First timer, Aerogarden Grow journal.

I will be doing a simple aerogarden grow.After reading the forums about a month,i have decided to partake on my journey to the herbal side.
First i went and purchased a simple garage cabinet and put the thing toghether.I sealed all the cracks and had to buy more wood for the back panel so that it
was solid.It came with some shitty flimsy material. Plus i needed to screw into somthing solid and cut and make holes.

I then made intake holes at the bottom of my cabinet. The filtration is made up of simple pencil holders from wal-mart and staples.It will be put toghether
with a simple 90 degree Black PVC piping to curve and have no light filtering in. The fans are very simple PC fans purchased anywhere. I had to disable the LED lights
by cutting the LED wires,very simple.

The power source of the fans will be an old Power supply from a PC. It is a ATX power supply,so i had to jump it to turn it on. That means i had to
Combine the Green and a Black wire. Just bind them toghether. Then i combined the Gray and Black wire. Also had to combine the Orange wire in slot 1
and the Orange wire in slot 11. They are normaly straight across from each other.I also had to connect a old Cd-rom drive to have enough load to turn it
on.

My lighting consists of AG Pro 200 with 2 CFL 27 watt Bulbs. I will be looking to increase this with one of those Y splitters. For 4 CFL bulbs.
Hopefully it will be enough. I know i CAN go brighter but i will do that along the way.

My Nutrients will be Advanced Nutrients Grow,Micro,Bloom.

I've added a 7 inch air stone for the reservoir.

Ok, i've added a small Graphics card fan on my stalk of the AG that raises the light to give air movement for the stem of my plant. Since i can't fit it with
a normal oscillating fan. Cool points plus 1. Will it work. We will find out :> If it does'nt, i will just add something a little larger.

This is my Very first grow. I stopped smoking when i turned 19 this month. Now i will plant my seed on my Birthday this month. I will be 32.

This is my 5th day after planting seed. She seems kinda tiny. I still have some heat issues.

I was wondering if that is stunting her growth. i am in the 93 degree's department.

Today i am gonna go get some ducting and rework my intake and exhausts system.


Here are some pics of today. Her roots look great but she seems kinda short to me.

Also i turned off the water pump today since she has a really long root and branching to the water basin.

Seems fine.
I use the Aerogarden Pro 100 with additonal cfls on each side. I grow AK 47 fem autoflowering from Attitude and they are small but very potent. I have a small 4" fan, 1 6 inch, 2 2" air stones. I use Fox Farms Grow Big and Tiger Bloom. Have patience.

I forgot to mention I have an external air pump for the air stones.

Lookin' good! 93 is a bit hot, but my cab runs at 90-100 consistently, and it seems fine so far
If you can keep your cab open during the daytime, that'll help with airflow, temperature, CO2, etc... just remember to close it at night!

Seedlings always seem slow/small/short/etc till they "get going", so to speak.
Are you using Nutes yet? If so, don't...give it a couple weeks, then start with 1/4 recommended nutes.
THAT'S when you'll see real growth!

I have used some Nutes. But very mild solution. It hasnt seemed to hurt it from what i can tell. Problem is keeping the damn pH at around 5.8. Shit always wants to jump no matter what. But i have that under control. Made my new Carbon filter. Might be overkill. But i am happy with it. Heres the skeleton of it. I need more carbon to fill it all the way up. Its about 3/4ths full At the moment.


Bought parts for exhaust today. Will install tomarrow. Time for abit of TF2. :>

Regarding PH, something I learned after my first grow: if you take water-sample to measure, from an area around an airstone, the extra Oxygen in the water might throw off the PH reading.
Try taking it from a place not right-by an airstone, or just turn off the airstones for a couple minutes

That, and buy a PH Up/Down/Testing kit, which shouldn't be too expensive, and you can find em at Petsmart or any other pet store

Thanks for the tip on shutting off the air stone.

Yea i have a digital pH tester. Works good so far. Yea i found just little bottles of up/down at a pet store.

Added a updated pic. She's starting to get some tiny leaves on top.

Lookin' Good Man!

Dropped my temp down to mid 80's from mid 90's. very stoked about that, Since it got to 120 yesterday ,OUTSIDE!

Here's updated exhaust. A little lazy so far. Still want to add one more intake.

cardinal7syn said:

Dropped my temp down to mid 80's from mid 90's. very stoked about that, Since it got to 120 yesterday ,OUTSIDE!

