When to start 18-6 mode?

you want to let them root (develop a root system). what do you have them in now that you need to transplant them to cups? rockwool? if you want you can veg them under 24 hours of light. a lot of people do. it speeds up the veg process. if you are in rockwool wait till you see roots coming out of the bottom. make sure the soil you transplant them to does not have a ton of nutes in it and don't feed them nutes till they have 3-4 fully developed "true" leaves. you can feed them a seedling solution or just tap water that you let sit out for a day to evaporate the chlorine.

Originally Posted by nuglets

you want to let them root (develop a root system). what do you have them in now that you need to transplant them to cups? rockwool? if you want you can veg them under 24 hours of light. a lot of people do. it speeds up the veg process. if you are in rockwool wait till you see roots coming out of the bottom. make sure the soil you transplant them to does not have a ton of nutes in it and don't feed them nutes till they have 3-4 fully developed "true" leaves. you can feed them a seedling solution or just tap water that you let sit out for a day to evaporate the chlorine.

Cool. Thank you
How long should they stay in cups for till I put them into five gallon pots?
Also should I stay 24 hrs in cups or go to 18?

Originally Posted by doingfine

Cool. Thank you
How long should they stay in cups for till I put them into five gallon pots?
Also should I stay 24 hrs in cups or go to 18?

i would stay 24hr throughout veg. it speeds it up. some guys think you should go 18/6 to let the plants rest but all the studies show that there are no ill effects from going 24/0 and your plants actually grow faster.

you shouldn't go from cups to 5 gallon pots. are you in rockwool cubes right now? wait till they root like i sad then go to a 1 gallon pot. then from that to a 3 gallon pot and then to a 5 gallon pot. putting a plant into a huge pot will stunt the growth. the roots will be consuming all of the plants energy as they spread out in the soil. plus when you water a small plant in a large pot you basically drown it.

i'm one who thinks 18/6 is just fine. Everything I've read says that you can do 24/0... but it has very little difference from 18/6... and you pay for 6 more hours of light operation. Plants still grow when the light is off. Recently, I've been throwing my sprouted seeds right into a 5 gallon pot to start growing. Doing so allows the tap root to shoot down to the bottom of the pot. Then, roots can branch out and use the whole pot. The idea of incrimentally stepping up to larger size pots works very well when you are dealing with clones (because they never grow a tap root).

I am using rock wool
Does anyone else concur with the going right into five gallon pots technique?

It is up to you...I start my seeds and veg plants on 18/6...some people start seeds on 12/12

I've been doing 18/6 now and am 18 days into my grow these are my results. granted its dwc though not sure if that would make a difference.
5.3.12.1.jpg5.3.12.jpgthe big one on the right is about 5.75-6" tall already. that was also with almost killing them the first week was not aware they didnt need nutri that young so that may have stunted them a little.

Originally Posted by doingfine

I am using rock wool
Does anyone else concur with the going right into five gallon pots technique?

i think you'll find that most are against it.