There are no med clubs around here so I had to buy my seeds. I also have the following growing in soil -
Nirvana - Cal Orange Bud
Nirvana - Master Kush
Nirvana - AK-48
Carmelicious from amsterdam seeds

I'm interested to see if I can tell the difference between them because right now with the stuff I buy I can't really tell any difference so I'm hoping with my grow that I'll be able to distinguish between different types if that makes sense.

Have you seen the Brainstorm Haze from Delta9? I had ordered it from attitude but they were all out so I substituted Fruit of the Gods instead. Brainstorm Haze is supposed to be some pretty good stuff...just food for thought.

I checked my veg res this morning and the friggin pH has climbed to almost 7! ARGH! I had 9 gallons in the res so I added another 4 and added nutes appropriately which brought me to about 1500ppm and then I pH'd down to 5.5. I'll just keep monitoring my pH and adjust daily if I need to or every couple days if it'll keep my plants healthy but hopefully that won't be needed.

Cheers,
DP

I would definitely say this climbing PH thing is something that is a problem or potentially a problem happening to more than one person no?

It also could be that you guys are checking them frequently no? I mean I read all of Stinkb's stuff and he has said multiple times he just fills and leaves it until 3 weeks.

*Stink* have you tested the water at the end of the three weeks because maybe this problem is just normal and not a problem? Also I have seen you guys reference Aero/NFT what is NFT? it's not in the newbs vocab

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Great post! Keep up the good work!!

I did check the PH in my Aero cloner. It was low (5.0)! I had to add PH up.

PH rising is usually a signal that something is growing in your water. Also, sometimes Hydroton will cause problems if it isn't PH'd first. We don't use any medium (right?) so it must be the funk or something else.

But didn't didn't some of you have seedlings? What were they growing in? If they are in some sort of medium then maybe that's whats causing the PH rise.

Also, your water temps need to be under 72 degrees. This is a common problem with all hydro systems. That's why you see so many water chillers on the market.

My veg room is kept at around 75 and the water temp is under 65. My flower room is kept at 85 and my water temp stays 68-72

Like I said before just use some Hygrozyme to keep the funk under control. Also make sure you clean everything very well first and start with fresh water.

I'm also wondering if there might be something in your water or somehow your water is different than mine. Dirt isn't having any PH problems using distilled water. Usually water dosen't have anything to do with PH though.

I wish I could be more help but the fact is I've never had any problems with my system. Everything runs like clockwork. (Except for pests) All I can do is try to figure out what is different from my system and assume that is the problem. Which ends up being a big Easter egg hunt.

Aero/NFT - Aero is short for Aeroponics, NFT stands for Nutrient Film Technique. My flower system is a hybrid of both.

The Aero comes from the fact that we use sprayers and a cycle timer to control the roots air time. The NFT comes from the thin film of nutrient rich water that is run over the roots. NFT has been around for awhile now. Aeroponics is still fairly new.

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Harvest a Pound Every Three Weeks

Well I am using RO water - not tap water so there is a difference there.
I do have seedlings but I'm only using the netpots and neoprene collars. I germinate the seeds in a soiless mix (perlite, pro-mix, and fox farm soil) and put them into the aeroponic unit once they are a couple inches tall so I'm not using any hydroton, rockwool, etc.

I guess the only thing I can do is just to keep monitoring it and see what happens. I figured that the Hydroguard would be a Hygrozome equivalent but maybe it's not...

Hey Stink - when you say you bring your res up to 1500 for example are you measuring your water first and then just making sure you add 1500ppm in nutes? So for example if your water is 200ppm and you say in your post add till you get a 1500 reading are you actually only adding 1300 ppm of nutes?

I ran into this problem on my cloner i'm making this weekend. My 2" netpots don't hardly have a lip and my 2" hole saw made them where they'd drop thru from the weight of a wet 1.5 grodan starter plug in it let alone a 3 week vegged plant. So how i'm gonna remedy this is by taking some black tubing and cutting a strip length wise so i can basically create a gasket seal for each netpot. Alot more time consuming I suppose, but better peace of mind when the clones turn into ladies and not falling thru. Will post pics when i get it going.

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And I came home with a brand new plan. I take the seed from Colombia and Mexico, I planted up the holler down Copperhead Road- Steve Earl

Brainstorming medicinal session last night.

Standing in my new flower room i had a vision...

I saw 3 AERO/NFT flower systems side by side.
And above them was two 600 watt hps's on light rails, going in opposite directions to cover every square inch of the garden below. 600 watters dont put off too much heat, so they can be set pretty close to the canopy, (highest plants). Lower heat, lower electricity. The newest plants could go in the center for the most light.

Is this a sound plan, or was i in medicinal lala land?

mondo 20x30 inch reflectors

I know this may sound blasphemous but from my measurements you can adequately light the 3 systems with a 1000w light.

General rule of thumb is 50w of HID light per square foot and and three systems side by side is less than 5 feet wide and 4 feet deep.

Now obviously two 600w is going to be MUCH better due to the mulitple light sources, there will be overlap and 600w HPS is the most efficient lamp there is in terms of lumens per watt so this is going to be very good for your plants. I know those rail systems aren't exactly cheap so I was just trying to save you a little coin but I'm sure it'll work awesome if you have that set up.

DP

$115 bucks hydrofarm 6' light track

http://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=3212

Cool - I don't know why but for some reason I thought they were up around $200.

edit: I know why I thought they were around $200 - http://www.altgarden.com/store/cart....t_detail&p=221
looks like there are some major differences between the two...