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First time hydro-growing - few questions...

DonDix

DonDix

Hi everyone! :-)

Now I could not resist anymore and had to try hydroponics... I read alot here and that way I have come a long way in understanding the princip...

I have build 2 bubble-buckets and bought a WaterFarm...

Bubble buckets
- When transplanting a sedling into the netpot filled with lecanuts will the roots then get the nutrient solution when the reservoir level is under the netpot? Maybe I misunderstood how to start plants in these systems?

WaterFarm
- Transplanting a sedling into the middle of the drip ring will ensure that the roots will get the nutrient solution, but the plant is not using alot of the solutions in a week or two? Is it really necessarry to empty and clean the reservoir that often untill later? I'm placing the systems under LED lights... If so - what are you guys doing with all the used solution?

Nutrients solution
- After reading threads here I desided to go for the GH Flora series as this is the one I can get at my local hydroshop and I see alot of you guys using it as well... I don't have an EC-meter and don't have any plans investing in it right now... But If I go to http://www.genhydro...._US/fchcol.html I can fill in the forms with a ratio of 1:1:1 and find a solution that will be around 400-600 ppm - will I be okay to use solutions like that from sedling and forward? Knowing that the tapwater quality also is a factor of the resulting ppm...

I do have PH-strips and PH-Down...

Thanks guys - have a nice day! :-)
 
In the seedling stage the net pot does not need to be submerged in the solution, but don't let the media dry out completely. You will find the roots will reach for the solution within a week or two.
You don't need to replace your nutes as often at the beginning of your grow, unless you have excessive algae grow or pest problems. As your plants grow and absorb larger quantities of nutrient solution, you will want to flush/ clean your system more frequently. Use spent nutrients for other plants in your garden or soil containers.

400-600 ppm should be adequate for seedlings. As your plants grow, you may want to increase ppm to around 750 depending on the stage of growth.

Hope this helps.
 
with those buckets the sheer amount of agitation and "bubble popage" will generally keep the net pot plenty wet.
i used to cram the rock wool to the bottom, and fill the rest with geolite, with that arrangement the bottom of the rock wool get tons of contact with the mist generated by the "bubble popage". none the less i would pour a cup or so of water over them every once and a while just to be sure... untill the roots hit the water in spades. probably not necessary tho.

changing the water among other things ensures you maintain a relatively constant ratio of available nutrients. msot plants use way way way more nitrogen for example, than say magnesium. there might be enough sulfate in solution for a plant to grow for months, but not nearly enough nitrogen. nitrogen might get depleted in weeks or w/e.
anyway an ec meter is good for finding these things out. when the EC is dropping you can assume the net ion concentration is dropping too. for example, when i did high pressure aero, the ec going into the mist heads would be 2x the ec of the run off collected inside the condensate pump.

there are a number of other reasons to change the water tho. considering that its a nice warm environment with some amount of light shining on it in many cases, its a good environment for all kinds of microorganisms. fungi has 0 problem growing in it we all know this. bacteria? idk it probably can grow in regular hydro nutes, idk really tho. bacteria in my experiance want organic sources of food like sugary crap and organic waste etc. anyway changing the res will remove what ever is accumulating in your reservoir, cleaning it will kill w/e is growing hopefully preventing any harmful stuff from accumulating.

another angle to this is to simply keep the reservoir from growing crap by adding chemicals to sanitize the water like chlorine or h202. i use the former, chlorine has an excellent and useful residual presence in solution for many many hours. h202 will not.
in the case however... where you have a large plant consuming alot of water and nutrients you will have to replace nutrient and water in large quantities anyway, and hence a reservoir change becomes more of a function of maintaining the plant and less of a preventative measure. in this case one might not even bother sanitizing the water because it is changed daily.

you do not need an ec meter to prepare a nutrient solution in the first place. with careful calculation you can make a solution to any volume you want provided you KNOW what the volume is in the first place. you can even make a concentrated solution such that one gallon will make 100 gallons of plant usable nutrient solution. its important however to note that tap water will start with dissolved minerals. these come from ground water sources of natural minerals like carbonate rocks and gypsum deposets and crap like that. however carbonate is not usefull to a plant untill it is broken down into Ca2+ ions, this occurs in very very low concentrations, so you can largly ignore the carbonate as it contributes comparatively little available calcium.

ec becomes usefull however when you are measureing the water after say a week, in order to evaluate how much the plant is consuming. its generally a cheap instruments comparatively... id highly recommend getting one, even a cheap one will suffice. in my case, i run a drip to waste setup out doors. my plants are in large rockwool slabs that are getting like 100ml x3 or x6 emitters and will runoff some amount of this runoff. what the pros do, is measure this runoff, and adjust the drippers such that the volume is about 10%, and the ec is like 3.5 or 4. when these conditions are met, tomato's, and bell peppers are generally less vegetative and more fruit productive.
 
