First Ever Aeroponic Grow! Feedback appreciated...[PICS]

Hello everyone!

This is me and my buddy's first grow and we decided to go with an aeroponic set-up. We decided to build our own since it'd save us money and give us a project that we could work on all summer. We started out with 10 seeds but sadly purple kush, nebulas, and a sour diesel didn't make it past their first set of leaves so we currently have 7 plants.

Here's a quick run-down of our entire set-up:

- Aeroponics
+ 10 - 3 inch pots
+ Clay pebbles
+ 298 GPH submersible pump
+ 40 gallon reservoir (kept at 20-25 gallons)
+ 8 360º spinning sprayer heads

- Nutrients
+ IONIC Grow for vegetative growth (3-1-5)
+ IONIC Bloom for flowering (3-2-6)
+ IONIC Boost for an extra increase in flowering (0-5-6)

- Lighting
+ 9 50w 6500k CFL's
+ 2 120w 2700k CFL's
+ Mylar lining around room and on ceiling

I know the lighting is kind of weak but we plan on upping the number of lamps at least another 6. We're most likely going to add the rest in of 2700k and switch out another 2 of 6500k for 2700k. We also have a fan circulating the air in the room.

We've been running our lamps 24/7 since we've started.

The image attached is about 6 weeks into vegetative. Today was the end of week 7 so we switched our water and nutrients and started a 11/13 lighting schedule. The plants did a much better job at spreading out in the past week than is shown.

This is the only picture that I currently have of them. I'm not going to be around them until tomorrow so I'll snap up a few then if anyone would like.

Let me know what you think of the plants and keep in mind this is our first shot at it!

I appreciate all the feedback you guys can give!

Looks great to me, keep up the good work...

they look great.

I'm going to bump this in hopes of getting more input but I'm not going to shamelessly do it.

Here's some more info about our project:

-All of the seeds we're using were "bag seed" from California dispensary pick-ups or from our growers pick-ups of equivalent quality
+ (2) Juicy Fruit -- Have grown well, leaves are very large and dark green
+ (2) Sour Diesel -- Only one survived and she's our smallest but very bright green and bushy
+ (1) Purple Kush -- Died after first set of leaves formed, he was "slimed" by something...
+ (1) Nebula -- Survived for two weeks then had the same thing happen as the purple kush...I assume it just rotted out
+ (2) Skunk #1 -- Growing the best by far, nearly 30 inches each in 7 weeks without flowering yet!
+ (2) Thai Lights -- This is the only strain that is questionable to us as to if it really was, still was good bud either way

I'm really hoping that of the 7 we have left they're not all males. We chose only the highest quality bag seed (we would find 1 seed every 8 ounces or so we went though) in hopes that this would reduce the likelihood of them being hermaphrodites or males. I'm obviously going to hack down any male plants the second they're recognizable.

In order to keep fresh air coming in and the temperature under control, we have a portable air conditioning unit in a window in the actual room of that closet which is set at 65º if we're in the room and 72º if we aren't going to be there. This keeps the room anywhere from 78º to 85º but we try to keep it always lower than that. We then have a large 20+ inch fan sucking in the air and blowing it around. We have an opening in the back top of the room in which we can place a fan to use as an exhaust but we decided not to open it up until we have a screen we can properly fit in to keep any bugs out...

I realize that this is probably the most energy wasteful grow ever, you know using a bunch of CFL's and an air conditioner for new air + cooling but we did have to throw this entire project together in nearly a single day.

What is everyone's suggestion on my next grow? Should I try and grow all feminized seeds or should I just start with clones? My "grower" has clones of 8+ strains which he's willing to sell but he's in the process of setting up a new operation and won't be able to do them for us for a few months he said since he has his "partners" holding onto the mothers right now.

Also, what would your suggestion be for switching to HID lighting for our next grow? We're going to want 8-10 plants with very good genetics.

Thanks

looks good to me.

Plants look good. I have never vegged that long so should be interesting. In my setuips I veg no more then 10 days but I use clones that are about 3 inches tall when rooted then at day 10 they are around 12 inches tall and my plants finish around 3 feet. I only see 2 problem areas your gonna have. If you used spinners inside the setup nyour gonna have a ton of issues. The spinners are the worst kind to use in this type of setup with a close second being 360 degree barrel sprayer heads that look like cyclinders and have holes around the edge usually sold at like home depot or lowes these will fail without a doubt. The root mass in these setup will clog them and your plants will suffer and possible die. The second issue depending on how far your res is from the setup is your pump is a bit small but might make it. I would have gone 350-500 gph pump to get the lift and pressure you want. Lighting will definately be an issue for flower with 7 plants and no lollipoping it looks so these will bush up and fill that entire room so you will need good penetration to get into the flower sites.Look into a cheap 600 watt digital setup that runs both mh and hps light bulbs with no ballast heat or noise..Will watch and see how this goes.Good luck

FilthyFletch said:

Plants look good. I have never vegged that long so should be interesting. In my setuips I veg no more then 10 days but I use clones that are about 3 inches tall when rooted then at day 10 they are around 12 inches tall and my plants finish around 3 feet. I only see 2 problem areas your gonna have. If you used spinners inside the setup nyour gonna have a ton of issues. The spinners are the worst kind to use in this type of setup with a close second being 360 degree barrel sprayer heads that look like cyclinders and have holes around the edge usually sold at like home depot or lowes these will fail without a doubt. The root mass in these setup will clog them and your plants will suffer and possible die. The second issue depending on how far your res is from the setup is your pump is a bit small but might make it. I would have gone 350-500 gph pump to get the lift and pressure you want. Lighting will definately be an issue for flower with 7 plants and no lollipoping it looks so these will bush up and fill that entire room so you will need good penetration to get into the flower sites.Look into a cheap 600 watt digital setup that runs both mh and hps light bulbs with no ballast heat or noise..Will watch and see how this goes.Good luck

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for your input, it'll be very helpful for us to keep an eye on those problem areas.

Here's a picture of the type of sprayer head we're using:

http://superiorgrowers.com/index.php?/Drip-Irrigation/360-Degree-Clone-Spinner.php?keyword=sprayer

What type should I have used? An example picture would help me understand a lot better.

About a week ago we began to worry about the mass clogging our sprayers but we are hoping that if they do that the water would still trickle out and work thin film style...Is this a completely wrong assumption? Will the sprayer heads just not spray if they become jammed?

We're keeping our reservoir very close to our unit because of the fact we started to see that 296 GPH may be too weak. We wanted to keep it farther away for heat reasons but decided pressure was more important. We should've spent the extra $20 instead of being worried about it now...

Hope it goes well. On spinners from my attempts to play with them they may trickle they may not as once they stop spinning especially if you cycle your pump which I dont do the openings can clog if your not using a good inline filter or filter bag which you should have one or the other at minimal both together is ideal Heres a picture of the most common hydro garden mister you should use. I have this if you would need them $.85 cents each just pm if you do.