switching to hydro?

billybob88 said:

dirty hydro growers dont scrub their res when they change it. lol and they usually tend to smell bad.

Click to expand...

Kind of like a bong not cleaned out for awhile eh?

i'll never change. it works for me.

I tried my best at hydro and possibly would have pulled off a grow if I hadn't burned my babies up by having the HID light too close and it getting 95 degrees in the grow cabinet. But the grungy fungus-filled rock wool, making sure the pH was right, adding nutes every week, checking the ec, ppm, pH, temp, adding ice packs, etc, etc. was really a PIA. NonGreenThumb has shown me the light on some of my mistakes; I now know that light + nutes = algae so I cover my rock wool. I bought some Fox Farms Happy Frog soil and I'm going to start a grow in that in the next week or so. I'm mixing that with a bag of Miracle Gro Organic Choice, some bone meal, some blood meal, some perlite, and some dolomitic lime. It's probably slower but should yield better quality bud. Next spring I will have some clones ready to go outside to bask in the great outdoors. Since I have so much invested in my hydro unit, I'll keep on plugging at it, trying to get a crop to fruition but I'm not putting all my eggs in one basket anymore; I'm doing rock wool for now, soil in a week or so, then probably firing up the hydro again.

Im not 100% now lol

can someone explain to me the basics of hydro quickly ( i dont want a link i can find links myself lol)
soil growing can be explained briefly in a few sentences.

put the germd seed in the soil
wait for the seed to sprout then put them on 18/6 lights
change pot for bigger pot, top up soil
when you want to flower put them on 12/12 lights
maybe change for another bigger pot, top up with soil
add blooming nutes..
wait
harvest

iToke said:

Im not 100% now lol

can someone explain to me the basics of hydro quickly ( i dont want a link i can find links myself lol)
soil growing can be explained briefly in a few sentences.

put the germd seed in the soil
wait for the seed to sprout then put them on 18/6 lights
change pot for bigger pot, top up soil
when you want to flower put them on 12/12 lights
maybe change for another bigger pot, top up with soil
add blooming nutes..
wait
harvest

Click to expand...

Essentially the same - except you are replacing soil w/hydrosystem.
you also have to drain and replace the water in the system at least every two weeks (depending on water usage possibly up to once a week). The pH can swing pretty wildly but if you keep an eye on it becomes easier to control.

You probably won't have to keep changing out the pot since the roots can grow right into the system.

There is also some nute tricks (but nothing too different from soil i don't think) like starting out with a very light nute solution and making it progressively stronger. And when you switch to 12/12 you can continue to give it veg nutes for a week then when you do switch to flower nutes, you once again start out with a light nute solution.

doesn't seem like too big a difference to me and the rewards are the same!

Hydor...take clones in rockwool cubes put them in your netpots with hydroton. fill res adjust ph and check nute ppm turn on walk away.Next day dip your ph meter and ppm meter in if need sprinle some ph adjustment and walk away.repeat every day. Once a week top off if need with bucket fresh ph water.6 weeks later harvest and repeat.

take clones?
my plants are to young/small i think

how do you check the nutes ppm ?

skunkstarxxx said:

how do you check the nutes ppm ?

Click to expand...

with a meter