soil Soil vs Hydro starts experiment

juanitos · Jul 10, 2015

the roots are stuck in the pot. over time solution goes down below pots and they die. this isn't floating atm.

Weed · Jul 10, 2015

juanitos said:
the roots are stuck in the pot. over time solution goes down below pots and they die. this isn't floating atm.

Those seem like not very good pots, but even in expanded clay sometimes with new plants I have to water them with my nutrient solution manually until roots come out of the net cup.

juanitos · Jul 12, 2015

yeah they were cheap pots from thailand i think i either have to poke some holes in them or just trash em and go with
collars and have 0 media like a cloner
or hydroton / regular net pots

TRPV1 · Jul 12, 2015

Do you have an exhaust fan for the room to help control temps and bring in some fresh air? I'm a little skeptical about the kratky method for peppers, but I have seen some good results with it online. Personally, I'd rather use an air pump and diffuser in the reservoir for DWC. I also don't think rockwool is a great medium for DWC as it holds too much moisture, especially for seedlings. What are you using to test pH and PPM and what are your levels?

juanitos · Jul 12, 2015

Yeah but is not insulated very well so gets pretty hot quick. Its nice temp at night.
I was just mixing per mfg instructions. I know not very scientific. Ph was about 5.5-6. I'm getting a truncheon soon so I can read ec.
Yeah I think kratky is the same speed as soil think I need air for really fast growing.
I originally started this because I've seen aerogarden where there is ridiculous growth in 2 weeks and wanted to try diy the same result.

Yellowfin2na · Jul 13, 2015

Juanitos if you get a chance since you don't have a ppm meter yet, you should try cutting the dosage in half on a test plant and see if it works for you. I have found that manufacture recommendations are normally too high. Especially for young plants. Not only that they want you to use ore of their product faster so you buy more.

TRPV1 · Jul 13, 2015

I completely agree with Yellowfin. Manufacturer recommendations are usually WAY too high.

juanitos · Jul 13, 2015

ok i'll probably end this and restart when i have ppm and pots figured out.
i may get air pump and new light to test as well.

juanitos · Jul 16, 2015

this experiment failed due to
1. perlite cups didn't have enough holes / space for roots to go into solution.
2. no tds meter mean i have no idea what the solution was at.

I will fix these 2 issues and start a new topic.
failure is one step closer to success!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wiqdqhRs0k

Yellowfin2na · Jul 17, 2015

I use the blue 10 dollar ebay ppm meter and it works great. No need for a $100 meter that does the exact same thing.

I'm interested to see how perlite works. I've never actually seen perlite in person. Is it the squishy or hard?

juanitos · Jul 17, 2015

Yellowfin2na said:
I use the blue 10 dollar ebay ppm meter and it works great. No need for a $100 meter that does the exact same thing.

I'm interested to see how perlite works. I've never actually seen perlite in person. Is it the squishy or hard?

its feels like packing peanuts almost, lots of air but kinda hard

grantmichaels · Jul 17, 2015

that's the inception pic from my experiment growing lettuce in a gallon container of hydro nutes some years ago =)

TRPV1 · Jul 17, 2015

I haven't done a side by side grow, but for some comparison these are the hydro plants I did from last year vs. my soil plants from this year. Hydro was ebb and flow system with expanded shale medium.