall again now. I'll veg for a few more days for them to settle down and ill switch to 12/12. These can go for 14 weeks so this is going to be a long one. I'll Then select the best one of the five and keep it as a mother plant
This is what they look like now, sorry about the low quality photo, if I turn the LED off there's not enough light to take a decent photo These are the clones
Can you swing by leafys thread and help Rupert out please? He's having hydro nute problems and your the best hydro guy I could think off http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1261425-Leafy%27s-Ever-Changing-Indoor-Grows/page__view__findpost__p__20814226 Chef. Headchefs indoor and outdoor adventures! - http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1289059- PM me for The Vault Seed Bank's details and a discount code! So many people asking