hi, i just started my first grow. my seeds have sprouted and im starting to see the roots through the bottom of the rockwool. i made a bubbler (DWC) system. now i have been reading as much info here as i can but cant seem to find the anwser to these 2 questions. 1. once i put the plants into net pots with hydrogrow. do i always leave the bubbler on 24\7, or do i just set it up to turn on like 3 times a day to feed my plants. 2. just how far should i fill up the reservoir. do i start it where the net pot would just touch the water. or should i start it like half way up the net pot. bty, its a rubbermaid 10gal tub and there will be 4 plants in it. thanks in advance,
you should leave whatever aerates your water on 24/7 (often a fish tank air pump connected to an air stone) i've heard recommended to fill to bottom of net pots so that bubbles spray a fine mist right underneath the grow medium providing moisture for the sprout until it's roots grow down into the solution. Are the sprouts in a rockwool cube or a similar type of grow plug? if so, you can instead water the plug by hand with reservoir water once a day or when it starts getting dry until the roots hit the reservoir water underneath which shouldn't take more than 2 weeks for healthy plants i think. this is the method i've chosen in the past. After that you just want to watch how long it takes your plants to drink up the reservoir and never let it go dry. If your plants don't drink the solution in a week to 10 days you should change your reservoir water anyway probably. you're plants will hardly drink any at first, but will want more as they grow larger and need to support more and larger foliage which transpires.
Pugent hit it right on the head. I'd like to add, if you are on city water (public water), chances are you have CHLORINE added to it. You do not want to use this for your plants immediately. Fill a bucket, and leave it sit out at least 24 hours, or place an airstone in and bubble it. This added aeration will get rid for the chlorine.
58 degrees seems to be ideal res temp use a aqueriam thermometer and make sure all hoses if any are black to stop algea
I did mine so that the water just touches the bottom of the netpot. The hydroton, I assume you're using hydroton, does a pretty good job of wicking moisture to the rockwool. I watered the rockwool a few times anyway just out of nervousness, but in hindsight, I don't think I needed to. From that point the roots grow pretty fast. It's just a few days before you see the first long white tendrils go deep into the water, and then you can be pretty lenient about what the water level is. I personally never actually changed my reservoir water until the last two weeks of flowering, when I changed it to pure water to flush out the nutrients. Other people will certainly disagree with this, so make your own judgment, but for me personally, I just kept adding new nutrient solution when it got low, and changed what I added when I shifted over to flowering. I also didn't worry a lot about chlorine. I did, when it was convenient to, let buckets of water rest for a day or so before adding it to the mix, but when it wasn't convenient I just added it right away. Mostly I would mix a bucket of nutrient solution with about 3 or 4 gallons, and just add one gallon to a grow bucket that already had 2 or 3 gallons in it. The way I see it, these buckets are being constantly aerated, so any chlorine exposure would be pretty brief as it would evaporate quickly. We're not growing fish, after all.
thanks for all the help. i think i got a good understanding of the water level now. i'm going to let the roots get just a bit longer before i move the rockwool cubes to net pots. also i have been using distilled water but i might switch to tap after reading all your posts. thanks again,
I'm lazy about tap water and chlorine too. I don't know that it has caused any problems for me. I'm a little more careful with more delicate plants though, namely seedlings and clones. I still let em have the chlorine though most of the time, lol.
invest in a R/O machine.... filters evry thing out of the watter fairly big$$$ but not bad its better then distilled watter... ph is at 4.0 just add some up good to goo pluss it risses as h2o2 goes in it use that evry night.....