snowbound
Well-Known Member
First time growing hydro. Many years ago I grew plenty in and out but all in soil. With full legalization here in Canada I figured I would give hydro a chance.
Using the drip method with clay pellets. This right off the bat turned out to be the most challenging thing to get right. I presoaked the pellets in 5.3 PH water. But this was after I had rinsed them with tap water. And my tap water is at about 7.5 PH. This was my first mistake, and it nearly killed me before I got out of the gate. I could not control the PH at all, just kept getting too high too fast. I figured the rinse in tap water was my problem. I pulled the plants from the buckets ( they were nearly dead at this point so I did not think I had much to lose ) and thoroughly soaked the pellets again at 5.3 PH. Put plants back in the buckets and off we went. PH was under control and things made a dramatic change for the better.
I am using a 6.5 x 6.5 x 6.5' grow tent. I have a 20" carbon filter hooked up and this also vents my 2 1000 W HID lights. For veg I used 1 MH and 1 HPS 1000W air cooled lights. Room temp is typically from 75 to 80'. RH is low. I cannot get above 30%, this is even with a humidifier running 24/7. The inline exhaust fan just takes it all away. Even used two wet towels at the same time, no go. With lights off and main exhaust fan off np to get RH up at 70%, but as soon as lights come on with the fan that is brought down to the mid 20's in no time.
The plants are in 20l pails with 10" mesh pots. I started out with 5 buckets, 4 for plants and one for reservoir. This I quickly realized was too small and subject to a lot of fluctuation in PH and EC. So I got a 95 l tub and now use 80 l of nutrient solution. I keep the bigger one outside the room to better manage temps and pump into the plants and back to the reservoir from the 5th bucket inside tent.
I started the plants off at one feeding cycle of 15 mins on and 45 mins off. This quickly got to 15 on and 15 off for lights on cycle. I use GH triple nutrient mix along with Calmag. Seedlings started off at .6 EC and during veg I got them up to 1.7 EC just before flipping cycle.
Here are the plants on Dec 12th.
Using the drip method with clay pellets. This right off the bat turned out to be the most challenging thing to get right. I presoaked the pellets in 5.3 PH water. But this was after I had rinsed them with tap water. And my tap water is at about 7.5 PH. This was my first mistake, and it nearly killed me before I got out of the gate. I could not control the PH at all, just kept getting too high too fast. I figured the rinse in tap water was my problem. I pulled the plants from the buckets ( they were nearly dead at this point so I did not think I had much to lose ) and thoroughly soaked the pellets again at 5.3 PH. Put plants back in the buckets and off we went. PH was under control and things made a dramatic change for the better.
I am using a 6.5 x 6.5 x 6.5' grow tent. I have a 20" carbon filter hooked up and this also vents my 2 1000 W HID lights. For veg I used 1 MH and 1 HPS 1000W air cooled lights. Room temp is typically from 75 to 80'. RH is low. I cannot get above 30%, this is even with a humidifier running 24/7. The inline exhaust fan just takes it all away. Even used two wet towels at the same time, no go. With lights off and main exhaust fan off np to get RH up at 70%, but as soon as lights come on with the fan that is brought down to the mid 20's in no time.
The plants are in 20l pails with 10" mesh pots. I started out with 5 buckets, 4 for plants and one for reservoir. This I quickly realized was too small and subject to a lot of fluctuation in PH and EC. So I got a 95 l tub and now use 80 l of nutrient solution. I keep the bigger one outside the room to better manage temps and pump into the plants and back to the reservoir from the 5th bucket inside tent.
I started the plants off at one feeding cycle of 15 mins on and 45 mins off. This quickly got to 15 on and 15 off for lights on cycle. I use GH triple nutrient mix along with Calmag. Seedlings started off at .6 EC and during veg I got them up to 1.7 EC just before flipping cycle.
Here are the plants on Dec 12th.
I switched over to two 1000W HPS for flowering today as well.
