I am sick of growing in soil - going hydroponic

concretetrees

concretetrees

New Member
I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this. I'm sorry if its not. I have 12 plants about 2 inches now.next month I'm switching up to hydroponic system. 6 plants probly. I think the plants will be about 12 to 14 inches by then.can I use them to place in my system?or do I need to go smaller. My grow space is just big enough for a 50 gallon deep water tote.Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks... Love and Respect.
 
Re: I am sick of growing in soil. going hydroponic.

concretetrees said:
I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this. I'm sorry if its not. I have 12 plants about 2 inches now.next month I'm switching up to hydroponic system. 6 plants probly. I think the plants will be about 12 to 14 inches by then.can I use them to place in my system?or do I need to go smaller. My grow space is just big enough for a 50 gallon deep water tote.Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks... Love and Respect.
Click to expand...

You can go from soil to hydro fairly easily. I use clay pebbles (Hydroton) and put about an inch of them into the container, put the plant (Thoroughly cleaned) on top of that and fill the rest of the way with Hydroton to stabilize it in place. You may want to hand water until you see roots poking out of the container in it's search for water. Go easy on the nutrients for the first couple of feedings or you will burn them up. I'd say reduce the strength by at least half.
 
Re: I am sick of growing in soil. going hydroponic.

ParkinsonsPat said:
Hi, I have a set up I bought with drip ring and clay pebbles, aerator etc. I started my seeds in mushroom soil and the shot up 2nd day out. They are a little tiny bit leggy and I am afraid to wash off soil and place in pebbles with water. They are 24 days old. Am I being stupid?
Help.....
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Pics please, there is a link in my signature explaining how to upload photos.

But I think you should be fine.
 
I started my blimburn mango and I flowered it at 6" tall. She is doing good now. I put her in a hemppy pot. I'm using foxfarm big bloom since its 9 days in to flowering now. My question is how much" fert /oz "I should should use and and how often? I'm also starting 2 kc45,s and was wondering if thay can can be put on 12/12 at 8 to 10 inches?
 
I seem to have a lot of problems in soil.PH,pest Ect.I have got a mango in perlite and vermiculite now and it is doing better than anything I have put in soil.(himpy pot). It is so simple. I thought about going with a hydro setup but I think I'm just staying with my himpy pots now. If its not broke don't fix it is what I live by. If u got any advice on soil I could use it thought. I know a lot of my soil problems came from the fact that I had know way of testing the PH at the time. Being a noob to the soil thing. I hate to just give up on soil. I have been told soil is the best medium to use.
 
When switching them to hydro go with way less than half strength at first. Monitor them for a while then raise the ppm. Some nutrient/strain combinations will only need half strength nutrients at the most through there whole life. Sometimes less is more so be careful. Also get yourself a good ph pen and some backup drops and a ppm meter.
 
concretetrees said:
I seem to have a lot of problems in soil.PH,pest Ect.I have got a mango in perlite and vermiculite now and it is doing better than anything I have put in soil.(himpy pot). It is so simple. I thought about going with a hydro setup but I think I'm just staying with my himpy pots now. If its not broke don't fix it is what I live by. If u got any advice on soil I could use it thought. I know a lot of my soil problems came from the fact that I had know way of testing the PH at the time. Being a noob to the soil thing. I hate to just give up on soil. I have been told soil is the best medium to use.
Click to expand...

Hey- kind of thinking of making the switch right now too. Not sick of soil exactly but am sick of sweeping it up... Looking for something a bit cleaner.
Sounds like you already know- but indoors grow is near hopeless without some sort of PH testing.

-Mike Tbob said "You can go from soil to hydro fairly easily. I use clay pebbles (Hydroton) and put about an inch of them into the container, put the plant (Thoroughly cleaned) on top of that and fill the rest of the way with Hydroton to stabilize it in place. You may want to hand water until you see roots poking out of the container in it's search for water. Go easy on the nutrients for the first couple of feedings or you will burn them up. I'd say reduce the strength by at least"-----

I'm very curious about this too and don't mean to butt in on your post or anything Concretrees- but for those out there who have had experience and done this- you're talking about taking a 12" plant and basically washing it down to clean roots then switching to hydro? How much set back for the plant? Would this be a realistic regular option for someone who has both hydro and soil going in flower room (but not veg) ? Or more of an emergency thing?
 
Yes, it's that easy. I would say it only set the plant back less than a week. I think it's more of an emergency fix because plants are sensitive to being transplanted and the less you move them the better off they will be.

Weaselcracker said:
Hey- kind of thinking of making the switch right now too. Not sick of soil exactly but am sick of sweeping it up... Looking for something a bit cleaner.
Sounds like you already know- but indoors grow is near hopeless without some sort of PH testing.

