I've been sucking valuable info off of this forum for some time now, so it's time to say thanks to everyone for answering all the questions I never had to ask!
Back to the subject at hand... how can I go back to dirt now that I've done hydro? Haha. I decided a few months back being an extremely long winter here in Canada to try my hand at hydro, just to see if it was all that it was cracked up to be. The project started near the middle of November '09. I was going to try DWC but then the guy at the hydro store convinced me try the continuous drip feed system that they sell. He claimed it was less effort of watching water levels and such. I guess I was easily convinced, as well they had a nice little Thai pepper plant run on that system in the store that was just busting with peppers. That got me excited for sure! Its got a bucket, I think it's 12L or 15L then I use the air pump to supply air to the fitting inside which then pushes the aerated water up the tube and onto the hydroton.
I also needed a light, and being this was just a test I couldn't justify any HIDs or T5 flouros so I just went simple and got a 40W daylight spectrum CFL for $10. I figured this should be ok for one plant. I then needed a plant, and being very impatient I decided to make use of a few pot-bound plants in a styrofoam cup that had been sitting on my windowsill for the past eight months. There were three plants stuffed into the cup so I graciously separated them and chose the fittest of the lot for my experiment. I'm fairly certain they are Carribean Red peppers. I wasn't sure how well it was going to adjust to it's new home in hydro but I washed off the roots the best I could and stuffed it in the basket with hydroton.
Here's the starting photo... Nov 22.
I started off with 1/2 strength nutrients, these were the hydro shop's house brand stuff...again keeping it cheap. The first week was rough, the pH was all over the place and I'm using this damn aquarium test kit matching colors and stuff. I'm now thinking maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all. I figured it could have been from using tap water so I started using distilled water. That and I think it finally got rid of all the dirt on the roots, things started sailing! My pH was locked in at between 5.5-6.0 for the whole week.
Low and behold, it was starting to spit out foliage. This was Dec. 11:
I think it was around the fourth week I decided I needed some more light, so I bought another 40W CFL. This time I got soft white. I increased the feed strength around the 3rd week as well.
Here was Dec. 18:
So in here is a bunch of boring nothing... I changed the water every week, that's about it. So this is how it progressed.
Dec. 23:
hoping I can continue this post, so I can include the other photos...
Back to the subject at hand... how can I go back to dirt now that I've done hydro? Haha. I decided a few months back being an extremely long winter here in Canada to try my hand at hydro, just to see if it was all that it was cracked up to be. The project started near the middle of November '09. I was going to try DWC but then the guy at the hydro store convinced me try the continuous drip feed system that they sell. He claimed it was less effort of watching water levels and such. I guess I was easily convinced, as well they had a nice little Thai pepper plant run on that system in the store that was just busting with peppers. That got me excited for sure! Its got a bucket, I think it's 12L or 15L then I use the air pump to supply air to the fitting inside which then pushes the aerated water up the tube and onto the hydroton.
I also needed a light, and being this was just a test I couldn't justify any HIDs or T5 flouros so I just went simple and got a 40W daylight spectrum CFL for $10. I figured this should be ok for one plant. I then needed a plant, and being very impatient I decided to make use of a few pot-bound plants in a styrofoam cup that had been sitting on my windowsill for the past eight months. There were three plants stuffed into the cup so I graciously separated them and chose the fittest of the lot for my experiment. I'm fairly certain they are Carribean Red peppers. I wasn't sure how well it was going to adjust to it's new home in hydro but I washed off the roots the best I could and stuffed it in the basket with hydroton.
Here's the starting photo... Nov 22.
I started off with 1/2 strength nutrients, these were the hydro shop's house brand stuff...again keeping it cheap. The first week was rough, the pH was all over the place and I'm using this damn aquarium test kit matching colors and stuff. I'm now thinking maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all. I figured it could have been from using tap water so I started using distilled water. That and I think it finally got rid of all the dirt on the roots, things started sailing! My pH was locked in at between 5.5-6.0 for the whole week.
Low and behold, it was starting to spit out foliage. This was Dec. 11:
I think it was around the fourth week I decided I needed some more light, so I bought another 40W CFL. This time I got soft white. I increased the feed strength around the 3rd week as well.
Here was Dec. 18:
So in here is a bunch of boring nothing... I changed the water every week, that's about it. So this is how it progressed.
Dec. 23:
hoping I can continue this post, so I can include the other photos...