Thanks guys... I'm really thanksfull that you took the time to answer... :-)

Now I understand why the change is important... And I can see why the EC-meter is important now when its not only a questing of measuring when mixing the solution... Maybe I should search for cheap EC-meter... I saw one that I would not consider cheap at all and didnt search any further... :-)

A little topwatering in the first week for safety reasons... Can't wait to get startet... But I need to wait a little more untill the sedlings get a more true leaves...

Aint't the chlorine killing the plants?
 
for an EC pen i would reccomend this
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-in-1-EC-Conductivity-TDS-Temperature-Meter-Tester-ppm-ppt-uS-mS-C-F-w-ATC-/181034757144?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a26832c18

its basically the same thing everyone uses in their mid range pens. exetech etc all use the same thing i suspect. look.

http://www.amazon.com/Waterproof-Conductivity-Meter-Sper-Scientific/dp/B0039V980K/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1354577658&sr=8-17&keywords=conductivity+meter

anyway, this thing is good because it allows you to calibrate to any solution. i have a bottle of 1413 so i use that. when i first calibrated it, it was barely off at all. if you use it lots might as well get a good bottle of calibration solution tho.
it can display temp and ec independantly, the temp sensor is way slow tho, needs like 20 seconds to stabilize. i think it floats? havent tried tho.

anyway its comeing from china, so order sooner rather than later, because i will take like 2 weeks to get to you.

if you want something super rugged tho, might want to shell out for that blulab stick, i hear its indestructible. spendy tho.


and no chlorine as in bleach. will not kill plants in normal concentrations. idk what it is exactly, but like 1 or 2 drops per gallon of the 5% household stuff is like 1 or 2ppm per gallon.i dont remember exactly.

elemental chlorine is Cl2 gass. it is not used at all in the laundry room.

the sanitizer part of bleach is HClO or hypochlorous acid. its important to understand that "bleach chlorine" is not Cl- (or chlorIDE ion) so adding NaCl to your water only yields chloride anions and does not produce any "bleach chlorine".

i see more and more people are confusing the two. its understandable tho because people use chlorine and bleach interchangeably, so one naturally assumes bleach=chlorine... and from high school chemistry chlorine = Cl2
 
Well, at that kind of prices I don't see a reason for risking my plants getting the wrong treatment... I have ordered now - the price I found yesterday was nothing like that... The PH-strips is not the most accurate, but I beleive they will do it... :-) - if not I see that I can get a digital ph-meter around 10$ - that's nowadays around the price of a beer at a bar here i Denmark...

About the chlorine I will go ask my brother - he's studying chemistry, so he might be able to find me the "correct chlorine" at the supermarket according to your description... It would be great to have control of all the "crap" as well... ;-)
 
ph strips are fine. digital meters are cool for when you cannot get a good color reading like with soil runoff, or for soil/distilled water slurries.

chlorine disinfection is super common, and hence there is tons of information on it. heres a calculator for 5% house hold bleach.
http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/chlorined2.cgi
0.06902 mL/gallon per 1mg/l.

so 100 gallons you use 6.9ml to achieve 1mg/l. or 13.8 ml to reach 2mg/l.
mg/l is interchangable with PPM basically.

what concentration of bleach you want to use depends on what your are trying to achieve basically. if you want to just kill the stuff off every couple of days, then go to like 2mg/l. if you want to maintain a residual level go like .5mg/l 24/7.
its important to know that aggressive aeration will remove hclo from the water quickly, so i wouldn't bother trying to maintain a residual value, just go to like 1 or 2 every once and a while as a preventative measure. if you actually have something growing you can see or w/e, try to maintain like 1ppm at least for a while. i know from waste water treatment they go to like 2ppm free chlorine in the contact chambers for at least 30 minutes. they use chlorine analyzers that are usually just little reagent dispensing machines with a colorimetric sensor to monitor the free chlorine, and add more or slow the dispensing down based on a little feedback circuit. this is all before they are allowed to discharge any treated water into a river or lake or w/e. this kills all the bacterial and what have you that makes it through all the digestion.

