Great I'm glad to hear it! I would try and give you my thoughts on your grow but I've never grown in soil so I don't feel comfortable giving someone advice on something I don't know about haha. Everything is looking great from what I can see from the pictures you posted (especially those buds), hopefully that'll be like mine In a few months! Yeah you're right, I've never really thought of it like that, they'll try and stay alive as much as I want them to stay alive I guess haha. 3 of the four seeds have sprouted now so I'll put the pictures up after I finish work, maybe even the fourth will be showing by the time I get back!
Right not a lot has changed apart from the seedlings growing a little bigger and the fact that the 4th seedling still hasn't sprouted but has a tap root coming out of the 3" cube already!? None of the others have roots coming out of the bottom yet. Is there anything I can do about this or am I just going to have to wait? I would put her into the DWC but I still haven't brought a filter so the water ppm is too high. I don't want to damage the root that's all, is there anything I can do to make her sprout? Here's a few pictures, Everything except the ppm is still fine though so as soon as I sort that out we'll be ready to go!
Right guys, day 5 from sprout, and the 4th seedling has finally come up! I opened up the top of the Rockwool so light could get onto the top of the seed and that seemed to work! she's just a little behind now but I'm sure she'll catch up. The other 3 seedlings are doing great, their second set of leaves are showing now and are getting bigger and bigger everyday! I'm glad that they're not stretching too much either as i need them to be nice and squat when they're bigger so there's more nodes for buds. I should be getting paid today so I can go and get this water filter to sort out my ppms and then I'll be ready to go, everything will then be perfect. Any change and I'll be back, probably once I get this filter!
Heya Connorr, are you still using that propagator? I wouldn't as they need all the fresh air as they can get. I would have the LED a couple of feet above them. As you know I have the same LED and I had mine about a foot above some newly cut clones and it wilted them like crazy. I changed over to a 20 watt CFL and they perked back up. That LED was way too much for them at 1 foot, so I'd have it at 2 foot, or maybe even higher. Make sure you dont have your rockwool dripping wet, that's the number one most common cause of slow root growth, they love lots of air. Next time try germinating the seeds in some very lightly dampened paper towels and after they get about a couple of inches long put them directly in to the clay balls. I find they do much better with the extra oxygen the clay balls allow them to have. The real issue you have is that water. Wow, I have never heard of such a high ppm. You need it below 250 for seedlings, but even grown on plants won't like anything above 350. I wouldn't give my flowering plants 1000ppm and that's with nutrients added. What filter are you getting? What water are you currently giving them?
Hey GG, I've taken your advice and took the lid off of the propagator and lifted the LED to two ft above them. I checked the rockwool and none of them are dripping wet, just damp. Yeah I was thinking of doing that this time because I've heard it's a lot easier and better but it's a good job I didn't really otherwise they would have all died from the water ppm that I didn't know about haha. Yeah that's what everyone has said when I mention that haha, I plan to get a growmax water filter either today or tomorrow from the hydroponic shop in chelmsford near me, but I'm not entirely sure that that'll do the job well enough. I guess I'll wait and see! And I'm using water from my kitchen tap at the moment which is coming out at around 700, which I know is too high but I can't find anywhere that sells distilled water so it'll have to do I guess! When I was moving the cubes about I also realised that there's some nice roots coming thorough the bottom of the Rockwool! All of them have roots coming through now except the one on the bottom left for some reason. I wish I could put them into the hydro set up now but I need to get paid first so I can change out the water. Also, I have to work for 6 hours in an evening, almost every day, will those cubes be okay and not dry out in that time? I just don't want to waste some perfectly good seedlings haha. Cheers GG!
I wouldn't think the cubes would dry out in that time. How often are you watering at the moment? May be you could put the propagator lid back on when you are out just to be sure. Does your kitchen run on a different water line? It's odd that you have two different waters coming in to the same house. But 700 is still way too high in my opinion. Can you buy a couple of bottles of drinking water? My local Tesco sells 2 litres of water for about 10p. I wouldn't normally recommend mineral or spring water but it has to be better than 700ppm water.
Okay, I'll see how they cope while I'm at work tonight and judge it from there. Normally I water in the morning when I wake up and then in the evening before I go to sleep, they haven't dried out yet so I guess that's alright. Yeah it must do, I get around 700ppm from the kitchen tap and around 1100 from the bathroom tap upstairs. I did use bottled water for my last grow (before I realised the water was too shitty, they died in the hydro setup of course) and they where fine as seedlings so I'll get some today, anything you'd recommend? Thanks a lot GG, it really helps having someone with experience advise me on this stuff as this is still technically my first grow. I really appreciate it!
My tap water is 50ppm so I have never tried outsourcing water from anywhere else. I would have guessed that any commercial bottled drinking water would be better than your 700ppm tap water. I think a reverse osmosis filter is a must for you. You could probably buy water and use half tap half bottled water maybe, you might just get away with it once the plants are grown on. It this stage though, you should keep the ppm below 250 for sure. Try watering the cubes, leave the propagator lid off and see how long it takes before they need watering again. If it takes longer than 6 hours you know you can leave them while your out working.
