Ebb and Flow - Transplant Q's on Rockwool/Hydroton etc.

Hi all and thank you anyone who helps (+ rep of course to those that do).

I'm currently in my 2nd week of flowering and I'm thinking I should transplant my plants into bigger containers (I realize I should have done it earlier).

I'm using 5 inch rockwool cubes in an ebb and flow system. My intent is to place these cubes onto hydroton just to the point where my E&F water level will still reach the bottom of the RW cubes. I probably will have to increase my waterings (doing just 2 per day now).

My real question is this: Do I place hydroton on the sides of the new pots as well? I'm thinking that any hydroton on the sides of the new pot just won't get wet enough or worse will leach moisture from the rockwool after watering. Alternatively I could fill in the sides of the new pot with small rockwool cubes (little 1/4 inch ones) so the ending result would be bottom - hydroton up to the rockwool cube (5 inch square) and on the sides rockwool cubelets. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks again, I appreciate any help that can be given.

how big are the plants? if they're not too big, they should be fine the way they are. Also, there is nothing wrong with your plan of putting more rockwool and raising the cubes on top of hydroton. You can do it several ways, all hydroton around the original 5" cubes... or all rockwool around the original 5" cubes, or, you could mix the mini cubes with hydroton and surround the 5" cubes with that. It doesnt really matter, however you do it, just watch the plants for signs of over watering or underwatering.

I flood once a day during lights on with pots filled with loose rockwool topped with an inch or so of hydroton to keep the light off of the top of the rockwool.

The rockwool is supposed to dry out a bit, not totally though. Most importantly though, if what you're doing now is working well... remember 'if it aint broke....dont fix it'

Not much help I know, but really you cant go wrong with however you do it.

YaK said:

how big are the plants? if they're not too big, they should be fine the way they are. Also, there is nothing wrong with your plan of putting more rockwool and raising the cubes on top of hydroton. You can do it several ways, all hydroton around the original 5" cubes... or all rockwool around the original 5" cubes, or, you could mix the mini cubes with hydroton and surround the 5" cubes with that. It doesnt really matter, however you do it, just watch the plants for signs of over watering or underwatering.

I flood once a day during lights on with pots filled with loose rockwool topped with an inch or so of hydroton to keep the light off of the top of the rockwool.

The rockwool is supposed to dry out a bit, not totally though. Most importantly though, if what you're doing now is working well... remember 'if it aint broke....dont fix it'

Not much help I know, but really you cant go wrong with however you do it.

Click to expand...

Well the plants are about 18 inches or so. It's partially the reason why I did NOT transplant earlier (prior to 12/12); I simply thought that my ending height would have been around 3 feet because I had switched to 12/12 when they had reached around 6-8 inches. I became more confused because the book I was reading stated 2 inconsistent things: 1) You can induce flowering at minimum 6 inches (or 4 sets of true leaves) and then in contrast 2) plants grown from seed should be vegged until sexual maturity around 4 weeks. This is from Indoor/Outdoor Marijuana bible by Cervantes.

As of now I'm having to do some LSTing of stems so the tops don't get burned. I have a wee bit of wiggle room and the LSTing seems to be going fine. I was just worried that not having room to grow for my roots will hurt bud formation so I'm trying some preventative medicine.

I think I will go with the rockwool on the sides idea then with hydroton underneath. I had planned on moving from my 5 x 5 inch to a 7 x 7 or equivalent. Just going from eye here the rockwool slab will be elevated about 2 1/2 inches higher.

Thanks for the response sir! + Rep to you

remember too that more rockwool will retain moisture longer, your smaller cubes dry out a bit faster and thus need two waterings a day.

I grow 3-4 foot plants in pots filled with loose rockwool... the pots are 4" high and 4" in diameter at the top. I dont believe you have to have a giant rootmass to grow large plants, they just need nutrients and water to sustain them. This has been my experience so far.

Maybe you could leave a couple in the 5" rockwool cubes and see how they do in comparison to the ones that you put into the pots with more rockwool. only issue with that though is the water timings. nevermind, scrap that idea!

are you doing your plants from seed or clone? how many plants?

YaK said:

remember too that more rockwool will retain moisture longer, your smaller cubes dry out a bit faster and thus need two waterings a day.

I grow 3-4 foot plants in pots filled with loose rockwool... the pots are 4" high and 4" in diameter at the top. I dont believe you have to have a giant rootmass to grow large plants, they just need nutrients and water to sustain them. This has been my experience so far.

Maybe you could leave a couple in the 5" rockwool cubes and see how they do in comparison to the ones that you put into the pots with more rockwool. only issue with that though is the water timings. nevermind, scrap that idea!

are you doing your plants from seed or clone? how many plants?

Click to expand...

Heya, actually reading a bit more into root bound plants (googled root bound symptoms) I've decided to keep my babies just as they are as I'm already 2 1/2 weeks into flowering and for the most part the plants seem ok (just a flush maybe from salt buildups).

The pots I have came with the E&F kit that I had purchased. Small white 5 x 5 inches (like 5.5 inches tall). The rockwool cubes were initially 6 inch cubes but to fit them into my pots I sawed off the ends which means they actually have some air in between the RW and the pot (I've seen roots poking out).

My plants are from seed. Some strange Sagamartha brand or some such (mostly Sativa). When I purchased the seeds via Attitude I hadn't quite read into the Sativa versus Indica height issues so I didn't know to buy Indica for indoor limited height grows.

Well I started 6 in total. One just didn't really cut it so I removed it (still alive under like a 20 watt flouro in my kitchen lol) from the grow tent ( 3 x 3 x 5 feet). The best looking one I moved off and made a vegging room which will also serve as a cloning room in the future. I did repot the mother and she's doing Ok in the new pot. So I had 4 in a small 3 x 3 area and thought they were looking pretty crowded so I've since moved 2 into another flowering room with my old 250 watt light and left the 2 best looking plants in the tent (which has a 400 watt btw). They've been growing pretty well with no major issues except new growth appears yellow (salt buildup?) and my thoughts on xplanting where to do it early so the plants did NOT get root bound. Now I'm thinking doing this in flowering is too much stress so I'll leave them as is.

Next grow I'll just start them in bigger pots and not worry about this.

Good deal! plants becoming root bound is mostly a soil issue. Maybe someone else can chime in on this. i have never had a rootbound plant in hydro, and I check the roots on all plants after harvest to see what condition they are in.

For mothers I use larger pots because the plants get so big. I water them only once per day and they are on 24 hours of light. I got a cheapie UPS (uninterrupted power supply) from staples, so I dont have to worry about power outages for the pumps. Easy Peasy japanesey.

Sounds like you are doing well. Keep up the good work!

YaK said:

Good deal! plants becoming root bound is mostly a soil issue. Maybe someone else can chime in on this. i have never had a rootbound plant in hydro, and I check the roots on all plants after harvest to see what condition they are in.

For mothers I use larger pots because the plants get so big. I water them only once per day and they are on 24 hours of light. I got a cheapie UPS (uninterrupted power supply) from staples, so I dont have to worry about power outages for the pumps. Easy Peasy japanesey.

Sounds like you are doing well. Keep up the good work!

Click to expand...

This is good to know about root bound plants and Hydro. I'm still learning here but am so far happy with what I'm doing. Yea I think I have the watering regime dialed in. I think in a couple of weeks I may have to up the watering for the flowering plants to 3 times daily but at the moment they seem happy. My mother is in a larger container and is watered twice daily (since the lower portion of her is in hydroton). Again, thanks for the input good sir! Much appreciated.