New Grower, HELP NEEDED with Drip Cycles

I am growing lowryder hybrids + AK48 in a drip system under 400 watt mh + hps.I know the pump attached to the airstone should be ran 24hrs, but I would like to know what my timer should be on for the pump attached to the drip manifold. How often on and off to eliminate over or under watering.

What type of medium are you using? Tell us a lil more about your set up.

flipsidesw said:

What type of medium are you using? Tell us a lil more about your set up.

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I am using hydroton expanded clay, rockwool cubes, technoflora nutes.

Well until youve outgrown your rockwool cubes once a day should be fine. Once youve outgrown your rock wool and the roots are primarliy in the clay pebbles youll wanna start out at 3x a day and work up to 5 or 6 times day in full bloom. You could even have it on continously in some systems. Tell us a lil more about your watering system. Tell us more about ur drip system. Is it a recirculating system?

flipsidesw said:

Well until youve outgrown your rockwool cubes once a day should be fine. Once youve outgrown your rock wool and the roots are primarliy in the clay pebbles youll wanna start out at 3x a day and work up to 5 or 6 times day in full bloom. You could even have it on continously in some systems. Tell us a lil more about your watering system. Tell us more about ur drip system. Is it a recirculating system?

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I use two drip systems. They each have a 10 gallon reservoir. It is a recirculating system. The drip device is installed at the top of the system and attached to a pump inside the nutrient solution. When the pump is turned on the nutrients drip unto the plants.

bob4eva said:

I use two drip systems. They each have a 10 gallon reservoir. It is a recirculating system. The drip device is installed at the top of the system and attached to a pump inside the nutrient solution. When the pump is turned on the nutrients drip unto the plants.

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When the plants are very small just make sure the emitters don't drip directly onto the rockwool cubes. I irrigate small plants a half hour on every three hours.

When you see roots coming out of the bottoms of your pots you can start irrigating them a lot. I have ran them 24 hours a day for weeks and they loved it, but I have consistently had the best results going a half hour on, a half hour off, round the clock.

So half hour on, three hours off til you see roots out the bottom of the hydroton then a half hour on a half hour off til they finish flowering.

I am a couple days from harvest right now on my drip tables, woohoo!

What is the best way to germinate the seeds?

Congrats on your harvest.

I am using rockwoll cubes in baskets and i do 45 min on 15 min off when the lights are on and not at all when the lights are off, i get good results, u have to try urself man, for me this was the most difficult thing to get dialed in.

KTOWNGUY said:

I am using rockwoll cubes in baskets and i do 45 min on 15 min off when the lights are on and not at all when the lights are off, i get good results, u have to try urself man, for me this was the most difficult thing to get dialed in.

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Yes i know its best to learn it yourself but i don't want to kill my girls.Do you use this cycle from seed to finish? The instructions on the system said use 15minutes on and 15 minutes off for the whole day, do you think this is a good time.

bob4eva said:

Yes i know its best to learn it yourself but i don't want to kill my girls.Do you use this cycle from seed to finish? The instructions on the system said use 15minutes on and 15 minutes off for the whole day, do you think this is a good time.

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15 on 15 off is good.

15 on 45 off is good.

1/2 hour on 1/2 hour off is good.

None of these will kill your girls.

Just make sure the emitters do not drip directly onto your rockwool cube.

its germination time.

wooooo cant wait to see this develop.

Im subscribed

bob4eva said:

its germination time.

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Here are a couple that will be ready in about two days from my drip system. The strain is dynamite, just finished the seventh week of bloom tonight:

M8 i have killed well 50 clones in the last few week trying to get it just right i have not long got a 10 pot dripper systems there is a pic of it in my album.not got it up a running propley yet'i keep killing the clones.1st i let em root in 1 inch root roit cubes they all rooted well then with it being me 1st go at it i stuck straight in under a 400 hps an with in a couple of hours al the lafs were sriveld up an dry.so i root 10 more in root roit cubes again'only this time i get some 3 inch rockwool cubes to.let em root in the 1 inch root roit stick em in the 3 inch rockwool an put em in me dripper system.an it happen again'me heads twated by now.so i was told to let em root though the bottoms of the 3 inch rockwools so now i am every thing ok up 2 now but there still under the flouresents in there humidity tank i got stem rot on 8 of em so only 2 alive with roots well hanging out of the bottom so i can put me system up now,im rooting some unkown seeds now to fill the other 8 pots.

let your plants harden off first and they wont die, put them a 1 foot or 2 away from the light, they have to get use to the light first. after a couple days put them directly under.

i think thats what your asking


later

Lookin good thumbsucker

bob4eva said:

Yes i know its best to learn it yourself but i don't want to kill my girls.Do you use this cycle from seed to finish? The instructions on the system said use 15minutes on and 15 minutes off for the whole day, do you think this is a good time.

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No when i first started man i was only turning pumps on for 2 minutes out of every our, but they started to wilt, i changed it to 10 minutes then 20 then 30 then finally stoped at 45 minutes, they stoped wilting between watering and they are going strong man

KTOWNGUY said:

No when i first started man i was only turning pumps on for 2 minutes out of every our, but they started to wilt, i changed it to 10 minutes then 20 then 30 then finally stoped at 45 minutes, they stoped wilting between watering and they are going strong man

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KTOWN is right, they like being watered. I would not put them in the system until they are showing roots out of the rockwool cubes. When you put them in the system, start with 1/4 strength solution.

Im thinking the lucas formula might be a good way to go with lowryders. What is your fertilizing plan?

I am using technaflora nutes. I was told by others who grow lowryder, to be easy on the nutes at first. I won't feed for the first week and a half to 2 weeks. Then i'll start with 1/4 strenght and work my way up to 3/4 strenght. I was planning to turn on pump 30 mins on and 2hrs 30mins off, when the plants are very small (ph adjusted water 1st week- 2nd week) and then 30 mins on and 30 mins off the rest of the way with nutes level ncreasing each week (end of 2nd week 1/4 strenght, next week 1/2 strenght, next week 3/4 strenght and i'll most likely stop here). Remember that the 30 mins on and 2hrs 30 mins off will be just ph adjusted water since i wont feed so early. What do you think?