Hey glad to help ya out, yeah don't worry about the grit from the hydroton that stuff always comes off. I've been reusing mine for about 3 grows now. Its really not that bad but you do have to worry about light creeping in through the cracks they create. Those covers presure2 is talking about will defiantly help out early on to keep the light out of your res. Algae is a bitch if it gets out of hand, and thrives at this stage in your bucket. It seems the younger the plant is, the easier it is to get algae. I wish I could help you more on the nutes your using, what you are using seems a little overkill to me, I use the GH FloraMicro and FloraBloom as per the Lucas Formula. Pretty easy stuff and I may stick with if forever. It gives me no real problems as far as neut burn or deficiencies go and is a no-brainer to use. Do you have a ppm meter? You DO NOT need one but they can be very helpful especially when/If problems occur. I would just stick to the florescent lights for a few weeks, seedlings won't really benefit from the extra light just yet. For me at this stage its all about a healthy root system, keep res temps cool, keep the rock wool moist and keep the water algae free. Feed her like Presure2 said around when you see the third leaf set, but only about a 1/4 strength, then ease it slowly up from there. You'll have this down in no time, mang! Nugs to you! Mac
Awesome. I beyond appreciate the help. I actually just took the fluorescent to the side of the room, because it was casting a shadow on the plants from the hps.., but only because I have 4 plants in dirt that are a couple weeks old, and I felt like I was depriving them. My ppm/ec meter just came in the mail this evening. I have been growing in dirt since I was 15 (24 years). I did keep a slack eye on ph over the years, but nothing to strict. I have always done great in past years, but sense I have been all attentive a bout the ph, etc... I have had problems haha. I know there is merit to the system (or systems), but I would really like to dial a nice grow in accordingly. Cause as of now, I feel like I would be better off just sticking with my old system, which is tap water, minimal nutes, and slack ph monitoring. Am I over thinking it, or what? I wish I had some pics of my previous crops, but I have grown bubblegum in dirt for the last 3 years, and it was absolutely phenomenal! I just want to switch to water (hydro) to ease the waste.. And I know it's a lot faster (which is a bonus to me).. So, I will post pics of my plants in dirt, and my little baby that just sprouted n the rockwool/bucket. But I really hope I can get a regime down and can get the hydro workin for me.. My plants in dirt are even hurting, but I have never had a problem until I stared monitoring everything.. This is probably an amature horticulterist (if thats even a word haha) common problem. I will admit I am an amature when it comes to ph, ppc/em, nutes, etc... But I have grown amazing buds before I ever monitored these aspects. I believe this knowledge is benificial, but it has done nothing but complicate things for me as of now. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!
Good stuff man, good to hear you got a ppm/ec meter. Make sure you know what setting to use as several have quite a few different measurements, I use the NaCL setting. Also make sure you know what conversion setting your meter is many are .7 but mine is .5 , here is a table you help ya out. EC(mS))-(PPM.5)-(PPM.7)-(CF) .4---------200---------280-----------4 .6---------300---------420-----------6 .8---------400---------560-----------8 1.0--------500---------700----------10 1.2--------600---------840----------12 1.4--------700---------980----------14 1.6--------800---------1120---------16 1.8--------900---------1260---------18 2.0--------1000--------1400---------20 2.2--------1100--------1540---------22 2.4--------1200--------1680---------24 Well you can't get too slack on checking ph, I usually end up checking 2-3 times a day to monitor whats happening in my tub. But I have to add about a gallon to the tub every day now as shes drinking alot. Expect that later on about a gallon you have to add a day! Oh and don't worry about buying ph up, I got a big bottle... haven't used a drop in over a year. Go figure. Yeah too much love can be a problem in hydro, I made that mistake several times but now I take things a little slower. If I think she needs more food, I let her tell me first before making assumptions. If you got anymore Q's, let me know. Mac
Thanks alot for the info. I guess I aonly got a ppm meter. The description from where I bought it said "Digital TDS EC Pool Water Quality Tester Meter 1999 ppm" And I thought perhaps there was a way to switch between ec/ppm (again, I am new to the "meters").. So, it didn't come with calibration solution, I plan on picking some up this evening or tomorrow.. But I tested my water in the bucket now, which is plain distilled water, no nutes and ph'd to 5.8. With the air stones turned off, I got a steady reading of "30". With the air stones on, It jumped around a lot and I couldn't really get a steady reading. Is that normal? And that reading of 30, do I multiply that by something? It seems really low to be ppm.. Thanks again for all the help!
