A noob's guide to doin it right the 1st time

hey i have a hydro hut mini set up and i will post a pic or 2 in the future. My problem is getting the carbon filter on the vent tube. i got everything else in check but have no clue with thef filter. I still have some time before i need my filter on my blower. would love to see a setup you got for a idea

Good luck Johnny. Compelling thread thus far. Don't give up buddy, I live near a college town as well and the cops round here are just itchin' to bust small time pot growers, so I feel you on that one.

OK. I noticed some funk going on in one of my reservoirs. This was not good seeing as how i had yet to add anything other than Ph down. By the way, nobody told you this, but you will go through a lot of the Ph adjusting stuff very quickly. At any rate, I took this as an opportunity to find out just how much work I was really getting myself into here. Obviously, as judging by photo 1, foam in the res. is never good. However, when your grow opp does not have a water source in the immediate vicinity, i.e. the same room, this can cause challenges. Water weighs around 8 pounds per gallon, and I have about 16 gallons per res. which means these mofo's weigh about 128 pounds in total. No way in hell I'm picking that shit up as what's left of my back would most certainly protest very loudly. Good thing I have auxilliary reservoirs to make water transfer to the bathtub a breeze.

Since I had both reservoirs out, I took this as an opportunity to address what was most certainly a weak link in the chain. The fact that I had been using metal spoons attached to my air curtains via zip ties to weigh them down. Ingenious you say? Not so much. This was bound to affect my reservoirs in a negative way. The problem being my air curtains were about an inch too long, and as you know, those suction cups are worthless on anything other than glass. I used a knife to trim the air curtains to size and used Locktite to permanently affix said air curtains to the bottom of the reservoirs. Now I have a much more even distribution of oxygen throughout. See pic #2.

Since I was changing out my reservoirs, I decided now was an ideal time to introduce a nutrient solution to my plants since the main taproot on 3 out of 4 had managed to probe down into the water. Anything to help after all. I used a very weak solution, less than 200ppm. I am hoping this will help speed things up here. My next post will include pics of my plants, as I am soon to exceed the maximum allowable number of picture attachments per post.

Each of these sproutlings is 4 days above the horizon. Not too bad if you ask me. I'm hoping these are all female since I have loved them like lovers. Or something. Only without the sex. Because that would be weird. Anyways, the first pic is my AK, the other 3 are my NL. I'm going to attempt to germ my last 3 AK seeds, because I really need both strains. I like my Indica's to help me sleep, and my Sativa's to help me not care about my shitty job without bogging me down mentally because I work with numbers on a nightly basis. Hope you guys are enjoying the show thus far

my future's so bright, i gotta wear shades in my grow room. cause a 600w HPS is very bright!

Jesus, that really is a Rolls Royce set up you got there! Curious to know what the buds are going to be like!

thanks guys! this really is a great hobby. i'm sure i'll think it's better as soon as i reap my reward

good work,very detailed,your sure to help all the firstimers,such as your self as well as others who have not done dwc before includeing me,so thanks for the effort.

JohnnyPotSeed1969 said:

thanks guys! this really is a great hobby. i'm sure i'll think it's better as soon as i reap my reward

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Nice work Johnny. I have a very similar setup. Could you tell me how you got your seed to sprout? I germed mine and they gave a tap root, i planted them in rockwool for my hydro system and left them in the dark, bubbling away. They seemed to have rotted them as it's been 5 days and nothing has sprouted. So now I think i'll just put them in damn rockwool after new seeds germinate and leave them in my kitchen stove. How did you do yours? I'm also very anxious to start my setup. Also the temperature in my apartment was a little cold past few days, 68-72F, is that too low? Did you keep the rockwool in the dark or put it under the light as soon as you put the germed seeds in them?

i germed my seeds in paper towels for 2 days in the dark. when i saw the taproot i soaked my rockwool cubes in 5.5 Ph adjusted water and placed the seeds in there taproot down. my cubes were wet when i put them in there. i have my light going on an 18/6 cycle pretty far away from the seedlings to encourage growth without burning them. in a few days i will start lowering the light a little bit day by day and then start supercharging the grow. i have a very weak nutrient solution, about 150 ppm in my reservoirs to encourage nice strong plants. hope this helps

So you put the seeds with taproot under light right away or only when they sprouted?

damn son, that set up is clean, i'm subscribing to this one. I just started my journal tonight, but started my grow last month... i felt you on the selling everything and trying to come out of it with something, i went to a hydroponics store and pretty much got taken, i ended up somewhere around a grand spent when it was all said and done, clones included though.


however, the first time i opened up my grow room door and got hit in the face with that warm waft of purple sticky punch green stank, it make my stomache drop and gave me butterflys.

i know that i'm impatient, so i know that if i put in 4 months of work and came out harvesting like 10 grams, i'd be supremely pissed, so i decided to go all out and throw down the bricks and chips to get a good set up going, my only qualm is my temperature/ventilation, any good co2 remedy's you know for a hot hot grow room?

redfoxx said:

So you put the seeds with taproot under light right away or only when they sprouted?

