Newbie Here

Hugo Phurst

Well-Known Member
Hi, I strongly recommend getting a couple of grows in (for the experience) before trying hydro.
Hydro will produce bigger harvest faster, but it's not near as forgiving as soil. With soil you have days to fix a fuck-up, in hydro you have hours, hydro is more labour & time intensive than soil.

I started in potting soil, did several years DWC and have (because of the time and effort of hydro) switched to Pro-Mix.

Good luck
 

Johiem

Well-Known Member
I've done soil(i sucked at it) DWC (fucking rocked, but ran myself ragged) and am currently in coco and doing well. DWC is absolutely unforgiving. Even a day with your Ph out of whack will effect if not kill your plants.
I'd agree with Hugo couple grows in soil (if it works for you) to learn the basics then step up. Here's a good analogy
Soil=the family sedan. Solid, steady, slow.
Coco& peat mixes = sports car. Faster, requires more attention, less forgiving than soil but repairable.
Soil less and aquaponics= a dragster. Fastest, highest performance, highest maintenance, and when it goes bad, its disastrous
 

7CardBud

Well-Known Member
I've done soil(i sucked at it) DWC (fucking rocked, but ran myself ragged) and am currently in coco and doing well. DWC is absolutely unforgiving. Even a day with your Ph out of whack will effect if not kill your plants.
I'd agree with Hugo couple grows in soil (if it works for you) to learn the basics then step up. Here's a good analogy
Soil=the family sedan. Solid, steady, slow.
Coco& peat mixes = sports car. Faster, requires more attention, less forgiving than soil but repairable.
Soil less and aquaponics= a dragster. Fastest, highest performance, highest maintenance, and when it goes bad, its disastrous
Pretty much nailed it on the head, except after a little experience I think DTW in buffered peat can be as easy, if not easier than soil.


I agree some methods are intimidating.....here is what I envision if I ever tried high pressure aeroponics.
 

Mr. Mohaskey

Well-Known Member
I've done nothing but dwc, rdwc, and fallponics. I am constantly on this forum trying to learn more, every single day. And if you mess something up you will know right away, and have to react quick. Lots of experience and help on this forum too. However once you do a few runs and dial in your process, it almost automates everything. First run I was checking all parameters every single day. Now I just peek in once a day, mainly because I like to finaggle and look. In reality I could probably go at least a week without having to check anything. Pros and cons of any type of grow. Research them all and find one that intrigues you. So, which suites you?
 
I started in hydro and eventually moved to soil with dry amendments for many reasons. DWC is very labor intensive, and like everyone else has said much less forgiving. I did three grows in DWC and was mildly successful. By my second soil grow I was producing weed better than I could buy. So in a way you could say starting in hydro benefited me by teaching me the basics very fast. What to do and not to do and how the plant behaves in general and how to read a plant. In hydro everything is directly related. Ph has to be managed and will swing up or down based on ppm. Temperature of your reservoir is very important, which was always a struggle for me. Lots of ph adjusting, lots of res changes, lots of overall babysitting and maintenance for a newbie. Now I’m in living soil with amendments that take days-weeks to fully become available to the plant. Complete opposite of hydro lol, and wayyyy more chill. DWC can be expensive to get setup properly also. It all comes down to why you’re growing I guess. You want to really challenge yourself and go through a grow boot camp and money or yield isn’t important, then go for it. Who knows, maybe you’ll love it and knock it out of the park. Lots of peeps start in DWC and never look back.
 

7CardBud

Well-Known Member
Done all styles of growing. Promix in pots the way to go for me. No room for error in hydro.
That's what I finally settled on. I collected rainwater and ran everything on 3 part fertilizer with 1/4 sprayers last season. All the garden veggies, herbs and the devil's lettuce loved it....except for the tomatoes, the N was a bit high.
 

conor c

Well-Known Member
Soil and organics for the win the why its simple in my opinion it gives the best tasting bud with coco being a close second also its easy and you got the buffering factor vs hydro so even as a noob if you do make mistakes its more forgiving it all comes down to personal preferences i guess and alot of folk on here will probably disagree with me to each to there own what you like and whatever works for you go with that op just ime thats what i like and what i found works best for me
 

PURPLEB3RRYKUSH

Well-Known Member
Soil and organics for the win the why its simple in my opinion it gives the best tasting bud with coco being a close second also its easy and you got the buffering factor vs hydro so even as a noob if you do make mistakes its more forgiving it all comes down to personal preferences i guess and alot of folk on here will probably disagree with me to each to there own what you like and whatever works for you go with that op just ime thats what i like and what i found works best for me
Soil for outdoors not indoor
 

gooshpoo

Well-Known Member
Doing hydro is a real pain, when working with multiple reservoirs it becomes very time consuming. Hydro also cost alot of money, The nuets tend to cost more, the set up has more maintenance and unless you have a lot of money to sink into like a nice floraflex system with automatic dosers its to much work for small scale. Not saying people dont have success because its a very good way to grow it just is a entire can of worms you dont need to open yet.
Soil is the way to go for first timers get you some Promix hp and some gaia green plenty of information on this system very user friendly and cost efficient great yeilds. you also dont need a bunch of equipment just some pots and trays.
 

conor c

Well-Known Member
Doing hydro is a real pain, when working with multiple reservoirs it becomes very time consuming. Hydro also cost alot of money, The nuets tend to cost more, the set up has more maintenance and unless you have a lot of money to sink into like a nice floraflex system with automatic dosers its to much work for small scale. Not saying people dont have success because its a very good way to grow it just is a entire can of worms you dont need to open yet.
Soil is the way to go for first timers get you some Promix hp and some gaia green plenty of information on this system very user friendly and cost efficient great yeilds. you also dont need a bunch of equipment just some pots and trays.
I agree if you wanna go hydro eventually then thats up to folk themselves for beginners especially dirts just easier
 

MtRainDog

Well-Known Member
Hydro works best running all the same strain, or even better, all the same cut in a run. Shared DWC or RDWC setups are not really designed for handling different plants with different requirements.

Even DTW is better suited running all the same plant.
 

conor c

Well-Known Member
If u like more chance of bugs roaming that's ur choice
Thats part of it tho not all bugs are bad in all my years of growing in dirt worst ive had to deal with mostly is odd fungas gnat its annoying but manageable ive never had it real bad maybe i been lucky
 
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