Plants appear to be starting to bud, are my lights close enough? My led lights aren't with the white lights, only the red and blue. I have a 250 watt cfl, 1 led panel, and 2 led small light bulbs. I roped up because the branches were getting too heavy and breaking. How often should I be watering? How often should I add fox farms nutes? Add same amount to potted plant as hydroponic set up? I just changed the basic air pump out in the hydroponic set up to a bigger air pump. What else can I do to maximize growth. I'm on 12/12, for about a week now, wondering if I went to 12/12 too fast, should I cut off for 24 hours, and then resume the 12/12?
Water when the pot is dry. You can tell this by lifting the plant slightly throughout the grow. You'll be able to tell when the pot is lite. With your lighting setup I would expect the plants to consume somewhere around a quart a day. I don't like to oversoak my pot and prevent the roots from getting air for days on end. If you're committed to being attentive to your garden I think they grow more rapidly if you settle to the amount of feed they can consume in a day or two and then dry the pot out. It's going to vary based on your environmental conditions, lighting, pot size, medium, and many factors. Figure out a better way to put air in your res. You're leaking light into the root zone. The root zone should be dark like it is in nature. This also keeps algae and other bad stuff from growing in the rich medium. I've been switching to blue air lines but there's black also. You want to prevent all light penetration to the root zone. This goes as far as light shielding the sides of your container if you're not using a black container. Look at any commercially available hydo setups. The res is black to prevent light penetration. Black containers are best. No light leaks through. I use black buckets and black tops. Small amounts of light get in through clear tubing as well that's why black is best. Fox farms makes a hydro nutrient line and a soil. Are you using the hydro for both? What medium are your potted plants in? If in some type of rich soil they may feed at a lower ratio then your hydro. Are you using a ppm/ec or ph meter with your DWC? What is your feed level in there? Hardly any serious hydro growers are using fox farm nutrients in DWC. It's GH, AN, or botanicare with a few dynagrow freaks thrown in and other upstarts. Fox farms nutrients seem to be designed for the people that like to use their bag soil and finish with their bottle supplements. Nothing against it. It seems to work for a lot of people. It's not my method though.