Listen up Hydro Newbies . . .

I'm still pretty much a Newbie but have learned a lot and would like to share some insight.

There are ONLY a handful of things you need to control to have a successful grow. If you keep these within the ranges specified below everything will fall in to place. You won't have issues with bud rot, mold or pests.

Light - the more the better! MAX out your light/lumens. This is easily accomplished with a 1000W hood/ballast. CFL's are good but will NOT produce the type of harvest you are expecting! Get a hood that is air-cooled this will help a lot with controlling temperature. Digital ballasts are easier on the bulbs during startup, make virtually zero noise and emit very little heat. It has been my experience that digital ballasts are more reliable and last longer. They are also more expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Air temperature - no higher than 85 degrees daytime and no less than 70 degrees during the dark cycle. Do whatever it takes to maintain the temp within this range. With CO2 you can run a few degrees warmer during the light cycle, not to exceed 90 degrees

Humidity - 40% - 55%. A higher RH during Veg of 55% is ok, you MUST lower your RH during Flowering to 40%. I have even seen some Flower at 35% RH. This helps to prevent mold/bud rot.

Water Temp - 65-70 degrees. For ANY Hydro setup a water chiller is a MUST. Especially under 1000W lighting in a room at 85 degrees. Your water temps will easily exceed 80 degrees and needs to be chilled. The higher the ambient room temperature the lower the water temp needs to be. Not to drop below 60 degrees.

Air Quality - I use 3 small fans in my grow room. I also use CO2 with a PPM meter set to keep the room at 1500PPM. This works great and my PPM ranges from 1350-1500 ALL THE TIME!!! The fans circulate fresh air as well as the CO2. It also helps to prevent mold/bud rot and reduces the temperature around the plant canopy.

PH - Buy a QUALITY PH meter and keep your PH between 5.8 - 6.3. A little PH swing is ok and I think actually helps strengthen their resistance to PH changes. Always make MILD adjustments to PH levels.

LST - low stress train your plants!

Nutrients - Almost ANY nutrient solution will do. Spending more $$ rarely equals more/bigger buds. Start with something inexpensive and work your way up. MORE IS NOT BETTER!!! You WILL burn your plants. I always start out at 75% dose and QUICKLY work my way to 100%. I know many people who start their grow at 25% and run it like that for a few weeks and then jump to 100% and don't understand why their plants look like a sun dried tomato. I believe that running less than 50% for too long has a negative effect and you will have a very hard time increasing it to 100%. Start out at 50-75% and immediately work your way to 100% within the first week - 10 days. Also purchase a QUALITY TDS/PPM meter to measure the total disolved solids in the reservoir.

Seeds - crappy seeds = crappy buds. The only thing bag seeds are good for are PRACTICE. Collect bag seeds and use them to practice germinating. Once you have them germinated grow them for a couple weeks. You will get to see how the environment is impacting them, how your nutes are affecting them etc.... Then after a couple of weeks you can pull them up and germinate the expensive seeds. QUALITY seeds with known good GENETICS are worth the $$. BUY THEM!!! You won't be disappointed. Personally, I use Attitude for my seed orders.

Read ANY posting by Professor Marijuana - this guy is an Encyclopedia of Cannabis. I read, read, read his postings and can directly attribute my success to the information he shared on these forums!!!

OBVIOUSLY the 'tips' I have listed are NOT the ONLY things necessary for a successful grow but if you have these nailed, you will be prepared to address anything else that comes up.

Also, pickup/download a copy of Ed Rosenthal's Marijuana Grower's Handbook. EVER THING I typed above is in that book. Read the damn thing!!! I did and look at what I've done. For a 1st time hydro grower I'm doing VERY well.

This weeks pic:

One week ago

Here's one I learned as a newbie.
Overfeed in veg, and plants still look lush and happy.
Overfeed in bloom, and you get scraggly little leafy buds.
Less is more.

Hydrodawg, You should wait till the end of your grow before you declare that you have it all figured out. You seem like you've got a little case of "knowitallism"

burrr said:

Hydrodawg, You should wait till the end of your grow before you declare that you have it all figured out. You seem like you've got a little case of "knowitallism"

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I have re-read my post and have failed to locate where I declared that I have it all figured out & know it all. I was simply trying to share some things I picked up along the way.

Nice grow.. but most if not all are in the stickies and well... common sense.

Latest pics from my secret garden:

Thanks, much respect!!

HydroDawg421 said:

................snip...............
Water Temp - 65-70 degrees. For ANY Hydro setup a water chiller is a MUST. Especially under 1000W lighting in a room at 85 degrees. Your water temps will easily exceed 80 degrees and needs to be chilled. The higher the ambient room temperature the lower the water temp needs to be. Not to drop below 60 degrees..........snip.................

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Can you tell me what size/make/model chiller you chose and how you picked it? I've been looking and I maybe asking for one for Christmas.

curious2garden said:

Can you tell me what size/make/model chiller you chose and how you picked it? I've been looking and I maybe asking for one for Christmas.

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http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=eco+plus+chiller&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=2528475733841552660&sa=X&ei=_BvmTufPN82EtgesnLzLBA&ved=0CE8Q8wIwAQ

I am sorry but I see quite a bit of mis-information with the op. I would not use the op as a guideline if I were just starting out.

When people tell me i MUST do something in order not to achieve failure, i stop reading. I grow just fine wihtout a lot of the things you state are apparently crucial, such as a water chiller. I've never measured any temperatures and never tried to change em, be it the middle of summer or the dark of winter, my plants do just great.

