My friend has an Aerogarden Space Saver 3. It only has three holes to put pods in, and I think the resevoir is just barely over the half gallon mark. He was trying to grow two plants in it at the same time. I think one is a short rider or easy rider(some kinda rider), and an Ak-48. Both were ordered from nirvana seeds. They're about 3 weeks old now I think and the Ak-48 is a lot bigger and is showing more growth. Almost since the plants first showed their true leaves, there have been spots on them and the spotting is worse on the older leaves. The problem is much more advanced on the Ak-48 than the other, but I think that's just because it's bigger. I think my friend may have misdiagnosed the problem as a calcium deficiency, and in order to correct the problem he started adding pelletized dolomitic limestone(which has high calcium levels if I'm not mistaken) to the water he was putting in the resevoir. I'm pretty sure you're only supposed to use that stuff with soil. I think that the main problem was trying to grow two plants in such a tiny space, and that the spotting on the leaves was a ph problem first, and a nutrient problem second. So I convinced him to let me take over the Ak-48 and try to finish it. Last night we put it in my Aerogarden classic, which has 7 holes and a 1 gallon resevoir(more room for her to grow, right?). There are pictures of my setup attached, and here's what I have going on: The lights are bypassed and set on 16/8. Fresh water until new growth appears and then I'll start adding nutrients based on what it does in the next week or so. PH is 6. Does this plant have a chance? Suggestions or ideas for my setup?
Looks good... try to post the pics under each other so people will read your grow. I use the aerogarden for starting seeds and vegging for a few weeks. After that it is almost impossible to keep growing due to root mass. I have seen a few people have successful aerogarden grows but with lowryders and dwarf MJ plants. Good luck and get yourself some side lighting to supplement the plants. PH is also something to keep an eye on considering that the rez is only 1 gallon and is a bit of a pain to maintain. RO water i have found is a must in the aerogarden. Good luck any questions hit me back!
Thanks a lot agg! I'm still figuring out my way around the city and I'll try to make this a lot neater looking asap. I have ideas for a larger setup but that's not gonna happen for a few months. I'm mostly experimenting with this until then. Do you, or anyone have any ideas about what might be wrong with my plant?
Looks pretty simple....I battle this the whole time in the aero. 1st Get your PH down to 5.5-5.8 2nd Wrap your air line with electrical tape so no light gets in the rez. (root rot) 3rd Cover your pod with the MJ around the stem. (paper, tape, cardboard circle) 4th read my journal in my sig for references. Then when you get a chance fill in some more info on your grow Light Schedule, Water Type, Nutrients, Feeding schedule, water changes, date you germinated seed and then date you planted the seed, sorry for ramling but im lifted as hell so you might have put some of this info and i forgot already. lol
I don't have a digital ph meter, just a simple liquid test kit I bought from a hydroponics store. But according to the kit my ph is at or close to 6 so I'm not terribly worried about it just yet. If things start to go a little haywire with the ph I'll look into getting a digital meter and supplies to adjust it, but as of right now I don't think I'll have to worry since I don't plan on adding anything else to the water but the nutrients I have. I've wrapped the airline with electrical tape and covered the pod and there's no light coming through! I'm just using Wal-Mart brand distilled water which is processed by: steam distillation, carbon filtration, reverse osmosis, ultraviolet treatment, microfiltration, and ozonation. The ph is 6 right outta the container so I think it'll do just fine, especially at $0.83 a gallon. For nutrients I'm using Botanicare CNS17 Grow for hydroponics systems. N-P-K levels are 3-2-4. Since I didn't start this plant in that Aerogarden, I'm just using the smallest recommended amount which is 15mL per gallon to see what it does to the plant. I'll be changing out the water once a week and adding nutrient mix every 2-3 days based on the plant's appetite.
Ok does your aerogarden have a 24hr setting? If it does i recommend it. Can you wire your lights to a timer if needed? Ph is a must in the Aerogarden because of the low amount of water you can have huge fluctuations if not maintained. Walmart distilled water is not RO, so i suggest to buy their specific drinking water that is processed by RO. Distilled is BAD! GET IT OUT ASAP! Liquid PH testing really sucks and you could be at 6.3 and it will still be the same yellow on the chart but really bad for your plants. You need to be down to 5.6-5.8 to avoid any nutrient lock outs. Your nutrients should lower your ph and typically RO water is 6.0 ph so you should be fine using RO and adding nutes and that should bring your PH to right where it needs to be. Also if you go to walmart/target and buy their "Zero Water" (just like britta) they have a TDS meter in there. Just return the box with no TDS meter. I did it and so has a lot of other people on GC since i turned them on to it. That is a big help to know if your plant is eating or drinking or both. You want them to do both at the same rate to avoid toxicity in the water of too much nutes or not enough water. If you have skype I would chat a little more and give you some more key but easy details to follow and you should be fine.
I don't have the actual aerogarden plugged in, it's a recirculating system and doesn't have an airstone. I bought an air pump and an airstone and have that sitting in the bottom. I bypassed the lights with a figure 8 power cord and have that plugged into a light timer set on 16/8. The distilled water is processed by reverse osmosis, says so on the label. I went with that as opposed to drinking water because drinking water often has minerals added for taste that can also contribute to nutrient lockout. I found this faq on the aerogarden website about what kind of water to use: AeroGarden FAQs: What water types are good for AeroGardening? And I'll definitely look into getting that tds meter, I got my paycheck today and I'll probably be purchasing lots of growing supplies. Any suggestions for other things I might need? I don't have skype, sorry. Thanks for the advice btw!
It's been almost a month since my last post. My apologies for the laziness, but I think I got that ph problem mostly worked out...
I had to move them for the camera. Right now they're about 4" above the plant. I made the left side just barely lower today to try to compensate light on the left side of the plant since the growth on the right side seems to be much faster. However, I'm not totally sure how much that will help or if that's the reason for the faster growth. Thoughts or suggestions anyone?
you plants look a little stretched. the stems are pretty small. i think if you could fit more lights in there it would help out and you would get tighter internodal growth
Would exchanging the cfls for bigger ones do the trick? I don't really have a whole lot of room(or electricity) to work with just fyi.
ya bigger cfls are good. and you could also maybe get some of the y splitters and double the amount of sockets you have
You feed mix seems a bit heavy on the phosphate. Should be mostly nitrogen at this point You plant certainly doesnt look bad, I definately seen worse. pH is critical, and as that plant gets bigger and starts to use more water, your pH will start to fluctuate which will lock out nutrients. Overall, I think that system is a little small. If you are going to finish in that, I would flower that plant pretty wuick otherwise it is going tobe too big for that system
I upgraded to a 3 gallon bucket and she's been flowering for about a week now. I'll be posting pictures and a more detailed update soon. Thanks for the advice!
Right now I have two 42w - 150w equivalent with 2400 lumens I think? I'm thinking about adding a 68w - 300w equivalent with 4200 lumens to help it out. I dig your grow man! Subscribed!