-Mike Tbob said "You can go from soil to hydro fairly easily. I use clay pebbles (Hydroton) and put about an inch of them into the container, put the plant (Thoroughly cleaned) on top of that and fill the rest of the way with Hydroton to stabilize it in place. You may want to hand water until you see roots poking out of the container in it's search for water. Go easy on the nutrients for the first couple of feedings or you will burn them up. I'd say reduce the strength by at least"-----

I'm very curious about this too and don't mean to butt in on your post or anything Concretrees- but for those out there who have had experience and done this- you're talking about taking a 12" plant and basically washing it down to clean roots then switching to hydro? How much set back for the plant? Would this be a realistic regular option for someone who has both hydro and soil going in flower room (but not veg) ? Or more of an emergency thing?
Click to expand...
 
I want to try all aspects and mediums of growing. So far the Hempy pot is the best I have tryed. I seen a utube video showing how to make a hydro system using a 55 gallon tote,fish tank pump,small tub,air stone and pots using clay balls"can't remember what they are called"... Anyone know if this is possible? There is a lot of BS out there so its kind of hard to know what's true and what's not. Thanks to all of u for the advice so far. You all should get together and write a book...thank you.
 
concretetrees said:
I want to try all aspects and mediums of growing. So far the Hempy pot is the best I have tryed. I seen a utube video showing how to make a hydro system using a 55 gallon tote,fish tank pump,small tub,air stone and pots using clay balls"can't remember what they are called"... Anyone know if this is possible? There is a lot of BS out there so its kind of hard to know what's true and what's not. Thanks to all of u for the advice so far. You all should get together and write a book...thank you.
Click to expand...

Ha! That's great. This is exactly the tangent I'm on. Have the hydroton and coco now and am slowly piecing together what I need for this type of system. I'm going to switch over slowly and try one or two plants first because with me it seems like anything that can go wrong, will.
 
Gday concrettrees

I seem to have a lot of problems in soil.PH,pest Ect.
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pest are no different in hydro,and the ph is even more crucial,plants can be dead by the time you come home from work.not to scare ya but water growing is about perfection.

I transplant all my seedling from soil to water,I sit them in water for a hour or so,and rinse them off under the tap,a week later they take off like water growing should.

good luck man:volcano-smiley:
 
One power outage in hydro and ohhhhh noooooo. Keep that in mind. I love hydro but have lost lbs due to variables that are way out of my control with hydro. Soil is more forgiving or coco whatever you prefer. But hey maybe switching over to hydro will inspire you and I'm sure it will make you an all around better grower.
 
But hey maybe switching over to hydro will inspire you and I'm sure it will make you an all around better grower.
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thats a great point Dutty,i myself made the switch myself about 5 years ago,and that was the reason,just burned out on soil

and I do know the loss of power,it has bent me a couple of times,until I had the 20k generator installed,instant on, I never know there is an outage
 
Yeah a diesel generator in a sound proof box/room can be a life saver.

I prefer soil for a few other reasons. We have a big garden roughly half an acre. Well my veggies love my ocean forest leftovers. I till roughly 300 cubic feet every 30 days into the ground. So it gets reused. Also I like the independence the plant truly has in soil. But when it comes to efficency or production hydro hands down.
 
Being a recent Hempy convert myself, let me congratulate you on your choice of hydro systems to start with. Drain to waste hydro (hempy) has been awesome for me. I went from raising plants that didn't yield more than an ounce or two to big monsters with delicious buds.
I found the move from soil to hempy to be very natural and easy. If anything, I had to learn to relax and listen to my plants instead of worrying about the ppms.
You'll be very happy with the hempy results. I'm unable to maintain a recirculating hydro system, but I get similar results with hempy so I'm not too heartbroken.

/EndHempyLoveStory
 
I am glad that I was directed to this thread,

I too am going through a similar feeling about soil. That is because we are used to Hydro and only went to soil as an experiment, but quickly found we are slave to TIME and cant make crucial changes quickly as we can with hydro. I am in a situation where I have large veg plants but having trouble controlling PH.

So I have been searching the blog to see if I can Transplant my soil plants (which are over 12" high"over to Hydro using the HydroTon clay Pellets without any MAJOR adverse reaction from the plants. I know it is going to stress them anyways, just as any other transplant would, but the Shock of a new growing medium and nutrient introduction are what Im mostly concerned about.
I keep reading about Nutrient Lockout in Soil if the PH isnt right. And the fact of having to wait 1-2 weeks of flushing to correct a ph problem is just not feasible.

I just want to get back to what we know and are comfortable with, without the worry of having to scrap an entire batch of plants.

When I last checked, my PH was at 7.3-7.8 each plant was around the same range, I tried doing a lower ph in my feeding water like around 3.5 to try to get the ph offset and reduce, but dont think thats really working. My plants look big and healthy, but knowing there is a VARIABLE that I cannot correct quickly is just asking for trouble seeing as I am not familiar with soil.
 

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