hello, i am new to roll it up and to forums in general...generally search them i don't ask questions. I pretty much have my set up and figured most of what i have to do out. I have general hydroponics, i guess its a three part system, and i have a ton of resources to feeding charts, but two questions remain. How often do i apply these solutions to the water? once a week? every 2 weeks? and how often does one drain the entire reservoir. Thanks !
need help with feeding for hydroponic plants
- Thread starter chunchiba
- Start date
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
Are you running a flood and drain system? What is your medium? How tall are your plants?
this all has yet to be done, i will be using ebb n flow flood and drain recovery type system, i guess all that wasn't necessary to say, but from what i read that is what it is. I previously had a real bad under budget failure with soil go down, i have learned to shell out the cash at the start lol. My medium would be rock wool and i am pretty sure it comes with some sort of seed holding material, can't remember the name off the top of my head. Germination i have done with 100 percent success rate many times, vegetative with nutrients and no funding...i had them ph'd too low, they could not absord nutrients so they started turning all sorts of different things and twisting ANDDDD they were infected with about 4 different kinds of bugs and miniature mushrooms in the soil LOL. I refuse to ever use soil again.
the charts i saw told me how many ppm's to have in the water like this. week 1 i dunno 600 ppm, week 2 800 ppm, im guessing that your starting water, u take the ppm get whatever the reading is and when you put the stuff in take a second ppm reading. These charts also had the amount of the exact same general hydroponics solution i am using. But what it doesn't say is, do i let the water in week 1 just cycle threw or do i have to put this stuff in twice a day etc, remember i am used to soil, so i remember feeding my plants like 4 times a day, only of course because they were not absorbing anything, and no it was not nute burn, i checked that out quite intensely 
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
Ok, to answer your original questions, you should probably change your res every 7-10 days. I change it every week. You add the nutes when you change your res and drain your res each week to fill up with fresh water and fresh nutes. The basic 3-part schedule from GH is pretty solid and will give you good results. I believe it's on the label. If you're using rockwool, I use 6 inch cubes and flood 2 times per day and would flood 3 times if I used 4 inch cubes.
THANK YOU very much, that is what i wanted to hear. 1 out of 2 sources stated that i should top it off everyday and then gave me a formula to replace the lost liquid, im good at many things...math not being one of them.
3 times a day for how long? i saw some reports state that they flooded every 15 minutes for an entire day! o.0
3 times a day for how long? i saw some reports state that they flooded every 15 minutes for an entire day! o.0
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
Topping off with plain tap water each day is a good idea. If you don't and your water level is going down, you could be running into a situation where your PPM is getting too high due to concentration.
I flood 2 times per day (once when the lights come on and a second time an hour before the lights go off) and each flood lasts 15 minutes. In veg, I just flood every 12 hours.
homebrewer
Well-Known Member
..in bloom it would be once when the lights come on and a second time an hour before the lights go off.