This is my question i have 4 misty's under a 1000 watt HID,temps are 78-80 degrees and humidity is around 40%,the plants are 3 weeks old with a nice root system.Do i let the rock wool cubes dry out a little,but still a little damp before i flood the table 2-3 times a day so the roots stay wet? I would think it is more important for the roots to stay wet .
Once a day would be plenty. Having the rockwool saturated with water/nutrient will stop oxygen getting to the root mass. You only need rockwool moist at all times. When flooding a flood and drain system with only rockwool as your medium, you should only flood 1/4 the way up the rockwool for 1 or 2 minutes once a day. Rockwool acts like a wick, and will wick the nutrients up to the roots. If the roots dont get oxygen it will stunt the plants growth, and then lead to rot root. When they are larger and consuming more nutrients you could flood twice a day.
Thank you for answering my question, one other thing i left out was that i used river rock instead of clay,unfortunately i didn't have access at the time to get the clay,but now i do and on my next grow i will be using the clay instead,now i know that river rock will not retain moister as well as clay does but it does retain it so that the root can grow out away from the rock well cube,right now the root extend about 6-8 inches on the bottom of my tray,"i carefully moved a little of the rocks to see how far the roots went out" so ,... with the roots extending that far out from the cube, do you think 2 times a day for flooding would be okay, i don't want the roots to dry out thats my biggest fear,once again thankyou.
you can feed them in 15 mintue cycles. once a day is fine, but if they are growing fast you can do 2 times. just check out the cubes and see how wet they are. you want them to get a bit 'light'. if they are waterlogged all the time, you will get root rot. so its trial and error. with 1000 watt light, you will be fine with once a day, 15 minutes of flooding. to start with. If the roots 'dry out' like you say, fear not, ive had the plants (when pumps broke, etc, ) that didnt feed for days and wilted over. you just feed them and they come back ok. ID say defiently swith to the hydrocorn rocks when you can. they wont hold as much moisture so you can feed them a bit more often you dont want roots to 'stay wet' you want them to dry out a bit, that way they are encouraged to grow outward and look for food and water. so once a day like i said is fine
thanks for the info i have been doing it 1 time a day and they look pretty good the cubes were damp but not wet, so i guess it is basically a trial and error thing,thanks again
Thanks thats what i am doing right now 2 times a day for 15 min i stopped at my partners house to check on them and they are about 8 in tall and stout,gonna sex them next week and bud two out that i have ready to flower," i also got a clone of the m39 strain", along with my misty's that i have to sex out.i hope i get a couple of females so i can clone the misty,if not i still have the m39, supposed to be very potent