New to growing

Xrtnfx · Nov 10, 2009

Hey guys, I've been looking around the threads here for a while trying to pick up some tips for growing. This forum turned out to be a huge help with many aspects of my grow, and I am very pleased I took the time to read a lot of the posts.

Little background - I decided to grow for the challenge of it, and to create another hobby for myself. I don't smoke much, so most of what I grow will be used with or given to my friends as I dont intend to sell it. I have been in the aquarium hobby for quite some time now, and that greatly influenced my use of hydroponics. I am an engineering major, so everything I use is DIY. Side note - It's funny how different people are. Just the other day when I was building my second light structure my roommate asked if I was doing a school project. I told him no, this is just how I relax. The look on his face showed me how different we are.

Anyways I am more of a "learn as I go" type of person. I basically built the hydro system very simple and I am constantly changing it to make it better. (This is the way I enjoy doing things). Any help is greatly appreciated, and any advice will be greatly appreciated.

I have been around different forums for many different things. Please remember I am new at this and I chose the "learn from my mistakes approach".

With all that being said here's the specs of my grow.

-2x 26W 6700k CFL for veg,
- 4x 26W 2700K CFL for flower
- Rubbermaid container approx 10gallon
- DIY sugar/yeast CO2 reactor placed above the plant
- Some fert from LOWES that I'm not sure about (seems to be working). I've only added about 2 cap fulls so far.
- The cheap Mylar (wrapping paper from dollar store)
- large air pump/2 6'' air stones
- rock wool, and gravel for substrate

My plant looks funny because I planted it with the guide root upwards.. Once I realized this mistake I flipped it over and it seems to be doing well. The seeds came from my friend who got them just from an ordinary bag.

My first question involves aquarium water. I have a freshwater aquarium that has been established for a while now. It has plants and fish, and is clean except for the fish waste. I figured this would be perfect water to use since it is naturally fertilized and free of chlorine. Is this correct? or is there something I am not taking into consideration? The plant seems to be doing fine so far with it.

Also I am thinking of buying some ferts online. Any suggestions? I was looking at "floranova bloom" for flowering perhaps?

Anyways any advice is welcome. I am doing this on a budget since its not my main hobby ATM, so go easy on me
:blsmoke:

Lt Shiny Sides · Nov 10, 2009

I'm not sure about the aquarium water, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. Your grow medium is WAY too wet. The tube should let just a slight trickle of water onto the rockwool and it should drain out pretty quickly. Also, growing 2 plants in one cup is not a great idea because they will definitely be crowded in there.

Illegal Smile · Nov 10, 2009

Read this link for an alternative. Also, you will soon need more light, especially in flower. And, you would do well to invest in some good hydro nutes like AN, GH or Humboldt.

Xrtnfx · Nov 10, 2009

I don't have any tubes leading to the substrate (EDIT: The tube you see delivers C02 to the top of the plant, I'm not sure if that’s the tube you are referring to).
It is just at the water line with bubbles underneath. I was thinking it was too low, but I didn't know how else to get the water to the plant. The wool is above the waterline by about 2 inches and constantly stays damp. How should I improve this?

-About the 2 plants, I am going to take one out soon, I just wanted to have a safety net incase one didn't work out.

- About the lights, you think 4x 26W 2700k is too few for flowering? If it is I can add some more when the time comes.

Xrtnfx · Nov 10, 2009

Thanks for the link Illegal Smile. I'm going to go adjust some things becasue they are too wet, like Lt Shiny Sides first pointed out.

concrete351 · Nov 10, 2009

you need to cover your water from light or youll get root rot. set it up kind of like this

Xrtnfx · Nov 11, 2009

Ok well, I covered the water up with some Styrofoam wrapped in Mylar. I also found out that there is a grow shop near my appt. so I went there to check it out. I bought some good Veg. Fert and some pH down. I figure my slow growth might be contributed to a high pH and lack of good nutrients, so hopefully this helps! Also I added another 26watt bulb, for some reason my lights smell like burnt plastic now and I’m not too sure why, hopefully this will go away.

