i got 3 plants in dwc setup. was told strain was green crack but all i know is it was decent dank. been in rockwool and hydroton for a week today after 4 day germinating. just noticed roots through net pot this morning and plants have all been sort of growing their own speeds. even though the roots seem to be growing the plants arent. is that normal? well the seeds i used were pretty small and didnt look the healthiest. light brown not very many lines. 3 of them barely germinated in 4 days while 2 of them were almost half inch long already. the one that was growing fastest turned out to sprout with 3 leaves on it the 2nd fastest grew to about 3/4 inch and seemed the most normal until i havent noticed any growth in the leaves over the past 2-3 days except in the roots. and the third has a stem thats thick and i dont think it ever turned purple like the others but has almost caught up in growth to the other 2 in the past 2-3 days. im using a recirculating dwc and ph has been hanna 5.8-6.5 ph average. when i had 3 sprouts not really grow at all i pulled them and tested the ph of the water squeezed out of the rockwool and was surprised to find the ph at 7.5. i did soak the cubes for at least an hour but i think it was longer. i can get pics if needed.
well the only thing i think could be going on here is my buckets were still pretty full of water so i been slowly taking water out. the roots still seem to be growing but the plants arent. i think the plants do look less droopy. now i noticed how stringy the roots are on 2 out of the 3 plants. whats up with that? heres a pic. see how its really skinny towards the top of the root.
Well the plant needs a large root system to support a large amount of foliage. I am just going to guess and say that because your root system still hasn't developed that is why you are seeing slow growth. That high pH in the rockwool might be messing with you.
anything i can do about the ph in the rockwool now? i did soak them but i used 6.2 ph not 5.5 as recommended so i guess its possible the ph spiked back up. soaking hydroton isnt nessesary right? over the past week i been dumping the ph adjusted water over top the rockwool to try to get it back down but im not sure if its making a difference. not much water just twice a day every 2 days or so.
Well I believe you are supposed to flush it every once in awhile, it may just take longer to flush it out of those so I would try a heavier flush and then test the pH in the rockwool right after and then the next day. See if it has any effect. I'm not really a hydro guy so I'm not 100% sure. That's just what I would do if I someone handed the problem directly to me right this instant lol.
no that sounds good. the problem i guess is i tested the ph on rockwool cubes i had pulled from seedlings that didnt make it and dont really have a way of testing the rockwool in the net pots. ill just do the flush and see what happens i guess.
so i decided that those seedlings arent that important to me to be waiting for them to die. what i did was try to keep them alive while i make a new home for them. i pretty much started over. re-cleaned all my buckets getting some fresh water ready and hope i found out a mistake i made before. seemed to be algae in the bottom of the buckets. it might have been the dust off of the hydroton. which i did rinse the hydroton before i planted but there was still quite a bit on there when i re cleaned. the plants i did not want to kill since i managed to get the roots out of the net pot. since i am only a week in the roots were easy to get out. so i started germinating some others and i put the old ones i had just sitting in a tupperware container with a small light and a little water to keep the roots from drying out. well surprisingly all that didnt kill them they actually lived through the night and have actually been growing again in the tupperware container. pretty slowly but im making progress and they seem to be improving. my concern is that the ph in the rockwool will rise again and i will end up in the same situation. the rockwool was just some free 1 inch cubes and seem cheap so i dont know if that has anything to do with it. i also couldnt get the runoff water from the rockwool cubes to go under 6.0 ph. that took about 2 hours then another 2 hours later still 6.0 so i just assumed its the cheap cubes. so the ph of this rockwool i think is the problem but it could have been other things also. any tips for when i start this again. im using white paper around the net pots to try to keep light out this time and im spending all morning cleaning everything better.
What kind of nutes are you using? What kind lights do you have? Tell us a little more about your set-up. You should know your PH and TDS if you are doing a DWC.
