A few easy questions that struck me as a soil grower

Ok, i had a dream that i went to visit my grow room and upon entering the room i heard alot of noise, and as i walked in i realized i had a hydro set up, and all my pots and such were gone. So im like "cool" haha but in the dream i was constanlt in there fixing all these leaking hoses and stuff that were hanging from the ceiling, (dont forget this is a dream). And when i woke up and remembered the dream i developed a few questions.

1. Besides the humming noise from the ballast does a hydro/aero set up make any more noise with the pump and any other gadgets that yall use the soil guys dont.

2. Is water growing really as complicating as my dream as far and messing with the water and giving all the required attention any worse than soil?

3. For anyone who has grown both ways, which way is funner? lol

I'm on my first hydro grow, but I think I can answer some of your questions.

1. Besides the humming noise from the ballast does a hydro/aero set up make any more noise with the pump and any other gadgets that yall use the soil guys dont.
I'm not using a MH/HPS so there is no ballast hum for me. I am, however, using an air pump which is a tad on the louder side (not the best quality) so you can hear the vibration from that. When the doors are open, you can hear the bubbles popping as well.

2. Is water growing really as complicating as my dream as far and messing with the water and giving all the required attention any worse than soil?
It's really not all that complicated. You have to monitor the same things like PH etc, and this is very important in hydro. In the begning, I was using a PH test from the fish store, which was not accurate at all. Once I got a good quality digital PH tester, I noticed that my res' PH was fluctuating quite a bit, which was causing an NPK deficiency in my plants (it was about 7.5). Any mistakes or changes you make will be seen much more quickly than soil. For instance, if you over do the nutes, your plants will show nute burn much more quickly. This allows a little less room for mistakes, but all in all, it hasnt been too bad at all so far.


3. For anyone who has grown both ways, which way is funner? lol
I havent tried soil yet, but I think that no matter how you grow, it'll always be fun

thanks for the response man, hope your first grow works out for ya

I've done a very few, very small grows in both dirt and DWC.

With hydro there's definitely more noise because of the air pumps, and it does seem to take more attention than dirt.

But the upside with DWC is that there's no dirt to have to get rid of. And there are no damn bugs growing in the dirt. I've read you can have bugs in hydro too, but I had a bag full of bugs when I used Scott's organic potting soil. That's what made up my mind to switch.

As far as complication goes, DWC isn't. It's a bucket of water with two holes in the lid (made myself). One hole is for the net pot, the other for the air hose to the airstone. That's about all there is to it other than nutes, measuring spoons, and a pH meter. I don't check ppm because I change the nutes every week, so at most I have to top up with aerated water.

As far as which method is more fun, neither is. The fun part is smoking.

I think hydro is more fun because you are amazed with the difference in yeild. I do both because I dont have enough waterfarms. The hydro plants are massive compared to the ones in soil. Yeild is allways at least doubled. Once you have hydro down its just as easy as soil and a lot cleaner too!

If it ain't broke, DONT FIX IT.
Wherever there is soil, there is life.
It will be easier(funner) with soil.
When we add more variables into an equation it leaves more room for mistakes.
In my father's words,.... K.I.S.S. "Keep It Simple Stupid"

Sure Shot said:

If it ain't broke, DONT FIX IT.
Wherever there is soil, there is life.
It will be easier(funner) with soil.
When we add more variables into an equation it leaves more room for mistakes.
In my father's words,.... K.I.S.S. "Keep It Simple Stupid"

Click to expand...

haha yeah, this is soley out of curiosity my friend

Zatoichi said:

As far as which method is more fun, neither is. The fun part is smoking.

Click to expand...

Im glad we see eye to eye

Bubba Kushman said:

I think hydro is more fun because you are amazed with the difference in yeild. I do both because I dont have enough waterfarms. The hydro plants are massive compared to the ones in soil. Yeild is allways at least doubled. Once you have hydro down its just as easy as soil and a lot cleaner too!

Click to expand...