Xrtnfx · Nov 11, 2009

Alrighty, well I am getting some slow growth so I decided to change things up a bit. I changed out all the water and brought the pH down to about 5.5
I added some new fert which is made for hydroponics. I only added a cap-full, does this sound right for this stage in growing? To me it seems like its not enough, but I dont want to over fert the plant. Any suggestions to why it may be growing slow are welcome! Attached is an up-to-date picture

Xrtnfx · Nov 12, 2009

It seems that the lowering of pH and the new nutes I added accelerated the growth a little bit. However the new leaves are yellow on the inside, but nice and green on the outside (as seen in the photo) is this normal?
Also I noticed the leaves drooping a little. What causes this? I was thinking lack of water but maybe I'm wrong.

Xrtnfx · Nov 12, 2009

Well it seems there were a ton of design flaws in my hydro system so I made a quick and easy DWC 5 gallon bucket system and switched my substrate to Hydroton and my pot to a net pot. I am going to try and re-plant this little guy and hopefully it will all work out.

HomeGrownHairy · Nov 12, 2009

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hey. That Co2 is most useful when established plants are actively growing, shut it off until plants pass through the transition stage and save the extra Co2 for use when they begin producing flowers. Holding off on extra carbon dixoide while plants go through the transition from growth to flowering should help keep plants bushy and compact and reduces 'stretching' problems.[/FONT]

Your plant shouldn't be setting in water like that.

Xrtnfx · Nov 12, 2009

Thanks for the advice HomeGrownHairy, I took the CO2 off, but it is a simple DIY CO2 system so nothing is really wasted except some yeast and sugar.

HomeGrownHairy said:
Your plant shouldn't be setting in water like that.

About the plants sitting in water, I switched to a DWC bucket and now my plant is sitting a few inches above the water. I also switched to Hydroton for substrate so hopefully my plant will have an easier time growing through that.

It seems like the plant isn't getting water now because of the gap. Is this normal? I dont want to starve it, but maybe the water it is getting through the bubble splash is enough? How do I know it is getting enough water?

As of now I'm not really even sure if the plant will make the transition from my Rubbermaid container to the bucket, but I guess I'll see in a few hours. Worst comes to worst I'll get some more seeds and try over, this time with a better system

concrete351 · Nov 12, 2009

just hand water until the roots hit the water

concrete351 · Nov 12, 2009

Xrtnfx said:
It seems that the lowering of pH and the new nutes I added accelerated the growth a little bit. However the new leaves are yellow on the inside, but nice and green on the outside (as seen in the photo) is this normal?
Also I noticed the leaves drooping a little. What causes this? I was thinking lack of water but maybe I'm wrong.

still looks quite wet ,ill wait to water until the wool dry out a bit

Xrtnfx · Nov 12, 2009

That picture is from my old system. How often do you hand water?

concrete351 · Nov 12, 2009

3 times a day

dbo24242 · Nov 12, 2009

you're gettin there, need a hole saw and proper netcop fittings and res size

Xrtnfx · Nov 13, 2009

Ok well today it seems like my plant is a little battered from the transition, but seems to be hanging in there. I'm just going to let nature take its course at this point and see how it turns out. Here are a few pics of the new setup:

Heres the new DWC bucket system:

Here it is with my removable Mylar wall in place:

Here a picture of the plant, a little crappy looking, hopefully it will make a recovery.

dbo24242 · Nov 13, 2009

Looks quite a bit better man just make sure its not tooo hot with the mylar slat and the light so close, that could also make problems.

gl man, I would be scared of that water level guage poppin seal and the bucket leakin everywhere, but thats just me.

one thing that might help you in the future is to not leave RW in standing water until the roots have developed a large enough system where they stick out of the wool. that way the rool won't oversaturate the roots. once roots are poppin out, stick it into the dwc, but the rw still shouldnt be submerged

Xrtnfx · Nov 16, 2009

Seems like I worked out most of the kinks in my system. My plant is back to growing after the transition, and everything is looking well. I changed the water and used less nutes and now the leaves are straightening out and everything is looking better

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