$15,000 Mistake Learn from mine. Epic Fail!

This is my first attempt at Hyro, I switched from soil because people said it was faster and easier. This is what I went with

2 4x4 ebb and flow tables with 2 40gl res.
AN 2 part A,B, carbo load, big bud, bud blood, sensi szym, and bud factor X

Now, ill start with the nutes prices, I spent around $800 for an 8 week flower nutes. So each res change will cost me around $90. I am fucking pissed about the bud blood. If anyone used this product will tell you it’s like adding cool aid dye to your nice white res. It stained everything. And when I added the carbo load the first time it clumped together like semen in hot water! This does not make for an easy res change. As you will see from the pics im not working with a lot of space.
I followed AN nute chart found on the AN web site, moderate to heavy feeding chart. There is a lot of speculation on how to add and ideal water temperature, im still confused of what is ideal.

1st mistake was not PH balancing the Rockwool. I had 40 clones from 4 different strains which im transplanting from root riot cubs into the Rockwool. The clones have been under 24hrs of light for 60 days. Im not sure if they sat too long which may have weakened them please comment on this issue. But due to the clone height I was told I would only need to veg then for a week then put them right into flower. "I veg under a 400w MH light"
SO that’s what I did. The first week called for 1000 ppm of nutes. I added the amounts indicated on the AN chart but my ppms were only 650, so I added more A and B to get the 1000ppm< Is this the correct way to bring up the ppms.
Week one the plants blew up all is well! Im a pot rock star and then some start to show signs of stress in week 2 and im getting crazy ph imbalance everyday. From 5.5 to 6.8 in like 20 hrs. I then pulled water from a Rockwool cube and test it ph was like 7.2 and ppms were like 1300. So I ended up nute burning them in week 2.
Then I come home to find out my lights never turned on all day due to a faulty power strip!!!!!! Not sure how bad this could have fucked them up so please comment. So now im in week for and you can see from the pics that they all look like hell so out of 40 5 are the most unbelievable plants I have ever seen. But they have stopped their vertical growth.

I was trying to revive the dying plants by using AN revive, and nothing helps I want to trash them but until the next batch is germinated im going to try to learn as much as possible so please comment so we all can learn from my stupid ass!

Now the pics i have posted also show the 5 plants that recieved all the same nutes and they are beautiful! This is were my confusion sets in. This loss had to be due to the clone process and how long they sat under 24hrs light, and not vegging them long enough prior to shocking them with the high level flower nutes. What do you guys think?

Wow. I seeeee. Thanks for the pictures. Im sure that at 1000ppm, that will fry your babies(like they did). 60 days in those small ass cubes will inhibit growth substantially. You wont get that back by the way. You should have put Grodan slabs under the cubes so the roots could expand and grow. AN is good shit. Almost not for rookies though. Y did AN nutes cost u 800? I did the math, seems like from what was listed for bloom nutes should of cost somewhere around 225 max. WTF thats alot of money for nutes. Alot of mistakes, however next time ull do much better, I hope. 15 G's weeeeewwww!

they look to have some sort of deficency , i would flush them with fresh water and try to correct the problem. i dont know what they need maybe nothing . sometimes certain nutes get locked out because of buildup of high amounts of other nutes. that is why i would just start with just a flush, giving them any thing else may just make it worse.

its no big deal man.. clean up and start again. thats the good thing about mary, she just wants some love and attention.

well the cost for the nutes were for 80 gallons changing every week. I flush every week with clearex. What do you guys think of ebb and flow flood timing. and i was told that the table mat was not needed. i was thinking the roots would get burned by the light. my grow shop told me this too. you would think they would want to sell me more.

This is a pic of my last grow in soil. This is why soil is more forgiving.

Too much ppm! its okay though clones want 100-200ppm at a normal ph of 6 or 5.8 A light failing for a day isnt bad at all just try to keep an eye on em. clones will root in 12/12.

Ebb and flow is expensive!! hey can i get a loan?? lol. anyway i say try easier systems like Bubblebonics aka Deep water culture, its a bit more forgiving and you only ph your resivors

I'll never use those white plugs again. I just lost 71 out of 80 clones using that shit and clonex. Thought I'd try it. I'm going back to Grodan rockwool plugs and Olivia's which I always had good luck with.

i dont know where you live but your spent way too much on nutes!! for about 120 bucks you can get general hydoponics and superthrive.....you can actually use this with little to no ph problems..a bit of ph down is all you will need.oh and the person who said you can keep them in the cubes is well...wrong...i have grown monsterplants in no substrate at all...

heres a novel idea...try 5 dollar 20 gal. totes and vermiculite and perlite...2/3 perlite..1/3 vermiculite. you will save a ton of money and get amazing resuts....then as you learn move on to more complicated systems,,,

Why are so many people saying that the nutes were too high? If the pH is adjusted correctly you won't see any burning
I run 1000+ ppms on clones that just rooted without any burn
It looks like your problem was cal/mag deficiency judging by this pic:

ouch. a lot of people spend more than 15k on school and come out dumber than they were when they enrolled. i dont think youll have that problem. youll remember your mistakes on that deep down gut level and avoid them in the future. your next grow will no doubt run smoother than this one. situation sucks, but youll come back like a crimped main stem.