Right, yesterday I brought a growmax eco grow water filter from my hydro shop and it made absolutely no difference at all. My water still comes out at 1100. So I basically wasted £80 on something that did nothing and I can't even return it because its used... Looks like I'm going to have to spend more money on a reverse osmosis filter but I can't get that for about two weeks because I have no money again now, unless I can find a shop that sells distilled water in at least 1 gallon bottles, which I don't think is going to happen haha. But yeah, the seedlings are fine, they're a little purple but they don't seem to be having any problems so I guess that's okay. They'll just have to stay in the cubes until I sort the water out. If anyone wants to buy a growmax water filter off me then you're welcome to it haha.
1100 seems kind of high , is this thing calibrated? Check out my Grow Diary http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1353460-ThePuffinator's-Perpetual-Grow-LED/CFL
Yeah well that's what I thought at first so I went and brought a £125 tri metre and calibration fluid to make sure it wasn't the shitty metre, but even with that it still reads 1100 from tap. I phoned anglian water and they can't do anything about it, its just the hardness of the water apparently.
Buy a britta water filter lol that should take out some impurities, I just hate to see you drop hundreds of dollars on a RO system just for this Check out my Grow Diary http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1353460-ThePuffinator's-Perpetual-Grow-LED/CFL
I was told that a Britta water filter would make it worse because it would add more minerals but I might as well as Try as I doubt it can make it any worse haha. I'll get one as soon as I have the money. Probably won't make a difference but they're cheaper than a ro filter I guess so fuck it haha.
So I went to sainsburys today to get some bottled spring water because I thought I might as well try it because they're £1 for 5L and guess what? It's 250ppm! I know that that's a little too high for seedlings but anything is better than 1100 that I'm getting from my tap haha. There isn't any reason why I shouldn't use bottled water that I'm forgetting is there? Just want to make sure before I buy 25L of it. So friday I'll go and buy 5 bottles of it and put it in my res. hopefully everything will be fine now as everything else is perfect! I will probably still get a ro filter because I like the idea of having just pure water but not for a little while as I don't really have the money.
Awesome setup, looking forward to seeing a successful crop! hope you figure the ppm problem out, bottled water would certainly solve the problem if you're willing to buy, still much cheaper than RO even in the long run, but having a filter would save a lot of hauling around bottles so it's really up to you. Good luck!
Cheers LEDswag, so am I haha! Well it seems to be sorted out as much as it can be without buying an RO filter. for the moment it looks like I'll be buying a lot of bottled water from Sainsburys because if they're £1 for 5 litres then only when I've brought 400 litres will I have spent the same amount as a RO filter costs (and that's the cheaper ones!). I will eventually get a filter but only when I have the money to spare because now its basically sorted out its not really the top if my list haha.
Sorry to hear you're having so many problems with the water, must be some really old pipes or something for it to be that hardened. I feel your pain on the filters, there's nothing worse than throwing away money on a potential solution that doesn't work, at least you got the experience now and can tell others how not to filter their water! Hope everything works out for you though. Weed plants are remarkably resilient, they can fight off just about any deficiency/inundation that we novice growers can throw at them. As long as you stay on top of it, which you clearly are, I'm sure you and your babies will be just fine.
Yeah I have no idea what it is, maybe it's the pipes or maybe it's just where I live. I might test some of my friends water that live near by to see if it's just my house or if it's there area I live. Well if anyone I know starts growing who I know then I'll definitely warn them haha. The only other person who I know that grows uses soil so it doesn't really effect them. Yeah you're right, as soon as they're in the dwc system they'll be fine (I hope!), I'm buying the water tomorrow so they'll hopefully be in there around Monday because I'll have to sort the ph out before they go in. The only thing that can go wrong from then on is if they develop any deficiencies or I burn them with the nutrients but I'm definitely going to be very careful with the nutes as I really can't be bothered to start again!
Right, I brought all the water yesterday (30 litres just to have a little extra, its only £1.10 anyway) and my meter is reading 220 ppm! Hopefully its all sorted now and it'll finally work haha! The PH is at 6.5 but I'm in the process of bringing it down, I don't want to add too much PH down at a time because it'll just bring up the ppm and that's the last thing I want! All 4 of the seedlings are in the dwc system and don't seem to be showing any problems, I'm just waiting for the roots to come through and then everything will be cool. The only thing I have a question about is the fact I'm using the general hydroponics grow bloom and micro but I purchased the hard water version of the micro, will I still be able to use that or will I need to buy the soft water version? Also, when shall I start adding the nutes, they're currently 11 days old from sprout. I'll post some pictures when I get home as I'm still at work at the moment. Any questions, as always, feel free to ask!
It's now day 13 from sprout and day 3 in the DWC setup. Everything is still looking great! All 4 seedlings aren't showing any problems so I think it's sorted. I'm still not sure when to add the nutrients so if anyone could tell me that would be great! I will be using General Hydroponics Grow, Bloom and Micro, I also have a bottle of cal mag and a bottle of blossom builder (but of course I don't need that yet). The seedlings are just over an inch tall and their 3rd set of true leaves are just showing.