How do I use these cubes?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum for this, if someone could move it to the correct one if this is wrong that would be cool!


Anyway, I have been growing for a few years and I have only ever taken my own clones, but today I got a couple clones from a place that sells them and they came in these big cubes, which I think are rockwool cubes? I have never used these things before so I'm not sure how to proceed.

My question is, what do I do with these things? I'm going to grow these in FFOF soil, so do I just take that plastic off the cube and plant the entire thing into a pot with soil?

Also, I don't know the exact age of these, should there be roots coming out of that cube before I plant it? Should I try and cut away some of that cube so it is not so big or will that just cause more harm than good?

They had these cubes in trays with a 1/2 of water or so in the bottom, should I keep them in a tray with some water until they show roots and then plant them, or plant them right now even though I don't see any roots coming out of the cubes? Or should I just put them in a tray without water at the bottom, since the cubes are very wet and I don't want the clones to get overwatered.

Sorry for so many questions, I just want to make sure I do this right so I don't end up killing them.




Thanks for any advice you can give!

Keep them in the cubes and when there are roots showing at the bottom you can plant it in your chosen soil.

Just make sure that you keep the cube moist when you transplant them as the soil will quickly wick all the water out of those cubes.

You will also need to keep any nutes or water going into those cubes at around ph6 until you get them rooted into your soil.


J

DO NOT LET THEM SIT IN WATER

You want to water them until you get around 15% runoff.

It shouldnt take long for the roots to show at the bottom of the rockwool cubes. I personally have kept my clones in the rockwool and now they are around 14inches tall and still in their 3x3 rockwool cubes. BUt i do have to water them every day.

J

also allow the cube to feel very light before watering again.

the way rockwool works is when you water it you allow the runoff and then after the run off it pulls air into the cube so that there is around 85% water 10% air and 5% is the rockwool itself.

You may also want to cover the tops with some plastic of some kind otherwise you will end up with algae on the top which can attract fungus gnats etc .

J

Awesome responses, that's exactly the kind of info I was looking for. If I could rep you more than once, I would!

One of them already had some algae growing on it but I lightly scraped a very thin layer off the top before I took the picture. I didn't get it all though so I'm sure it will come back. I will try covering the tops of them from now on though. Is there something I can add that will kill the algae without hurting the plants? Or will just covering the tops kill the algae that is already there?

A couple other questions:

Since these are not going to go into dirt for quite a while it sounds like, will I need to add ferts to the water when I water the cubes? Like 1/4 str or something? The clones are already lighter green and purple stems, and if I can't get them into soil where they can feed for a couple weeks, it seems like I should do something. If I should feed them, should I give them the Grow nutes (at a very low strength of course)? Or do you think they will be OK until roots come out and I can put them in the soil?

Also, I assume that I should remove all that plastic wrapped around the cubes before I put them in the soil, right? Should I leave the plastic on the sides until roots come out the bottom? Is it stopping algae from growing on the sides? What is the point of the plastic wrap, I guess is my real question.

Update!

Ok, per your advice here is what I did:

1. Took the water out of the tray they were sitting in. The tray is lined with tin foil, it was just to keep the water from leaking out, should I remove the tin foil? Is it helping to reflect light (I don't think so but thought I would make sure), or is it hurting by reflecting light into the wrong place (leaf bottoms)?

2. Put thin black plastic squares over the tops of the cubes. They are just sitting on the top of the rockwool, not taped down or anything. There's a slit cut for the stem. Does this look like what I should have done? Is it OK that the plastic is black? I thought black would help prevent algae more than clear plastic, my only other choice.

Also, do you see anything else I'm doing wrong? The clones are under 80w of fluoro tubes, cool white, about 1 inch from the tops.

They are very wet right now (a very gentle squeeze on the side is enough to make water pour out from the bottom of them). I will wait until they are dry and light and then water with pH 6.0 water. When I water should I thoroughly soak the cube, let some run off into the pan, then throw out the runoff and let the cubes go until dry again? And then repeat until roots come out and then I can plant it in the soil?






Again, thank you for all your help jondamon. I posted this exact message on another forum, and this is the only response I've received so far:

someone on another forum said:

if you are going to put them in soil just put the whole rock wool block in the pot

Click to expand...

That was the whole answer to all my questions I had.

I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions in detail with reasons why what I'm doing is good or bad. I assume if I just followed the other poster's advice and plopped them in the soil right now it would not be good for them?

You could plant them straight in the soil now if you wanted to just make sure you water the Rockwool cube when it is dry. which will happen sooner as stated already above about soil wicking the water out of the cube. Personally i would keep them where they are until the roots show and then plant into your soil.

Black is fine (that is what i used) the algae should dissapear soon if you allow it all to dry out and feel lighter before watering again.

Get rid of the tin foil if you can just use a drip tray from the garden store.

You should be feeding these a low strength nute everytime you water now.

If you have an EC meter aim for around 0.8EC if you dont have EC meter then around half strength. When you water the rockwool make sure you allow around 15% runoff.

The slit in the plastic is perfect you dont have to secure the plastic to anything just allow it to sit like you have already.

Make sure the rockwool is never sitting in a pool of water.


any other questions you need answering just ask them or you can pm me if you prefer.


J

Cool, thanks again, they are starting to show some roots now on the bottom although I haven't yet had to water them. The place where I got them had them sitting in a tray of water so I'm sure they were way wetter than they should have been. I'll add 1/4 - 1/2 str Grow nutes and pH to 6.0 as soon as the cubes feel a little lighter. They're getting there, but they still feel wet on the bottom and only one feels lighter than when I got them. The other plant has a much thinner stem so I guess it's not using as much water or something, although it does have roots showing too. I'd like to let them get even more roots going before I transfer them to the soil, especially now that I understand how these cubes work better I'm not as worried about doing something that would kill them.

I appreciate all your help, I'll post again if something comes up, but hopefully it will be smooth sailing now!

Oh, one last thing, about when you plant them in soil; you are saying that I will need to water the "rockwool cube area" of the pot when I put it in soil even if the surrounding "soil area" is wet, because the cube will dry out faster due to the soil? How long will I have to keep watering the area near the stem (rockwool area) at a different rate than I water the whole pot?

just a few days until the roots have found their way into the soil.

if you want a little tip i would recommend getting some mychorhizal fungi.
this helps root development just sprinkle some into your transplant hole.

the rockwool may not dry out very quick but be aware that it might depending on environmental conditions RH TEMPS HPS etc

if you use the mychorhizal fungi your roots will probably be out of the cube in 2-3 days.

Good luck

J

I had some just like that, I put them straight into FFOF and it's grown a foot in the last 3 weeks... Good luck.

Sounds good, I think I will plant them in the next couple days as they now have pretty good roots coming out the bottom and even a few coming out the top where I put that black plastic covering. I see a few down the sides of the cube between the plastic there too.

I already have and use a mycorrhizae and trichoderma root innoculent and when I transplant I like to put it in the hole just like you described.


Thank you for all your help!

If you see roots already you might as well put 'em in, they're gonna love that FFOF. Mine was 4" tall with yellow leaves and weak looking when I got her, my budtender gave her to me cause she looked hopeless, 6 weeks later she's over 14" tall and ready to get cloned