Here's updated exhaust. A little lazy so far. Still want to add one more intake.

Click to expand...

Lookin good, can't wait to see more!

Added another intake across the plants. it helped out with cooling the temps some and stronger breeze across the plant in the future.

Just another pic of the little girl. She growing a little more.

Tomorrow i will do my first res change. Shall be fun :>

Day 7, Everything seems to be going fine. Wish i could cool it more but where i live it is just to damn hot. And i don't wanna buy one of those room AC's.

I will be doing a res change today when i get home.


So here she is at day 7, enjoy. She has little white hairs everywhere. I been reading and it seems that it is o.k. Very slight brownish look on the new set of leaves. But i do not see anything wrong.

cardinal7syn said:

Dropped my temp down to mid 80's from mid 90's. very stoked about that, Since it got to 120 yesterday ,OUTSIDE!

Here's updated exhaust. A little lazy so far. Still want to add one more intake.

Click to expand...

Livin in AZ or Cali desert? Damn dood. Sounds like the gates of hell.

Wish i could cool it more but where i live it is just to damn hot. And i don't wanna buy one of those room AC's.

Click to expand...

Can you have your cab open for a good amount of time during the day? If so, just buy a regular fan, whatever size, and place it just far enough that the air gets into the cab, but doesn't shake the plant up too much

For example:

whats up cardinal? im on my 1st aerogarden grow also. actually my 1st grow period to be honest except the 2 other plants i have in soil that are about a month old. but our AG babys seem to have a pretty close DOB lol. mine are about a week old 2 since they went in the AG as seeds, 2 days later they had sprouted but 2 of them looked troubled because i planted the seeds upside down... 2 of the seeds are White Widow seeds from Nirvana and the other is a bagseed. luckely i planted one of the WW seeds the right way and she is goin great workin on her second set of blades. Unfortunatly the other WW gurl seams to have grown upside down and the steam seams to be wrapped around herself?

Leova , i shall try that. I personaly thought if i did do that. The light would dissipate. But if it has been working for you. Temps gonna go way down for me then. Thank you!

Heya Frank, Yea first time i have ever tried this. I thought the whole Aerogarden had a "NEAT factor", i guess i could have made my own bucket and would have been cheaper. But hey, we learn! I am just growing something simple. Lowryder ganja or somthing..

Came home had a beer,chips and salsa and changed my res. I just used a syphon type thing for fish tanks. Seemed to work well enough. But i think when the roots start to get more condense and more of them i am just gonna have to pick the thing up and empty it.


Crazy Dust storms today in the sahara!

Night folks!

I personaly thought if i did do that. The light would dissipate

Click to expand...

well, yeah, undoubtedly it will dissipate the light somewhat, but its MUCH better than puttin' your girls in the Sahara!
Plus, you can always just add another small light to compensate

I just used a syphon type thing for fish tanks. Seemed to work well enough. But i think when the roots start to get more condense and more of them i am just gonna have to pick the thing up and empty it.

Click to expand...

Somebody shared this GREAT tip with me when I started, so i'm passing it on to you:
All you need is a length of air tubing, and a bottle....make sure the bottle is at a LOWER height than your AG (like put the AG on a shelf or something), and stick the airline tubing in the res. If the AG res is HIGHER than the bottle, the water will flow out naturally
All you need to do is give a tiny pull on the open end(just like sipping from a soda straw), then quickly stick it into the top of the bottle, and voila!
Gravity does all the work, just sit there and watch!

would that also work if we juss stock the tubing into the sink and let it drain into it? is there a reason why u cant juss take the top off the AG off and set it somewhere where the roots hang in the air or where they wont get damaged and juss dump out the water in the res?? i juss ask because i thought maybe there is some special reason why u cant do that once the roots get stablished inn the ag or somethang...
did yall see my monster plant? lol do u think it will survie to life a full life? has anyone seen this before?

FrankRuzzo said:

would that also work if we juss stock the tubing into the sink and let it drain into it? is there a reason why u cant juss take the top off the AG off and set it somewhere where the roots hang in the air or where they wont get damaged and juss dump out the water in the res?? i juss ask because i thought maybe there is some special reason why u cant do that once the roots get stablished inn the ag or somethang...
did yall see my monster plant? lol do u think it will survie to life a full life? has anyone seen this before?

Click to expand...

It is fine to pull the top off of the AG, it won't hurt you plants at all, it's a little bit of a pain though. Just don't let the roots dry out too much.