Have you tried both? Did it make much difference to yield and how hard is it to maintain ph levels? Do you have to feed differently throughout the grow? Seedling, veg and flower?
I use soil outside and hydro inside, but used to use soil inside too. Hydro yields way more than soil, probably an additional 50%. Maintaining PH is pretty simple, I use a £5 PH meter and test most days. If it's above or below 5.5-6.5 I adjust it by adding a few drops of PH up or PH down. I use PH down very regularly, I hardly ever use PH up. In veg the PH will rise from 5.8 to 6 1 in a day, but in flower it remains in the optimal zone the whole time. I only adjust PH right after I top up the reservoir I use ionic grow for vegging and ionic bloom for flowering. I use a £5 EC meter to measure what concentration (minerals/water) the plant is taking up and adjust the reservoir to match it. Having osmosis balance allows the fastest uptake speed. This is adjusted most days. The concentration will be very weak when the plants are young but as they get bigger they start taking up an greater concentration until they plateau at around 1.1 EC. When they go through the stretch in early flower this changes to around 1.3 but after 4 weeks it will go back down. Toward the end of the flowering period it drops down even further I hope I haven't just baffled you with too much info in one go
Just a little, i'll do a little research first and maybe have a try with my next plant got a bit ot time before these 4 are finished. already got a ph meter and ph up & down. Just need to buy or make a bucket now do you have a link for the ec meter you use?
The one I have is about 10 years old and isn't available anymore but ill have a look on eBay for you now
Wow there are a lot of different types available now. The cheap ones don't seem to display in EC any more and use ppm or Siemens per cm. Any of them will work, here's the cheapest one on there http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=191160351814&alt=web Here is the model I have, although it's a bit more expensive. http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=141281333387&alt=web I prefer EC because I'm used to it but it doesn't matter what is displayed, as you will be using your own measurements to gauge what the nutrient solution should be
If I were to buy another I would probably get this one http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=141057432017&alt=web because the display has a back light. But the £3.65 one will do a perfectly adequate job. Have a ponder through this http://forum.grasscity.com/hydroponic-growing/1198022-how-determine-what-your-plants-preferred-nutrient-strength.html it explains how to keep your nutrient strength at the optimum level. It's a very simple concept once you understand it but can be a bit confusing to start. It goes against the old traditional method of cranking up the strength until you damage the plants and then bring it down a bit. That old way is a pretty terrible system in my opinion
Skunk haze x 2 and critical x 1 at 12 days and THC Bomb at 9 days And a quick one of my scrog 8days since starting training
Skunk haze @ 15 days, these are growing so quick (shame they're not supposed to have a great yeild) Critical @ 15 days and THC Bomb @ 12 days
Quickly running out of space in my veg cabinet 2 x skunk haze and 1 x critical at 18 days and 1 x THC bomb at 15 days Think I'm going to have to flower my strawberry blue earlier than I wanted as I'm gonna run out of space in the veg cabinet
2 x Skunk haze at the front and 1 x critical back right at 33 days of veg and a thc bomb at 30 days. Think I might start flowering the skunk haze in a day or two.