First Grow - Trainwreck w/ SH Bubbleponics and Soil

Hey everyone!
I haven't posted much but I've been reading pages and pages a day, and a few weeks ago decided to make some purchases to get my first grow started. I decided to go with a 4x4x6.5' tent off ebay ($125), a pair of 4' two lamp T5 fluorescent fixtures ($50 each), two cfls and reflectors from home depot (<$20), and finally a stealth hydro expandable bubbleponics kit ($172).
First I should say I'm still waiting on the bubbleponics, even though it's the first thing I ordered. Fedex says it's coming tomorrow, but they also say they haven't picked it up yet. The tent and lights got here early last week, so I set them up in my attic, using the bathroom fan right below to pump air conditioned air in. Tomorrow I'm making another trip to HD to get supplies for two DIY carbon filters to make sure the air is absolutely clean, in and out.
Right now, I have 8 trainwreck bagseeds and 11 other random seeds growing in a combination of miracle grow potting soil (free) and some organic starter soil from pikes ($10). I haven't purchased any nutes yet, because I wanted to ask how much I would need. I'm looking at getting a botanicare pureblend pro 8oz 3pack and a pureblend pro for soil 8oz 3pk, each for $15 on amazon, but I don't know if that will be enough. Should I just go ahead and get quarts of all 6? The bubbleponics kit comes with "professional hydro nutrients" but I don't think it has the premeasured ones. I'm not sure if I need anything to measure these nutes, but I don't have any meters of any kind, and I was thinking of buying this handheld TDS meter ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002T6L5M/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=A2BUXD0L1W5AKG&v=glance ).
I'll try and post some pictures tomorrow, hopefully of a set up bubbleponics kit as well as my other babies. Until then - Should I get the botanicare 3 packs? Or will I need a quart or more for the stealth and/or the soil?

sorry if this is a little unorganized or I forgot something but I'm sure you can guess why!

Peace
Drake

Do you think 8oz each of pureblend pro grow, bloom, and liquid karma will be enough for one season in a bubbleponics kit? What about the same size, but for soil? Enough for a whole season?

Thanks!

I ordered the botanicare 3 packs today, only to find out that 2 of the 3 things are the same in soil and hydro, only the bloom is different. Ooooh well can't' have too many nutes. Oh, and I think my partner in crime might actually have an ec/tds meter for his pool that we can use.
pics sooooon

My bubbleponics kit came yesterday! Everything is cool except the water stone is a bar instead of a disk, and it came with crappy ungrounded extensions that don't even fit anything else in the kit. I also found my camera charger so hopefully I can start keeping picture records.

You prolly should go the the SH website and look at the page that shows you how to set it up. Actually the long airstone is better than the disk. You might think of getting a dual pump or a second air pump and another long air curtain (10'). I use three air curtains. The more air, the faster the grow and the cooler your water will stay.
Here's the link to the SH set-up instructions:
http://www.stealthhydroponics.com/page.php?xPage=support.html

I advise you to DO REMOVE THE PLASTIC from the cubes.
And contact customer service about the ungrounded extensions, whatever that is.

The air bar is much better than the air stone, but you ought to add a 2nd one.

HomeGrownHairy said:

You prolly should go the the SH website and look at the page that shows you how to set it up. Actually the long airstone is better than the disk. You might think of getting a dual pump or a second air pump and another long air curtain (10'). I use three air curtains. The more air, the faster the grow and the cooler your water will stay.
Here's the link to the SH set-up instructions:
http://www.stealthhydroponics.com/page.php?xPage=support.html

Click to expand...

Roseman said:

I advise you to DO REMOVE THE PLASTIC from the cubes.
And contact customer service about the ungrounded extensions, whatever that is.

The air bar is much better than the air stone, but you ought to add a 2nd one.

Click to expand...

Thanks for stopping by! I gotta say, you've already helped me a lot roseman, thanks for all the info you've posted. I set up the bubbleponics and set the beans in the unplasticked rockwools, with the pump going right into the rockwool, on 5-22. As per your advise, I didn't soak the rockwools before setting everything up, and that was a good call, cause they are almost disintegrated as of yesterday.
I'm glad I didn't get screwed on the air stones. Do you think they'd have more at wall mart or will I have to find an aquarium shop? Actually now that I think about it there's a petsmart not to far either...
I went to take a bunch of pictures and lo and behold no damn memory card! hahaha Anyways here's some shitty cell phone pics of my (hopefully) girls as of saturday.

Whoops here's the rest of the pics.

Walmart has additional airstones and airpumps cheaper than any place else..

Ok thanks i'll check em out next time i'm at the big box.

Here's a few shots of the grow room and some shots of the plants.
enjoy!

Ok so when I went to check on my girls today, the lights were out in the growroom. WTF. Nothing wrong with the timer, cause one rotation fixed it, or the breaker, cause air and water pumps were on. Any idea what could have caused this? I threw another "on" thing on the timer, right after the first one, just in case.
Here's my jumble of wires/fire hazard :

Sweet! My botanicare 3 packs came today. I got both the soil and hydro blends. Any suggestions for mixing nutes without a tds meter? I'm a little wary of teaspoons, especially as my teaspoon went through the food disposal and is now a dented and misshapen teaspoon :/

update - I mixed in 2tsp of liquid karma and 1.5tsp of pureblend pro grow for soil (3-2-3?) into a gallon for watering my soil babies. I'm gonna hold off on using them for the bubbleponics until i need to change the water, maybe tomorrow or monday.