not using any nutes yet. gonna be using ej all 5 and i use the the ph up down to. aero/dwc 600 watt mh for veg 600 watt hps for flower. mh is 6500k. in 4x4x6.5 tent. my reservoir return lines dont seem to be long enough for me to fit it outside the tent but im going to try it. using tap water. out of the faucet and waiting until chlorine is gone the ph is about 7.5-7.8 and 140 ppm. i was keeping ph to about 5.5-6.2 but i read just last night the ph is better 5.5-5.8 for aero. im using hanna 98129. plants were put in from germination on 6/20. i was told strain was green crack but i started from seed. setup is actually this ebay kit... HYDROPONICS SYSTEM BUCKET GARDEN AEROPONIC DRIP BUBBLER | eBay the hanna has never been calibrated i bought it new. i wait till the little clock goes away before i take the reading and it says its calibrated. the plant on the left was pretty droopy before this morning. it was also starting to yellow from the middle out. the one on the right has been doing the best and has actually looked fine but didnt grow much at all until this morning. the third one is in the worst condition. roots seem to be growing but they are more stretching like the plant and still very thin. actually it lost part of its roots before i took it out of the net pot but has since grown part of it back. leaves on the third are still droopy and is still a little yellow same as the other but is slowly improving out of the net pots. it was possibly the ph in the rockwool. i wasnt worried about them dying last night so experimented with them by taking them out of the net pots to see if i could change the ph before the died. i couldnt get the ph under 6.0. will that go back up or is the soaking thing like a flush to remove the limestone? i think thats everything. oh im using a window ac to maintain temps and thats been 73-80. varies quite a bit because my lights are on 6pm-12pm. i try to keep the lights off on the hottest parts of the day so at night without adjusting ac temps can go down to 72-74.
HMmm what is the relative humidity at? Do you have good air circulating and venting out? The temps and ph sounds just about right. Usually you wouldn't see alot of upper growth until the 3rd to 4th week after germination. You should however start to see the roots developing and shooting out of the wool cubes. I would also suggest using black paper instead of white, black absorbs light. Light can still pass through and get reflected by white paper. To help with root growth, have you tried adding a little beneficial bacteria? What about General hydroponic's Micro? Once the root system develops your upper growth will start stretching. Also consider that my main experience is in coco on an ebb and flow recirculating system. I wouldn't worry too much about what's happening up top until they are out of seedling growth and have started veg growth. Concentrate on getting those roots anchored. Are you going to continue growing the strain after this batch? If so consider selecting 2-3 of the best plants and concentrate all your love into those few good ones. Your problems could also be due to just bad genetics ( the slow rooting plants), which you can't do much about. But once you get clones from the good plants to start the second batch, at least it will be from the plants with good genetics. By then you should have a good idea of what all that particular strain needs to flourish.
i dont adjust humidity with anything but depending on the weather and the ac its 35%-60%. i was told exhaust isnt necessary but my reflector is the easy cool 6 and i have it hooked up with 424 cfm fan and the air is being pulled from outside the tent because it was pulling all my ac out.
There you go, for seedlings I believe the humidity should be a little more high. Anywhere from 55-80. If it drops below 50 it can dry out the babies. They need a fairly wet environment to flourish. Be careful though, high humidity can bring about MOLD. In dwc another thing to look out for is root rot. If you have the funds, purchase a humidifier/DEhumidifier or to bring up humidity place a bucket full of water into your room. Hope this helps. I also added more info on my previous post, so check it out.
the hanna has never been calibrated i bought it new. i wait till the little clock goes away before i take the reading and it says its calibrated. Go purchase a bottle of PH 7.01 and PH 4.01 and calibrate your meter. It's best to calibrate it once a week but every other week should suffice. If you need help calibrating PM ( private message) me. I'll be glad to help
My first grow was hydro and I started out in 1 inch rockwool cubes aswell. What I did was germinate the seed in paper towel, soak the rockwool in the 5.5 water, put the germinated seed in root down. Put under a 42w 6500k CFL until roots were showing out of the bottom of the rockwool. Then I put in the bubble bucket with the water at the bottom of the rockwool. Right away I started out with 1/4 nutrients and 5.8 ph. You could almost see it growing it grew so fast. I would suggest trying quarter strength nutrients. Also calibrate your PH meter, I went to the hydro store to see about how to calibrate it and he looked at me like I was crazy that I didnt calibrate it right out of the box.
thanx. ill do that then. just checked the ph of the water i squeezed out of some rockwool cubes and its back up to 7.4 again.
Before you soak the cubes, get your water's PH to where you want it. Wait 1 hr and check the ph again. If it goes up, bring it down and wait another hour. Only soak your cubes when the waters PH is stabilized, or when the ph doesn't fluctuate too much.
I wouldnt trip so much about it, just soak it in 5-5.5 for 30 mins and put the germinated seed in it. Keep a plastic bag around it to keep the moisture in before it sprouts and you shouldn't even have to worry about wetting the rockwool, toss it in the bubble bucket at 1/4 strength and put the water to the bottom of the rockwool, check PH every few hours and you should be good. edit: Also check the temp of the water, you ideally want to be under 70 degrees but def not over 80. Also make sure the res is light tight, if light gets to the water algae can grow.
can anyone else support feeding these at only 1 wk old? the water has 140 ppm. no offense im just trying to get some supporting info so i dont kill them.
the way I saw it was the reason you dont use nutrients at first in soil is because the soil itself already has some nutrients in it whereas distilled water(what i used) does not.