I agree with bigv

And my "bagseed" is exodus cheese x Black Rose among others. You are of course aware that ALL seeds are bagseed essentially, yet for some reason people think that if they get the seed from a bud, it's bagseed and crap, but if they bought the seed from the shop, it's great, they can be exactly the same thing at the end of the day. If you're buying from a reputable source (we're all medical here right ) then it stands to reason that you will know exactly what the seed is you've found in your bag.

tip top toker said:

When people tell me i MUST do something in order not to achieve failure, i stop reading. I grow just fine wihtout a lot of the things you state are apparently crucial, such as a water chiller. I've never measured any temperatures and never tried to change em, be it the middle of summer or the dark of winter, my plants do just great.

I agree with bigv

And my "bagseed" is exodus cheese x Black Rose among others. You are of course aware that ALL seeds are bagseed essentially, yet for some reason people think that if they get the seed from a bud, it's bagseed and crap, but if they bought the seed from the shop, it's great, they can be exactly the same thing at the end of the day. If you're buying from a reputable source (we're all medical here right ) then it stands to reason that you will know exactly what the seed is you've found in your bag.

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MOST of what I posted is generally accepted among the hydro community as 'the standard'. This is information that I have seen in many different places but never all together conveniently. I took this info along with my own experience and made a quick newbie guide, if you will.

I'll post my harvest pics sometime in the next 10-14 days. I ran my grow according to these practices. You guys can decide if my info was wrong/bad based on the results of my upcoming harvest. Please wait to pass judgement until then.

As far as bag seed goes. I have never found seeds in a bag of smoke worth a sh*t enough that I would want to grow. Any primo weed is seed free, as it should be. I think that is the case for most folks. I know I paint a wide stroke but I think it's fair to say that most bag seed is worthless for much more than practice.

My original post was meant to be a quick start guide for those who are new or interested in hydro. It's a general "how to" for a newbie. It will get them in the ballpark and keep them in the game. From there it's on the part of the grower to tweak their gardens and make adjustments. I don't think you can go wrong following these general guidelines/practices.

Kind regards

An EC meter is accepted among most growers as the "standard", in reality there is zero requirement to own one, it's just one of a hundred examples of people perpetuating myths. It's weed, it's not difficult to grow, you do not need trinkets and toys.

Your harvest pics are of no relevance to the issue, rather if i post my harvest shots, then that is relevant, in that i get lovely harvests without having to do any of what you describe as a requirement. What you ahve done is create a hugely overcomplicated guide to growing with hydro. Your pics would only show that your list of items works, not that you can happily do without most of it.

And just because you've never found good bagseed, doesn't mean other folk don't. A lot of the famous strains people want to buy, they were the result of a random seed in a bag that turned out to be a corker.

You are correct, in that you may not go wrong following your guidelines, but one could also happily state that you can't go wrong by ignoring most of it.

HydroDawg421 said:

As far as bag seed goes. I have never found seeds in a bag of smoke worth a sh*t enough that I would want to grow. Any primo weed is seed free, as it should be. I think that is the case for most folks. I know I paint a wide stroke but I think it's fair to say that most bag seed is worthless for much more than practice.

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That depends entirely on what bag the seeds come out of.

Literally the most powerful stuff I've ever smoked had seeds. . .it was commercially grown "William's wonder" in the early 90s, and it was at least as good as (if not better than) most of the "name" strains from today. I shared one small joint with two other people, and after 2-3 puffs each, none of us could function. I **WISH** I could find seeded "schwag" like that again!

More generically, if you find your seed in a bag of top grade medical stuff, its probably fair to assume the seed itself will be high quality. That sometimes happens by contamination in indoor or outdoor grows, or with an overlooked male.

The biggest problem with a seed like that isn't that it won't be good, but rather just that its a "bastard". . .you know the mommy, but you probably don't know the daddy, so you won't know exactly what the seed will turn out like in terms of plant size, flowering time, etc.

If you happen to find your seeds in a bag of cheap Mexican schwag. . .guess what, seeds like that can STILL be pretty good. I've smoked stuff grown from that sort of bagseed, and once grown properly (ie without seeds, harvested at its peak, then cured properly) not only was it FAR better than the schwag it came out of, it was better than some of the stuff from "proper" breeders. There are a bunch of threads open on this topic, and that seems to be the general consensus among people who have tried growing out the Mex stuff.

Again, biggest problem with that sort of bagseed is that you don't know exactly what you're going to get, in terms of yield, plant size/type, or flowering duration.

As to the rest of this, its perfectly possible to grow well without a water chiller, if you're growing in an environment without extreme ambient temperature. A EC meter can certainly be helpful, especially when you're just starting out, but its really neither necessary nor sufficient to grow well.

MMMMMMMM bagseed,i grew out some bagseeds 25 years ago from some schwag that I had,it was my first time growing and living in indiana,buying or getting any good genetics was a crapshoot at best.But I was growing for several years with bagseed,man it was some good chit.I was able to clone and continue it.
So Ive grown some good BAGSEED.I had to learn how to grow it,Thank You Ed Rosenthal for your help along the way.But even after all the learning ive done,and all the genetics I have tried,I still fondly remember all the good smoke I had from bagseed.

Good show, thanks for the tips! +rep!

I just weighed my 1st harvest using the above described methods. I yielded 1,007 grams. This is after drying and about 10 days in to curing with jars.

You may disagree with my methods but you cannot argue the results!!!

We're not bashing your methods. We are criticising you for stating that XYZ is a requirement etc, when it is most certainly not.