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right away. i wanted to give them something to reach for. i have my light much farther away than i normally would so as not to overwhelm them right away. they don't need much light at first. of course, i still don't have my fan just for my cooltube yet, but that will be fixed here very soon

angeles8862 said:

damn son, that set up is clean, i'm subscribing to this one. I just started my journal tonight, but started my grow last month... i felt you on the selling everything and trying to come out of it with something, i went to a hydroponics store and pretty much got taken, i ended up somewhere around a grand spent when it was all said and done, clones included though.


however, the first time i opened up my grow room door and got hit in the face with that warm waft of purple sticky punch green stank, it make my stomache drop and gave me butterflys.

i know that i'm impatient, so i know that if i put in 4 months of work and came out harvesting like 10 grams, i'd be supremely pissed, so i decided to go all out and throw down the bricks and chips to get a good set up going, my only qualm is my temperature/ventilation, any good co2 remedy's you know for a hot hot grow room?

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you mean you're looking for a good CO2 setup? Tanks can be had for pretty cheap, especially used. Try ebay for those, you can usually get a pretty good deal on those. The real money is the regulator setup. I've found them for about 150 bucks. This includes a solenoid that you can hook to a timer so you're not just releasing CO2 all the time, but only when you're not venting your space. Depending on your grow room size, this should last 1-2 months.

Ok, pretty boring update. Basically I've just been watching my PPM's and Ph for any serious changes. So far there have been no unexpected fluctuations. I have noticed a salt buildup on the inside of my reservoirs, but seeing as how my plants seem to be fine at the moment and my readings are all within acceptable limits, I'm not really worried about it until I change my tanks again.

I have a couple of late bloomers that I'm waiting on to get their first set of real leaves growing good, then I'm going to up my nutrient strength and lower my light (which should hopefully coincide with my new fan showing up). Temps are still a little higher than I'd like, but this will be fixed as soon as the new exhaust fan arrives. No point in having a cooltube if I can't get it right down on the plants now is there?

One of my seedling's cotelydons have started yellowing and drying up, but I'm not overly concerned about it as the leaves seem to be fine. It's just weird because the rest of them still have their seed leaves. Again, I'm not worried as everything appears to be on the up and up according to my readings. I can not stress enough the importance of buying a good Ph and TDS meter. It really takes the guesswork out of growing and is definitely putting my mind at ease

So I have 3 Northern Lights and 4 AK48's going at this time. Pics with the next update

JohnnyPotSeed1969 said:

... I can not stress enough the importance of buying a good Ph and TDS meter. It really takes the guesswork out of growing and is definitely putting my mind at ease

So I have 3 Northern Lights and 4 AK48's going at this time. Pics with the next update

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I definitely agree. Thankfully I at least had the Ph strips which came with my SH system but last night I shelled out 145$ for a 6-in-1 water meter which does it all, Ph/CF/CE/PPM/TDS/Thermometer. For now i added tiny amount of my SH bloom and micro solutions to the brita filtered water which i left to stand overnight and tonight I will buy 10 gallons of deer park.

Ok, had to change the reservoirs today. I had one of my younger AK's just die all of a sudden. One of my other AK's is looking sickly. It was stretchy to begin with, but now it's kind of mottled looking. My NL's are doing better, but one of them started getting pale green. While my Ph was less than 7 in both and PPM's were still acceptable, there was still a noticeable salt buildup on the inside of the reservoirs.

Since we are no longer in seedling stage, I decided to up the nutrient strength since it appeared I was encountering a nitrogen deficiency in at least one plant. So I grabbed a spare rubbermaid tub which I filled with water while I was cleaning out one res at a time. This was to keep the roots from drying out while I was doing my thing. It didn't take very long for my plants to show their displeasure with not having a sufficient amount of oxygen available to the roots. No serious damage though, they just got a little droopy is all from suffocating. Speaking of roots, my roots are developing rather nicely. They are a nice, bright white which means happy plants.

All in all, with changing, cleaning and adjusting both reservoirs, I spent about 3 hours total in work. This is much faster than last time, as I have an actual idea of the process now. I'm getting much more comfortable and confident with mixing my nutrients and adjusting my Ph.

So, on to the pics, right? The first two are two of my 3 excellent looking NL plants. The 3rd is my strugglin AK, the 4th is the strongest, and the 5th pic is of the last AK to poke its head above the rockwool. Today I should be getting my other exhaust fan, so in combination with upping my nute strength I will be lowering my light so hopefully growth will really start taking off over the next week

about investing in a ppm meter. i have the ph balancing down to a science, and my plants look great, so i'm not sure if it's worth the $145 or whatever it is...

how often should i change my tank water? i was thinking i was just going to switch it out when i get to the flowering phase, what do you think?

you can find PPM meters for cheap on ebay. mine was less than $20 and it's a hannah which makes the best meters on the market. you definitely need to invest in one so you can tell how much your plants are drinking, and how much nutrients they are using. so far, i have had to change my tanks twice in two weeks. this is due partly because of my hard water. i think 1-2 weeks is probably long enough to wait between changes. any longer than that and you're taking the risk of nutrient lockup or the possibility of a nutrient deficiency which helps to have a PPM meter to monitor