Hey guys, I'm looking into starting a revolving grow that would allow me to harvest 2 plants every 2-3 weeks. Is this possible with hydroponics? My plan was to have 6 plants vegging (all at different stages) with their own reservoir with the nutrients blended for vegetating plants. I would then have 2 groups of 6 plants in the flowering room with 2 different nutrient blends, one with higher levels of bloom nutes than the other. My question is, since my seedlings aren't all going to be at the same point in their life cycle would the nutes burn them if I use the full strength for my larger vegging plants that are closer to going into the bloom room?
So all stages would have to have their own reservoirs? How many stages would I need to break vegging into?
[quote name='"TheBryGuy"']So all stages would have to have their own reservoirs? How many stages would I need to break vegging into?[/quote] I would do two. One of babies and one that are two weeks and up. You only really veg for a mo.
A typical perpetual setup involves 3 areas ideally. One for cloning and seed starting that won't require as much light or nutrients as the next stage which is veg. And if you really are aiming at harvesting every 2-3 weeks you will need a dedicated clone/seed area (although they are cheap and easy to set up). If you are cloning from an already mature mom. then you can veg them for as long as you want before you put them in flower (rule of thumb is they will triple in size during flower). during this vegging stage if you are growing from seed you will need to remember that if she is not mature (has preflowers, staggered nodes) then she will not finish as quickly as plants that are mature (in the flower room). Instead she will still veg somewhat for a week or maybe longer (in the flower room). If the breeder says 8 week finisher, they are referring to a plant that has been grown to maturity before going in flowering. On clones they are usually cut from mature plants and are genetically the same age as the plant they were cut from. Therefore are mature from the beginning and have staggered nodes right off as well as pre-flowers at the base of those nodes. The last stage is flowering. The most typical perpetual setup would involve 4 buckets, totes, etc... in your flowering room. Using an 8 week finisher you would add new girls to the flower room every 2 weeks. This schedule means planting/cloning something every 2 weeks as well as moving from beginning stage to veg stage every 2 weeks. It's very rewarding if you can get this down. My perpetual setup involves a seed/clone area, veg area, flower area and drying area since there is usually something hanging around most of the time
So just to make sure I got this right I'd have a clone area that would be weaker nutes, not as much light. From there the clones move to full strength nutes and spend 2-3 weeks in the veg area where they are then transferred to the flowering area where nutes are completely different. My thought was to split the flowering area into 2 separate reservoirs with a higher N concentration for the first few weeks of flowering and then a regular bloom nutrient selection for the rest of flowering. So by my math that makes 4 reservoirs. Is that right?
I just was curious as to what you were calling a "reservoir". In hydro the reservoir is not where your plants go but is connected to buckets that hold your plants to hold extra water. So you do not need a reservoir for your clones. They generally are not going to use up so much water that you could not just take care of them manually. Personally the zip lock bag method is my favorite for clones because they require hardly no attention whatsoever. No watering, no buckets, just spray mist, and light. I don't even use connected reservoirs anymore. Just fill up a drum with a pump and hose and use it for everything. But a reservoir is where you keep extra RO (or premixed solution). Could be a jug on the floor or a tote that is or is not connected to your sites. In the first pic below the large blue drum is the reservoir. In the second pic the black tote is the reservoir. You can see why I would say you don't need 4 reservoirs or that you would not need one for clone site.
what u wanna do is feed the veg nutes while in veg (i.e. 18-24 hrs of light) when u change to flower or change the nute strength u wanna flush ur plants which will cleanse them then add the new nutes