1. looks like your clones were taken from a mother that was well into flowering.clones taken late in flowering takes longer to root.
2. you have no grow media.hydroton . ebb and flow use that.
. here's a tutorial on ebb and flow thhere's several parts to it . but remember this is just the basics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avipzVVmpL8


hope this helps

You don't need to use hydroton in ebb and flow there bud, here is a grow where the user DubsFan used rockwool in an ebb and flow system.

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/266213-green-crack-2x1000w-4x8-tray-7.html



Hydroton isn't necessary in ebb and flow although it is probably the best medium to use for it

Dude it looks to me like your number one problem was root space 60 days in small cubes very bad. At the very least you should have put some hydroton or clay pellets in your system then placed the cubes into the pellets. That way your roots would have had space to grow.

If the roots are getting watered and fed enough than the size has nothing to do with it
Having a small amount of medium only means that you will have to flood more often, not that your plants will look unhealthy

Thanks for the comments, However i am gettin amazing results from 5 of the plants. They are perfect not one sign of a problem. I think a lot of the issue was leaving them in the root riot cubes for too long and then nute burn. 5 plants loved it the other 35 did not. The price of the system was not an issue, the nutes to run them was. One 2.5 gallon jug of sensi zym was $235! And the big bud was like 270 for 2 jugs of it plus, Then the Bud Factor X is 2 x $90. Im running 2 40 gal res. Now if i had 40 plants like the 5 that are healthy this would be a $20k at legal caregive prices.

tom__420 said:

You don't need to use hydroton in ebb and flow there bud, here is a grow where the user DubsFan used rockwool in an ebb and flow system.

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/266213-green-crack-2x1000w-4x8-tray-7.html

Hydroton isn't necessary in ebb and flow although it is probably the best medium to use for it

Click to expand...

Thanks for the photo publicity there Tom. My grow didn't go perfectly but it wasn't because of my medium. Rockwool set ups like mine pretty reliable and easy to use. It appears like he has a lot of issues going on. Not just one thing.

1. Never pay retail. Sounds like you did. I'm not a grinder but hydro shops are on crack. I'm buying a hand crank trimmer. Cost is 375 and retail is 675! WTF. Got it for $500 out the door.

2. Those plants look a little odd. That really long stem tells me they weren't the best clones to begin with. Clones should be stout little palm trees, not leggy wimpy things.

3. I know a few that feed heavy in the beginning...1000ppm+. But it's on strains they are very familiar with. My plants in that grow were buggin out over 850-900 until late flower. I'm still only up to 1100.

4. That claw or curling under leaf look is generally over watering. Over watering leads to what looks like nute burn but it's really just lack of nute uptake.

5. There is nothing wrong withe 4" cubes as long as you have something else for them to grow into after the roots shoot out the bottom. On the flip side my buddy just hit 2.25p's on his first ever grow using 6" cubes with roots laying in the fucking tray for weeks. So who knows.


I don't really understand how a plant can be 60 days old and be that small...then you grew it out as well. Many people in hydro have 2fters in 2 weeks. I think you got some crappy genetics, too many nutes and then you over fed and over watered.

Try watering 3x a day in Rockwool, 15min per watering.

Only add your basic NPK nutes. No fancy shit. If you're using Reverse Osmosis like I am, I added a 50% dose of CalMag. If your nutes have any, litteraly any CalMag you may not need any CalMag at all. The nutrient industry is the biggest scammer of them all. Start with basic NPK on your next grow and with PPM's in the 300 or less range. Next week bump up to 400 and so on.

Good gear for sure but you need to read up a little on basic hydro.

cannibus corps said:

One 2.5 gallon jug of sensi zym was $235! And the big bud was like 270 for 2 jugs of it plus, Then the Bud Factor X is 2 x $90. Im running 2 40 gal res. Now if i had 40 plants like the 5 that are healthy this would be a $20k at legal caregive prices.

Click to expand...

I think they saw you coming from the parking lot....

I'd say not Ph'ing those cubes fucked you.. coupled with the overdose...
the light off might have stressed them a bit but they should recover as long as the light cycle returns to normal.

if your run off from the cube was 7.2 from 5.5, this tells me your medium is over 7.2 more like 7.5-8 maybe higher at worst case 8.5-9

since the Ph of the blocks have to be higher then 7.2 to bring from 5.5. Feel me? thats how ph works in my mind..
I don't know for sure if its like a mirror exact opposite affect.. (ex, it raised by PH of 1.7 so your medium is 8.9.) But I would say its between 7.8-8.5

Does anyone know the starting PH of a rockwool??

Also if your nutes are more alkaline/casutic... it didn't help with the overdose...

it hurts me to see it also... but trial and error is the best learning tool there is..
Knowing is doing...