Is this somehting you know from experiance? I have a good all around knowlege with growing, and i know the benefits of hydro. I have heard from a few guys here that hydro has a beter yeild and i dont boubt it, but im curious as to if the yeold is really doubled

I cut 20 days off of my flowering time with Hydro(45 days) compared to 65 with Soil.
In a DWC/NFT have had a couple ready in 41 days, lucky sativa dom pheno I lucked into (sour diesel).

With perpetual harvesting, I am thinking speed is not as important.

Soil has many advantages, low profile, heat tolerance, manuverability, survivability ( big one).

Dumping the dirt = FAIL.

Hydro seems pretty easy to me ... but my setup is in a 4x5x8 closet and the MH light puts out some serious heat. Even with a vent into the attic my res temps hover between 75 and 85○. And that causes algae to grow really fast in the tank. I keep having to add h2o2 to kill off the algae.
I need to figgure out a way to cool the res water.

Ok well lets put it this way, you are a busy man right, have a job and kids and such. Who thinks soil is less work? Hydro would make me too pissed off with all the extra work that is involved, i guess what im really getting at is whether or not growing hydro and getting the bennefits outweighs all the extra trouble as compared to soil.

Slab said:

I cut 20 days off of my flowering time with Hydro(45 days) compared to 65 with Soil.
In a DWC/NFT have had a couple ready in 41 days, lucky sativa dom pheno I lucked into (sour diesel).

Click to expand...

I don't know how you did that, since flowering time is genetic, and does not change according to how the plant is grown. You're just harvesting too early.

What hydro does for us is cut the veg time required in half. And more importantly, grows better roots, and good roots is what makes good buds.

HTH

potroast said:

I don't know how you did that, since flowering time is genetic, and does not change according to how the plant is grown. You're just harvesting too early.

What hydro does for us is cut the veg time required in half. And more importantly, grows better roots, and good roots is what makes good buds.

HTH

Click to expand...

Haha, thats funny. Looks like someone was smoking some really nasty bud.

but hey Potraost, in your opinion in a percentage what would you say the yeild advantage is in hydro compared to soil.

I have never known anyone personaly that grew in water and never have myself, and i have alwase heard so many stories that seemed too good to be true. So i guess this is the real point to this thread.

potroast said:

I don't know how you did that, since flowering time is genetic, and does not change according to how the plant is grown. You're just harvesting too early.

What hydro does for us is cut the veg time required in half. And more importantly, grows better roots, and good roots is what makes good buds.

HTH

Click to expand...

with the root devlopement you speak of is excactly why the flower developement is MUCH faster in hydro then in dirt, you are maximising the strains genetic capabilities in hydro, not so in dirt.

Flowering time is not set in stone, and there is opening and closing harvest window in many strains as you may know POT. 50/50 clear cloudy is not unheard of, it is?
Some of us enjoy a speedy high that you won't get if you let it degrade till it is "finished"

So I have to respectfully disagree with you Pot, you will get to the harvest window much quicker in hydro.

I know yeild as in bulk suffers, but I am smoking a higher percentage of straight thc, CBD CBN etc makes me to paranoid.




Also , Say No To Drugs; I had the required trich ratio for my head and it tasted like lemons thank you very much

Ive grown in soil and in a homemade aeroponic system, there is no comparison. Aeroponic is much easier and is almost twice as fast. If you do your homework once and learn how to set everything up you will be paid off with free time and larger yields. No more soil to buy or get rid of, no more daily visits to water, i check my room twice a week usually and thats just to make sure the reservoirs are full pretty much besides that its on auto pilot

Yes, hydro growing will produce a better yield than soil because the veg time is about half as long, but flowering time is genetically encoded, no matter how the plant is grown it will take at least 8 weeks to mature, and longer to ripen. If you want to harvest after only 45 days of flowering, when the buds are still forming and ripening hasn't even started yet, that's your choice. Most growers harvest too early.

HTH

wow hydro takes 3 months soil takes 6 months. i mean be reasonable 24/7 lighting and constant feeding equals less time and more money. also you can never drown your plants ever in hydro. now with soil its a different story.