Dipping your ppm meter directly into the air stones will throw off the meter. Test it to the side were the water is a little more still. Distilled water should be very close to zero. some RO water can vary between 0-50 ppm.
Yeah the bubbles screw around with the readings. 30 for distilled sounds about right it could be a little off but not by much. The water straight out of my tap is 30-40ppm. Reversed Osmosis water (RO) reading is 0-5ppm. Straight distilled should be about the same as RO water maybe a tad higher, perhaps the ph you added raised it a bit. It sounds good to me tho. Make sure to "stir" the meter in the water for about 10-15 secs to get a good reading. Read the instructions and check the conversion it is set to. You can get a ball park idea of EC by looking at the table I posted if you can't switch to it on your meter. An example would be for my feeding schedule, for every 1 gallon of water in my reservoir. I have to add 8Ml of Micro Nutes and 16Ml of Bloom nutes witch would read 1000ppm on my .5 conversion meter. If I had a .7 meter it would read 1400ppm with an EC of 2.0. Not too hard right? Just be careful of what you read on forums, alot of people post ppm's and no one will give you their conversion (.5 or .7). So if someone said add 1400ppm worth of nutes to your bucket, if their meter is .7 this would make sense. But if you had a .5 meter you would have actually added 1960ppm! That would burn/kill your plant. So be careful! Mac
Thanks, great info to know! I don't believe it says straight out what the conversion is in the manual (It says very little). Does "Resolution: 1 ppm" regard the conversion? Also, it says to use 1382 calibration solution, does that say anything about the conversion? If not, I suppose I can contact the company I bought it from. I got it off ebay.. Thanks again!
Here is all the specs in the manual: Measurement Range: 0 - 1999ppm (mg/L) Resolution: 1 ppm Accuracy: +/- 2%F.S Power Supply: 2 x 3V (CR2030 Battery) Dimension: 148mm (L) x 32mm (W) x 20mm (T) / 5.83inch (L) x 1.26inch (W) x 0.79inch (T) Operating Temperature: 0℃-50℃(32F-122F) Calibration: Manual, at 1 point through trimmer
Hmm, its not 100% clear. But the 1382ppm is fairly close to 1400 witch is 1Ec so i could assume it is a .7 meter. Can you post a link to the meter and I'll take a look for ya. Mac
Sure, eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices It looks like it only has three "digits". I guess I'll find out when I get the calibration solution, but it doesn't seem like it will read 4 "digits". Not sure if that's normal or not. It says it goes up to 1999, so I'm a lil confused about that too..
Yeah it shows nothing at all about the conversion. I'm pretty sure tho its a .7, you'll find out once you get the calibration solution as it would read differently on a .5 meter. Most meters read in only 3 digits, they will go up to 999 then usually flash or show a 10x next to the reading telling you its over 1000. Right now my ppm is 1100ppm @ .5 conversion, on my meter it displays 110ppm~10x and flashes. Hope that helps! Mac
Hey keep in mind that the more dissolved oxygen in the water, the higher your pH will be. Don't worry about pH, for your seedling, until the cotyledons fall off, then start adding nutrients every couple days until you reach your target ppm. Once you start adding nutes, you'll need to monitor pH. Are you using RO/distiller water? If you're using tap, the calcium in it will buffer the pH, and make it go up. Always top off with RO water, then add nutes, finally adjust pH. ALWAYS in this order. If pH is going up, your plants are eating, bump up ppm. If pH is going down, they're drinking a lot of water, or it's evaporating, add water. You'll get the hang of it in no time!
Also! Let your ph swing! Get it to 5.5, and let it swing to 6.5, top off, adjust, and let it go again. Or start at 6.5, let it swing to 5.5. Different nutrients are available to the plant at different pH levels. It's good to let it swing!!
Great, Thanks! I will pick up some calibration solution tomorrow and see how it does. Well if your up for more questions haha... Then I guess my next question would be, what should my ppms idealy be throughout the stages of growth? And, is there any way to know exactly how much each of my nutes will raise it before putting them in? Or is it pretty much just trial and error until you get it dialed in? Thanks again!
