I have a hydroponics system (see gallery), I planted my first 3 seeds hoping for a female for cloning. One seed wasn't viable, the other two sprouted but stretched so incredibly bad it was retarded. I pulled the plug on them because they weren't growing right. I autopsied their roots and there was hardly any development at all. Just one central root about 1/2 inches and hard as a brick. There were small shoots but they just didn't take off. These seedlings were going into their 4th week. I used pH balanced distilled water for 1 week, then went to diluted nutes for a couple weeks, then full strength nutes. Nutrients were Grotek's Monster Grow, Monster Bloom and Liquid Karma. Yes, I did add the monster bloom to the mix as well.

They were stretching early on, so I moved the plants closer to the light. The tips were getting yellowish. Don't know if that was from nutes or light. Anyhow, the leaves were growing very slow. The color of the leaves were pale green. It's like they just stop filling out leaves or something. Sorry I have no pics of them as I relocated my grow room to another property and I tossed them out. Here is what I think I did wrong and please tell me if you concur.

When the seedlings were rooted somewhat, I had to press the rockwool cubes togeter fairly tight so that they would fit in the one inch hyrdo cups, for placement into the chamber. I may have smashed them or collapsed the rockwool to tight. The light was too far away when they began to grow, setting them into stretch mode. I got other cfl, but they were not the correct kind. The box just said "bright effects replacement cfl". At any rate, it didnt seem to stop them from stretching and the color was still very pale.

The temps were okay, fluctuating from 70F to 85F night/day. I don't think that my solution was right for the plants either. It seemed like it was missing something. Do I just need a grow, bloom, and a catalyst? OKay, so here's my real question. Can I mix hydro and soil together in MY system. Here's what I want to do.

I want to grow a mother in soil over in the vegging chamber. I want to start it in the pot (10"). I'm going to just sit the pot inside the vegging chamber with the watering stake inside the soil. I will just use pH balanced water to drip into the soil. I now have proper 6500K daylight cfl's for that side (935W) This should be enough for one mother. I can set the times that the water stake drips water into the soil so that the mother won't drown.

When I can, I want to take some cuttings, dip in olivia's rooting gel, place them in rockwool cubes that has been soaked in pH balanced nutes, and feed them liquid nutes until roots are prolific enough to place over in the flowering chamber (400w) HPS. Now, these clones will be strictly hydroponics from here on out, until harvest.

Will this work and what do you suppose my results will be. Or should I go hydro from beginning to end? It just feels like my mother will be more stable
in soil. I don't know because I'm a Hydronoob. Please offer up any suggestions that may help me out.

I called Dayton Hydroponics and the guy told me that having a mother in soil, then taking clones from her for hydroponics is a good thing. He also told me that the nutrients that I was using (except Liquid Karma), was more of an additive instead of a complete solution for growing hydro. He said the liquid Karma is a catalyst. Anybody have anything to add?

I wouldnt feed the clones any nutes for the 1 week or so.