3' X 6' TRAY rockwool slabs/cubes/flood

19 girls in rockwool cubes on top of rockwook slabs in 3 x 6 tray. watering once a day by flooding an hour after lights come on. Being such newbs my roommate and I soaked our slabs as well as the cubes before planting our clones. But over the past couple weeks, the slabs were totally saturated and soggy, while the cubes were "damp" and it had just started to root throughout the cube.

Today I came home to new, fresh, unsoaked, and dry slabs of rockwool under my cubes that are nicely rooting through. My roomate believes that we were not supposed to soak the original slabs of rockwool for 24 hours because with the floodings, they just got too soggy and saturated. His belief is that these mew slans will stay damp since we didnt soak them. I just wish he would've told me he was gonna fo that but oh well... But is it a good dea? Or is it harmful to replace the medium just as the roots are about to grow into it.

any general tips would be good since it being my first grow. what i should and shouldn't be doing considering my circumstances and good stuff like that.

sorry for the shitty pics...

Would you say this is better than a dripper system?

I believe that soaking is a necessity to stabilize the PH in rockwool. Most just shake the water out after the soak, or use a "salad spinner" to remove the excess moisture.

Rockwool must be kept wet, but not soaked, or dripping, or sitting in standing water. You should not let it dry out. I flood my slabs once/day to 1 inch deep for 2 minutes during flowering. For veg, I flood every other day.

HTH

Here is a trick for getting RW very dry mate. Get yourself a 5 gallon paint strainer bag at Ace/home d etc. and do the old 'look the water will not fall out of the bucket' spinaroo.

Unity

potroast said:

Rockwool must be kept wet, but not soaked, or dripping, or sitting in standing water. You should not let it dry out. I flood my slabs once/day to 1 inch deep for 2 minutes during flowering. For veg, I flood every other day.

HTH

Click to expand...

Hey Pot, I noticed that you flood once a day. What does that do to the ec in your medium? I'm dialing in my 'run to waste' system, and not without some diffs. How often do you flush your medium to prevent EC build up?
Right now I water mine (1 gallon pots) 4x1min a day and I am wondering if a 1x4 min. would not kick growth up a notch since they are not soaked all the time?! Don't get me wrong, they are doing good, and I do not see any ill effects from watering, especially since I use h202, but I also know that RW holds a lot of water.

Thanks mate,

Unity

has anyone used the small rockwool cubes like Al B?

Rhodawg, the soaking before use is to stabilize the pH in the rockwool, by removing anything that might be left from the manufacturing process. Once they have been soaked, you can use one of the gentle flicking/spinning techniques suggested above to remove most of the water, and you'll be left with a dry cube that is ready to use.

soak the rock or youll be sorry..... are you growing all 19 in that tray???

I use a rockwool product called rockwool soak. I got it at bg hydro. It is a balanced presoak. I just started using that.

Before that i just phd to soak.

It is very hard to get big cubes dry. I got fucked up doing that also. Took a few weeks to straighten out. But they came through in the end.

Larger cubes hold more air. I use 4 in blocks in 5 in pots with mini cubes making up the diference.

after a 2 month veg the plants barely made it through the 4 in blocks.

I flooded once every few days in veg but when i got to flower i had to flood once a day. On a 3x3 i flood 11 gallons to get 1 in up the cubes. I use the same botanicare 3x3 you do. I am trying to get the stand and the res. I use a card table and a rubbermaid right now, so lucky you.

I suggeset soaking the cubes a few weeks before you need them. Then they will be dry.

Ps. i cant wait to see how the slabs work out for you. I love rockwool. It is a challenge to master but worth it for the ease and care it gives roots. Also you are gonna love taking care of rw ebb and flow, it is so easy. It is like soil watering. I dont even use a timer. I just plug in the pump every night for 3-5 minutes.

Mine are in pots o I can move themm around. I might try bigger 6x6x8 pots nrxt go around to see if plant get bigger. Ebay has an awesome deal for like 10 bucks.

How are things going? I like your setup. I'm curious why you didn't leave the white plastic bags over the tops of the slabs though. Those will see a ton of algae unless you've got something to take care of that. Any pics for us?