Need help with watering and feeding hydro

Try posting this in the advanced grow techniques forum. I use passive hydro - but i'm not familiar with the buckateer method.

 

I'd wait for it to sprout, then keep it in a dome with good humidity until you get some roots coming out of that rockwool. The roots themselves need both air and water, so if you took some of those stackable sandwich containers, (a short and a tall one), you could make a tiny little bubble bucket thing just for your rockwool to keep the roots moist.

You know, if you pluck the whole thing out, there's like a hard ball at the bottom of the stem where the roots come from, you wanna keep that ball relatively dry.

Just think about it like this, your roots are thirsty, but don't drown them trying to give them water, and the stem-ball thingy they come out of want to be dry. so keep the rockwool kinda moist, but not saturated.

And remember that rockwool holds a shit ton of water, so it may be more saturated than you think.

Good luck sir. If you can get that thing rooted and into the bucket, it will grow like crazy once those roots hit the water. Literally over an inch a day if you're doing it right.

Make sure your PH is right, don't give it nutes for a few weeks and just keep it warm, and moist but with air available to the roots and you'll be fine.

Also, please make a grow journal. Those are fun to watch.

The best thing I ever did for a plant was to leave it alone for 4 days and go on vacation. That sucker turned from a seedling to a full blown plant. I probably would have killed it had I been there to keep messing with it.

 

Here's the best thing I could find about feeding them. It's copied from a post by rumpleforeskin.

General Hydroponics Flora Series Feeding Strategy - Lucas Formula

G-M-B (Grow-Micro-Bloom)
0-5-10 - For Vegetative cycle (24/0)
0-8-16 - For Flowering cycle (12/12)

The numbers above indicate the number of milliliters (ml/cc) of Flora Grow, Flora Micro or Flora Bloom formulas that I use in one gallon (US Liquid) of nutrients.

You will notice I dont use any of the "Flora Grow” formula, do not need to, the "Flora Micro" provides plenty of Nitrogen.

1. Top off the reservoir daily using a pH corrected water solution as required to maintain full reservoir level. After adding back an amount of water equal to the amount of your reservoir capacity you should change the reservoir and put in fresh solution.


How to use the Lucase formula in my bucket?
I will give an example step by step.

Vegetative cycle (first stage of growth when the lights are on 24 hours a day):

My bucket's fill point is at 3.5 gallons. So I need to measure 3.5 gallons of pure water (distilled or reverse osmosis) into an empty bucket (not your bubble bucket, just a clean bucket).
The formula calls for 5cc of Flora Micro per gallon (5x3.5=17.5cc). So I add 17.5cc of the Micro to my bucket of water. Stirr it in good.
Next the formula calls for 10cc of Flora Bloom per gallon (10x3.5=35cc). So I add 35cc of bloom and stirr.
Always add the nutrients seperate. Never mix them together before stirring them into the water.

PH....... Your PH needs to be between 5.7 and 6.2. Test your nutrient. Add your adjustment solution in small amounts until you know how strong the stuff is. Mine take 5 full eye droppers of PH up to get my target PH of 6.0
Yours will not be the same. Depends on the water.

Flowering Cycle (lights on for 12 hours and off for 12 hours).

Same as above except a bit more nutrient.
8cc of micro per gallon (8x3.5=28cc).
16cc of Bloom per gallon (16x3.5=56cc)

They sell paint buckets that are clear and have measurments on the side. Good tip.

 

Hey there i actually got a hydro system that I made myself that is pretty much a super cheap copy of the bucketeer system. It works great!!

I dont like to start off my plants in the 5 gal bucket because its way to big
so I use a bubbleponic 6 or 8 planter hydro starter kid. It took me 5 min to make and it cost me less than 20$, you can actually buy all the parts in wall mart the only thing you will need is the 4inc net pots.

If you don't want to do that then you need to fill up your 5 gal buckets with enough water so you only have about an inch of space between the rock wool and the water. This might mean that most of your stones will be under water for a while. It will take about a week for your plants to get some solid roots and you will have to drain the water out as the roots grow. I try to keep my water level between 3 and 2.5 gal at this point you should have a lot of roots coming out of the net pot.

You don't have to water your plants with hydroponics all you do is change the water every two weeks and keep an eye on your PH level. For hydro you want your PH level to be between 5.8 and 6.8 with 6.2 being optimal but make sure you keep a good eye on it because you can run in to a lot of problems if you don't.

Keep the rockwool moist for the first two weeks and don't let it dry.