Great info Original Past, Thanks! I am using distilled water gallons from the grocery store. I don't have any that hasn't been ph'd right now, but I am curious to check the ppm's of the distilled water right out of the jug. And I have been letting the ph swing from about 5.7 to 6.1. I will widen that range a little now. Thanks again for the help!
Good Info OP, ph swing is important usually when adding nute at full strenght it should drop to about 5.2-5.4 and just let it rise back up to 6.0 then adjust ph till you flush or addback nutes. Well at first I went by the bible and used only RO water throughout the whole grow. This time I'm using my TAP water. My tap water is around 30-40ppm so its very low compared to most and have not had any problems so far and I'm about ready to go 12/12 in my tent. The thing is if using tap make sure you set it out in a container and let the chlorine evaporate off before using it, usually takes a day or two. Ah the ideal ppms eh? Thats a good question, and a hard one as well since plants are always different... For seedlings i would go around 250-350ppm (0.5 EC) (After cotyledons have fallen off) For early veg around 500-700ppm (1.0EC) Mid to late veg 800-1000ppm (1.6EC) Flower should be full strength around 1200-1400 (2.0EC) These should be fairly safe nute strengths, most here go 1/2 str (700ppm) in veg and go full str shortly after that thru flower. All ppms I posted were for .7 conversion but can be used both ways. Just take it slow, if you see the leaves yellowing or spots showing up it usually means she needs more food! If the leaves start to brown at the edges, that means shes had too much and needs some water to dilute the food in the res. Good luck sir Mac
good info , i did ask about ppm/ec conversion factors last week to help out newb's but i don't think it went down to well . http://forum.grasscity.com/absolute-beginners/974381-you.html Middy
Lol Midlife I read that thread, yeah didn't go down too well. To bad all meters aren't built the same with only 1 standard of measuring, things could be a lot easier. +rep anyway for trying! Mac
Yo LightGuy420!! You ask great questions!! I think there's a lot of sound advice in this thread, and what works best for you will be determined based on what you try, and your results. Your seedlings begin as sprouts. The first two (what look like) leaves are fat. These are called cotyledons. They provide all the nutrients your plant needs for the first couple weeks of its life. That's why pH isn't critical, until they fall off. That's also why NO external nutrient is required until they fall off. Once they do fall off, I ease into the feeding program starting at about 200-300 (.7 conversion) and bump it up 100-200 each day, to between 900-1300 (each strain is different). The magic number can be discovered by monitoring your pH, and which way it's moving. Unfortunately, we only measure total PPM of the solution, not the individual nutrients. Do you may have plenty of all but one micro nutrient, there's no way to tell, with standard industry available equipment. There's two ways to address this (that are commonly accepted). 1) The way the nute companies want you to do it is dump your reservoir every week, or two, and mix fresh nutes. This is expensive, and a lot of work, but you get good results. If you overnute, or add too much of something, it gets fixed at the next change over. It's how Advanced Nutrients gets away with making people add 32 bottles of every nutrient mix under the sun. It all gets flushed in a week. 2) The Lucas formula. A person named Lucas discovered that all the nutrients needed for our plants to survive, can be found in one product. Base nutrients only, no additives. He adds just the right amount of nutrient, and tops off with the right amount, that you don't need to dump your nutes to start over, or flush before harvesting... Originally he used two of the three part General Hydroponics Grow-Micro-Bloom. But he only uses the micro and bloom nutes, not the grow. This is substantially cheaper than other programs, and because you're not over feeding (too much nitrogen during flower, especially) you get a clean smoke that doesn't need to be flushed. GH has released a one part called FloraNova Bloom. All you need is 8ml per gallon (about 1300ppm) for veg and flower stages. Easy, and effective! If you want to save some $$$, you can use GH MaxiBloom in the same manner. GH also JUST released FloraDuo series (2bottles) which is the same as micro/bloom bottles, or better yet, it is the Lucas formula. Finally, you could go with the evil empire's (Advanced Nutrients) copy of GH's grow-micro-bloom, which has been very creatively named Grow, Micro, and Bloom, just like the original... I use FloraNova Bloom, but am trying a small grow with the FloraDuo right now, too. See my signature for the nitty gritty details of Lucas' formula. It's the best thousand forum posts you'll ever read about growing Cannabis hydroponically. I don't mind spending money for good results, but I don't like wasting it!! Lucas formula is for people who want to grow top shelf weed, at a reasonable cost, without becoming an AN fanboy.