So i just made and started a hydroponic set up . Just starting off with two 5 gallon buckets . its a deep culture setup so i have water flow on the top that wets the roots (when i finally get roots) then cycles on the bottom and back into the main 5 gallon bucket where the pump is. My question to you all is, Do i need to keep the air rocks on while there just seedlings ? there are no roots exposed yet there only about 1 inch tall. Or is it a good idea to keep them on so the water has oxygen? thanks for any help. Ill add some photos
Looks like a really neat set up. I'm not super familiar with indoor hydroponics systems. But, considering your seeds have sprouted, I would forsure have the water around the root zone of the plants be oxygenated. I don't see why you wouldn't, considering that anaerobic water sets up an environment for root rot. There must be roots if the seedling has sprouted! I hope you made the right choice, I realize I may have responded a bit late.
Well a few things i will change after this grow are
(1)get black buckets, i didn't realize that the blue ones let so much light in. I might just paint the outside of these.
(2) make a mount for the water tubes on top so i don't have to use shish kabob sticks to hold them in place :)
(3) use bigger then 3/4 return lines on the bottom. when the water pump is on it drops about 1 inch in the reservoir bucket compared to the plant buckets.
(4) Get the baskets that are 2 piece instead of 1. Kind of a pain to unmount it from the 5 gal to check status of the roots..
Other then that the cons to me are
(1) Air pump is kinda loud .
(2) I Can't really move the buckets around with them all attached.
Pros
(1) They went from seed to this in about 15 days.
@Michael Steemsma I don't know if recycled nutrients is standard deep water culture, but I've only watched one youtube video LOL. It sounds like it's just hydroponics with aerated water in its fundamental form. What you have here is a recycling system, a little more advanced than your standard drain to waste hydroponics system. I'm really impressed with this set up. It honestly is almost like aeroponics the way you set it up with the water being sprayed right onto the root zone, which is an even faster way to grow than hydroponics. Almost aeroponics anyway. And thanks for the update. I think I'll be comparing this to the hydroculture technique, which involves less equipment. It's just a soil-less medium and a water reservoir on bottom. Supposedly gases are exchanged easily allowing for oxygenated water. I have my doubts, but the guy I heard it from runs an entire company using hydro-culture for air filtration plants so I can't say shit really haha
I've changed it to black buckets now and a bigger black resavore . I noticed that I have some leaves that are drying out. I may have added to much nuitriants .But I'll be keeping an eye out .
Very nice. Thanks for the pics. I was having a bit of trouble understanding your system at first but now I see the whole recycling system. The spaceship is ready for launch I can see lul. Can't wait to see'em flowering. And I see what you mean with the nutes there. Your plant leaves are curled upwards in your newer leaves, indicating a high E.C. The burn on bottom probably indicates a mobile nutrient burn, at least when categorizing elements by their mobility in plants. I think I've seen that burn before, it looks like a phosphorus burn. Do you customize your nutrients? It'd be really unusual to have a phosphorus burn when using a general "grow" formula. Is there any yellowing? Or are the spots necrotic? I've also heard plants crystallize powdery mildew spots w/ silicon, if you use soluble silicon supplementation. No matter what it looks like you barely overdid it if it's a nute burn. Not perfect, but the slight leaf curl looks good up top. They're just a little toxified. Maybe lessen your nute dose a tiny bit next nutrient change out and adjust from there, or dilute the reservoir a bit. Definitely keep an eye out
I'm using the lowest price nutrients from the store nearby. amazon link to what im using https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017H73708?tag=budsoflife-20 General hydroponics. Micro, Grow and Bloom . I even did 1/2 the recommended Nutrients
( recommended by the guy at the hydro store.) My PH was off for a while. I now have it about 6.2 but there was a point when it was above 8.5 for about 4 days.
There is no yellowing in the leaves they are green but totally dried out at the bottom. I thought maybe it was light burn but now i'm starting to wonder if the ph made the plants get nutrient lock . ( i'm still a newbie ). Ill take better pictures and im not sure why when i post them they rotate 45o :)
The light is throwing the color off a little bit. Everything is more blue then it really is . but I noticed it's even happening to my tomato plant as well. and thats in soil. separate from the hydro system. Just a little bit on the tomato but still notice it a little. This was a rescue tomato plant Saved it from almost dying.
Hmm. I see it appears to be unrelated to nutrients. Definitely not phosphorus. My guess would be the blue light, I should have asked what you were using before. They're definitely stout lul, so they're certainly getting enough blue light. The leaves look thick too, another indicator of a lot of blue light, as blue light promotes creation of stomata. Blue light also makes plants darker, donno if that applies here since the light is throwing off the color of the plants. My only other guess would be that you possibly brought in a disease with the other plant, like tobacco mosaic virus or something. Probably the lighting though. Is there a way to lessen the severity of the blue light? It might help. I'm less experienced with the lighting aspect of indoor grow ops than I am soil, BRIX, environment, etc. They some happy plants nonetheless, I'm sure the tomato plant is very grateful lol. Just to point out, I noticed some tip burn. That means you have a calcium deficiency, it's a very common disease. It wouldn't hurt to apply a left-handed soluble amino acid product to help chelate calcium cations or maybe some soluble calcium if you can supplement that in or both
Thanks for the info. I will try a bit of that and see what happens.
@Michael Steemsma Yeah go ahead and try it out... If you don't like what happens change it back! I wish I knew more about lighting. This website I was reading said "in the absence of blue/UV, some plants in the tomato (nightshade) family develop intumescences, or small blisters, on leaves, stems and petioles. This physiological disorder typically decreases as blue/UV radiation increases" (https://gpnmag.com/article/effects-of-blue-light-on-plants/). I really donno. Taking guesses here. Good luck man, so far only minor probs
Jan 1st with calcium and magnizium
I think u were right Johny .Needed some magnizium and calcium . Jan 10th pic update.
@Michael Steemsma Well shieeet they look great. Good job. And impressive foliage. Looks like youre gonna have a great sea o green my man! Thanks for the update.
3-10 update . Had a cracked bucket . woke up to 3 + gallons of water on the floor haha. fix that problem then had a root ball get stuck in the 3/4 inch return line . never again will i use that small of a line. Ill post some pictures. of how they are doing. Im very impressed they are doing this good considering they were seeds on Dec 27th :)
What strain is it ? that's a nice little crop.
New strain 😁 harlqharl/OG Kush . The Kush pollinated the HAR.
cool ! (-: ........
That sucks the bucket cracked! What happened exactly? The plants are still lookin' good!
Well the first (leak) i had was from the rubber grommet at the bottom. i didn't cut the hole big enough so when i pressed the pipe fitting in there it stretched the plastic of the bucket. then over time i think the vibration from the air line made it start leaking. Anyway 1 of the 4 plants up there was stunted and not growing . never got over 10 inches. so i pumped all the water out as much as i could and swapped out the good plant with the bad one then fixed my system up to run 3 buckets. (pain in ass 4 hrs later if you can imagine haha ) so THEN ........ i thought all was good till the next morning when i open the door and step into another inch of water on the ground DOW ! a root ball got stuck into the return line. so it pumped all of the water in the reservoir into a plugged up bucket.
@Michael Steemsma My apologies for the late response, I have been moving around recently and only had access to wifi some of the time. Thanks for that though. You always gotta leave room for calamity it seems... Sounds like your grow is still solid!