Hey first time hydro grower. Using standard 5 gallon reservoirs. So I germed my seeds in rockwool and when I saw them sprout I moved them over to my dwc buckets. I’ve had growing for about 8-10 days now in the buckets. They look healthy and have been growing ok. I germed some others in a coco soil mix at the same time and the hydro ones are about double the size compared to the ones in coco soil mix so that’s a good sign I think. My only issue is I haven’t seen the roots come out of the bottom yet. So tonight I got a little curious and cleared some of the hydroton away to check out the roots. The roots are growing but the thing is they are not coming out of the Rockwool at all. They are all sort of bunched up against the wall of the Rockwool. Another thing is they are mostly bunched up at the top half of the rock wool with little or none coming out the bottom. Anyone know why this is? Should I just keep waiting or is there a problem? I have two theories. First is that I am keeping the Rockwool too moist. I have been watering from the top directly onto the Rockwool pretty frequently. I’ve also haven’t really let the water line get below the bottom of the netpot. I’ve pretty much made sure the there’s been water bubbling just above the bottom of the net pot. Maybe I’m keeping them too wet to where the roots are not reaching/ searching out for water? My second theory is that maybe light is getting through the hydroton onto the Rockwool encouraging the roots to grow upward. Please help as I’d love to see some nice roots coming out of the bottom of those pots.
One of the best tricks that hotbuns told me about on these forums is: Drill a hole in the bottom of your net pot about 1/2" diameter. Fish at least most of your roots from our clone through that hole and into the bucket when you transplant to the DWC bucket. It takes at least a week off of the veg time waiting for them to drop through the bucket. I use an aeroponic cloner (turboklone 24) and I let the roots get extra long before transplant so they will reach all the way into the res day one. They have absolutely no transplant shock and take off like a rocket.