List of hydro noob mistakes:

This thread is for your list of noob mistakes involving hydroponics ie. ebb&gro, ebb&flo, dwc, aeroponics etc. Please list (in detail) your mistakes, please keep comments&replys to others post&questions off this thread. Any mistakes can be listed watering schedule ,nute solutions, seedlings, cloning, strains, lighting, equipment, pest control, harvesting etc. My hopes are for a nice sticky for noobs to review, as a lot of my mistakes could have been avoided if I had just known what NOT to do. There is plenty of info on HOW to grow. Please include any suggestions or fixes (in detail) to your mistakes as this will help the noobs understand. So , enjoy telling your goof up noob stories here. AGAIN, keep you comments out of this thread, it is not intended as a discussion thread, Thank you Frogster.

mixing and ph'ing h20 and immediately giving to plants without allowing the solution to stabalize.
eating hydroton.
jajaja

Wash your hydroton really good !! Really good.

ph up in one hand, ph down in the other hand.

I use DWC. Only mistake i made was in construction. If it's going to be movable, find a way of holding the plants upright, they can be a right pain when you pull the plant and bucket out of the cab and all it tries to do is fall over in it's net cup (i assume larger netcups would add stability.)

Other than that i haven't really come across much any reason for anyone to make mistakes with DWC, it's just too simple.

if i knew how important a chiller was i would have bought it first.

Simple is always easier.

If anything error on the side of caution, you can always add more nutrients later.

pH,pH,pH.

jimbizzzale67123 said:

Simple is always easier.

If anything error on the side of caution, you can always add more nutrients later.

pH,pH,pH.

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I agree in DWC you must focus on 3 key things to have a successful grow.. PH, PPM and reservoir temperature....also Make sure that your reservoir is light proof 100% lightproof..

Here is my list : 1. I misread (didnt grasp)the lucas formula and was mixing gh micro with floranova bloom 1-2 ratio.. not good. 2. I topped off and filled my rez because i thought it needed it, BUT!, I was in a flood cycle and all my buckets were full, luckily I raised my control box lid and saw it full before I left the room, this would have flooded the room a bit. 3. I way over watered (misting&rockwool))my clones in my humidity box, and had poor results even when I thought I wasn't over watering.. rockwool should be about 25-30grams initially in a clone box and you don't re-dip&spray them at all! You can spray the underside of the lid once in awhile. 4. I didnt calibrate my ph meter often enough, I was off by .5 at one point, yikes! And here is my worst mistake 5. I was washing off my hands and equipment in my control box, hey, I thought, hell it has h202 in it, it must be ok! yea, right,brown ALGAE! Now I use microbes, learned a cheap way to make them from heisenburg , link here: https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/361430-how-breed-your-own-beneficial.html way better than h202 in my opinion, oh and I keep my damn hands&equipment out of my res water.

BeaverHuntr said:

Wash your hydroton really good !! Really good.

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No, REALLY good.

infinitescrog said:

No, REALLY good.

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Rinse it really well, but no matter what if you rub them together you will get more little pieces that go into the water.

i ran my hydroton thru the dishwasher for a cycle

wiseguy316 said:

i ran my hydroton thru the dishwasher for a cycle

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lol god dam.. What I did was took some advice found a old rubber maid tote drilled holes in it soaked my hydroton for 24 hours in PH water then I rinsed the shit out of them for a good 30 minutes in the tote with holes.

sounds like a redneck dishwasher to me..lol

my biggest mistake was not buying a water chiller sooner. you can get a good used one for a couple hundred bucks, that's less than an oz. in price.

i use the 10 inch bucket lids, net pots. they dont provide any extra support or enough, next round ill be securing a tomato cage to the net pot for when they get into heavy flower, and wasting the cash on air pumps, i switched to an aerator and a powerhead. imo it works much better even with having both in the rez the temps are still in the high 50s

kevin said:

my biggest mistake was not buying a water chiller sooner. you can get a good used one for a couple hundred bucks, that's less than an oz. in price.

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See I live in AZ and its hot as hell and I was looking at chillers too but the price was too much thats why I went about using the ice chests and coolers they basically held the 68 degree water temp for a week at a time .. even through veg and flower. Thats why I tell noob growers to watch the reservoir temperature because that shit can introduce root rot.

i live in dallas, so i know all about the heat, i'm also using an ice chest for a resivoir. it so much easier to set the thermostat and never worry about it again. check out my setup in the signature.

BeaverHuntr said:

See I live in AZ and its hot as hell and I was looking at chillers too but the price was too much thats why I went about using the ice chests and coolers they basically held the 68 degree water temp for a week at a time .. even through veg and flower. Thats why I tell noob growers to watch the reservoir temperature because that shit can introduce root rot.

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Light leaks into the res and water temp (like all of us). The light leaks i fixed with panda plastic, the temps i had to do a lot of looking at what i changed in my room, what it turned out to be was i turned the light in the room and was using the 1000 watt for 16+ hours a day for veg. The light was landing on 2 tubs instead of the 4 as before, so the 2 took up much more heat and cooked my clones roots. Lesson learned, only change one thing in the room at a time.

kevin said:

i live in dallas, so i know all about the heat, i'm also using an ice chest for a resivoir. it so much easier to set the thermostat and never worry about it again. check out my setup in the signature.

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I saw it the chiller next to the res too.. I found a couple chillers on Craigslist that were 200-300 but at that time I was building the room , buying lights, portable AC, seeds just was too much at the time...Yeah dude I love the ice chests ..