Aero/DWC first time grow

The Waiter

Active Member
hey guys names the waiter. This is my first time growing. i built an aeroponic/Deep Water Culture system. I pretty much got everything i needed from Lowes, Pet Supermarket,and a local hydroponics store.

This is the Specs

- hydroton
- two nettie pots.
- rockwool cubes
- fox farm grow big
- fox farm tiger bloom
- ph test kit
- ph up and down
- one 31g roughneck storage container.
- two 1 1/2 ft pieces of 1/2 in PVC
-one 1/2 in T joint
-one barb(to connect the hose from the PVC to the water pump)
-one 9in piece of 1/2 in hose and two hose clamps.
- four 360 degree pressure sprinklers
-one 400gph water pump.
-one 70g air pump.
-two airstones.
-one 100w T5 high output commercial grade grow light.
-2 50w blue spec CFL
-3 65w red spec CFL
-2 48w red spec CFL
- one 150w hps for flowering.


we have two plants that are going right now. the bigger one is a week and five days old, and the smaller one is five days young. we added quarter strength nutes to the reservoir two days ago and the roots are already hitting the water. check out my pics and tell me what you think.
 

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imabeast

Active Member
So far so good. You should have plenty of lights. Sounds well thought out. Will be interesting to see how it turns out.
 

The Waiter

Active Member
Yeah im hopin they turn out good. I just fimed the bigger one yesterday but they are both looking pretty healthy i think. Just hope they are females!!!
 

The Waiter

Active Member
Well I took those other pictures last Saturday so its been almost a week, but the plants seem to be doing pretty good. I had a small PH crisis and nute burn crisis but i took care of them pretty quickly and it didn't really affect the plants much i don't think. I rearranged the lights and added some more. This is what i have right now.
1 100 watt t5 50 watts blue/50 watts red
2 50 watt 6500k CFL's
2 48 watt 2700k CFL's
1 65 watt 2700k CFL

The third pic is of my FIM. Does it look like its supposed to? I don't really know, i just looked at a guide on how to FIM on riu and did my best. Tell me what you think. Any advice/constructive criticism is welcome :lol:
 

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King'G'

Member
very nice set-up! I have a question about how you used your rockwool... Right now I have a seedling about 3 days old in a rock wool cube and its about 2 inches tall. Its in a big plastic baggie with a slight opening to keep the humidity high. When should I put the cube in the hydro system? Also, how can I be sure that when I put it in the system the roots get hydration? I have a water farm system with the ring tubing (if that makes sense) I feel like if I just put the cube right in the middle no water will reach the roots?
 

The Waiter

Active Member
Well King G all i did was wait until the root was coming out of the bottom of the rockwool cube maybe an inch or so and i just threw it right in to the system with the root just barely sticking out of the bottom of the pot. Then i covered around the rockwool with hydroton and just let the system do the rest from there. If you have a similar set up you can just run the sprinkler system 24/7 (which is nice cause you wont need timers) as long as your temps dont get too high. Good luck man. Ill be watchin to see how your grow goes.
 

IrishDoc

Well-Known Member
Nice setup. I would suggest changing those sprayers though. I used them when I built my first couple of boxes and they tend to clogg up or just stop spinning. Lowes does carry one that will work its called 360 x 14 stream jet item#287620. I have found that they work 1000% better than the spinners and are about 60cents cheaper per package.:bigjoint:
 

The Waiter

Active Member
so, the plants are getting BIG
i think im going to put them on 12/12 tomorrow, should i switch to the flowering nutes or should i give them straight water for a couple days??
on the bottle it says to feed the plants at the first sign of flowering?
if anyone has some advice, its much appreciated
pics coming soon
 

The Waiter

Active Member
Well the plants are really takin off. I put them in to flowering yesterday, so tonight will be the second night that the lights are off. The big one is 3 weeks and 1 day old and the smaller one is 2 weeks old. Hopin to find some hairs soon ;-). I'll keep you guys posted and hopefully on my next update the plants will be sexed. Heres a few pics to show ya how they're doing. At the moment we have 513 Watts on the plan. One 96 watt t5 high output light and 417 watts of CFL's (thats actual CFL watts too, not equivalent wattage). Tell me what you guys think!
 

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The Waiter

Active Member
we are five days into flowering and today will be the sixth night. The third image is what i believe to be a female pre flower.. but there is one problem that we cant figure out. There is little holes on some of the leaves and we searched every leaf and we can not finds any bugs and the holes do not look like nute burn?
 

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The Waiter

Active Member
Well i haven't updated in a while but alooooooot has happened since I last did. First of all, both plants are female! The first one to show sex was the bigger one. Oh yeah i moved the bigger one in to its own 5 gal. bucket cause it was getting so big. But anyways i was suuuper happy to find hairs and i was feeling great about the grow. Well the next day my brother was moving the T5 higher up cause the big plant was growing in to it, and he dropped it on the plant and snapped off the top of the main stem and broke off a big branch on the bottom. Its in the recovery process now, and is doing ok but i was pretty upset about it at first. After the light catastrophe i went to look at the other plant and i found hairs on her! I'm still kind of amazed that i got two females and no males, especially since its just some bagseed. but check out the pics and tell me what you think. the first four are of the little girl and the last four are of the big one. I also threw in a pic of the 150w hps that is on the little girl. The second to last pic is of the 5 gal. bucket that the big girl is in and the last pic you can see where the main stem got snapped at the top. its right below my hand. bongsmilie
 

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