TBH i used to add chlorine to my reservoir like daily, but got tired of it. i used to have it on a float valve, and would just monitor the EC and add back acid and fertilizer when the ec was halved.
i now just let the res run down to empty, then refill and re dissolve a new batch of fertilizers and acid. this takes about 10 days give or take a rain delay, and i have found it does not need chlorine. this requires like 10 minutes of my time every week or w/e as opposed to a few minutes of my time every day.

anyway you can get kits to test from anypool store, altho they might be more rare in europe, here in the states everyone has a pool. hence they are like 10 bucks, id reccomend a simple taylor free chlorine kit if you can get one.


edit: yea talk to your brother, because the free chlorine math is real easy. i dont want to make an ass of myself tho and try to type it all out, but you are basically calculating the molar concentration of HCLO you need to get 1mg in a liter of water. then working out how many ml of your 5% solution of NaClO that is. you must keep in mind that HCLO is a weak acid, and reacts in an equilibrium reaction that are sensitive to PH and other things. where as strong acids just disassociate completely.. not sure how you take that into account, if you have to include ph(Ka)in the calcs or if there is an acceptable constant you can use.
 
Thanx alot for your time, queequeg... Just talked to my brother and we are going to find the right someday and do the math... :-)

Now I'm more confident with the project... ;-)
 
Well I'm pretty convinced that I also will be ordering a ph-meter soon... But ph between 5.5 and 6.5 should be possible to hit with the strips... :-)

Now I'm here writing anyway...

I'm considering to transplant and get startet now... I have sedlings in jiffy-pellets right now... They all are starting to put out second set of true leaves now... In the bubbler buckets I think that the easiest way to get started is just to transfer the whole jiffy into the nuts since theres only a airstone which can't clog up... But in the WaterFarm I will carefully rinse of all the soil (I have for this plant allready removed the jiffy "net"), open up a soaked rockwool cube and carefully put the plant inside without squezing... But would it be better to wait with this risky operation untill the plant is bigger?
 
Why does the ph rise so fast? The small plants cant be the reason at this stage... Is it normal to adjust after two days?
 
DonDix said:
Why does the ph rise so fast? The small plants cant be the reason at this stage... Is it normal to adjust after two days?
Click to expand...

old thread... but i missed your post.

number of reasons that water will change ph, but by what PH is it changing by?

first is that co2 will dissolve into your water, second is that your water may evaporate.
note that most fertilizer salts are either generally ph neutral, or slightly acidic(mkp) or slightly basic...potassium silicate is the only one i can think of.
 
All good info.. I grew Peppers both in the soil and in bubble buckets this year and by far the hydro plants out preformed. Pepper plants are very forgiving in the hydro buckets. I travel alot so some times i didn't check the ph or nutrients for weeks at a time, and only change the water may be twice in 6 months. My plants are still producing in January with the temps in my green house going down to 28 on some nights. As long as i keep the frost off of them they are fine. I still have one pepper that is blooming now.
Tip : Make sure that you have an oscillating fan to blow across the young plans. This will strengthen the stems as they grow. Otherwise you are going to have limp pepper plants and will have to support them. And nobody likes a limp pepper.

(Best thing i did for my hydro) I got a cheap 55 gal rain barrel and put an air stone in it. Then i set the ph and nutrient level for the whole thing.. Much easier than doing the small batches.
 
Well that sounds right to me... I'm adjusting the PH every 3 days and things going great - allready see a difference in the grow compared to those in soil... I was just surprised that I was going to use more PH-down than nutrients... :-)

Thanx for taking you time to answer me... :-)
 
you can try adding more ammonium.
when a plant takes up ammonium it will yield a free hydronium or H+ ion. this will acidify the soil or solution. i think the general rule is like 1 or 2% ammonium in a hydroponic DWC type setup.
that little bit of ammonium should help offset that tendency for the ph to swing higher.
 
Okay... Well - then I just need to find some of that... Will read the ingredients on the flora series to see if any of them contains that... :-)
 
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