hey guys I"m doing flood and drain in hydroton… i know you shouldn"t let your water level touch your rapid rooters and I"m pretttu sure people don"t hand water the plugs the whole way through veg either so at what point should you stop hand watering them? my plants are 2 weeks from germination and even if i give the rooters a good hand watering they will be dry again in 2-4 hours under my 400w a/c hps. and not only that, the rapid rooter is like impossible to evenly water. any tips on how to evenly water? … so basically my question is, do you just let your rapid rooter dry out in veg? and at what point do you stop moistening it and let it dry out? any help is appreciated!!
I don't use rooters, but once roots are in the flood zone of the Hydroton, you're good to go. You can let the plug dry out. Also, you could save yourself some money by using a few cfl's or t5 for the first few weeks. Less heat generated as well.
thank you for the response, sir!! and i bought rapid rooter by accident i meant to buy root riot plugs lol and yes sir thats also a lesson i learned about the lights, i should have just kept them under the T5 instead of the 400 but now my 2 new sprouts ar using the t5. my new plan for seeds are once the rapid rooter sprouts and has roots, I'm going to put it in a 5†net pot with hydroton under my 48w of T5 and hand hand water for a week or 2... then transplant to the 1 gallon pots and surround the net pot with hydroton and start flooding under the 400w. i hope this is a good idea. i would keep them under the t5 once i transplant to the 1gal pots but my 400w will already be using the space of the plants that are 2 weeks older then the new sprouts but its probably not a good idea to put the older plants back under a t5