New to hydro...roots in the water??

Hello all. I am new to growing but I have done enough research to know that I want to go with hydro. I've seen aero in action and that's a lil more complicated than I wanna go my 1st trip. I don't wanna grow in dirt. So hydro it is. I'm making a self watering hydro setup. However my set up may be a lil more detailed than it needs to be. Is it ok that the roots sit in the nutrient solution? Someone said they fill the water all the way up to the last inch or so of the end of the plant..???

I learned by watching these videos on youtube. search for "i grow chronic" parts 1-9, it's a very basic drip irrigation system for the veg part, and an ebb/flow for the flowering stage. It's a good start and the guy is pretty funny to watch. I never even considered growing my own until I saw these videos. I spent about $800 for all my stuff and got most of it at home depot. the only thing is that I didn't use the basic cheap fluorescent lights, I bought some good t-5's at the garden store for my veg stage.

as for your question, you might need to supply some more info, what kind of hydro system are you using? and what kind of material are your plants sitting in? I use small rockwool cubes to germinate in and then plant them into hyrdoclay. I don't think you ever want your roots sitting for long periods of time in the solution, as they need air or they will rot.

Roots can sit in water as long as the water is oxygenated. Roots sitting in still water will eventually suffocate and rot.

I personally prefer deep water culture as it is simple to construct and not that hard to maintain.

Well basically I'm making a self watering hydro setup using a wicking basket. I got the idea off youtube. I'm using a 20 gallon tote with 6 3"net pots filled with hydroton in the lid. The original plan was to seperate the tote into top and bottom with a styrofoam slab cut to fit and cut with a center hole to accomodate wicking basket. The bottom of the tote will be the resevoir and the top will be the grow box. In the growbox portion I planned to use hydroton as my medium. In the nutrient resevoir (bottom of tote) would be a wicking basket of sorts, this too is filled with hydroton. I've seen em made of deli containers drilled with 1/4" holes to create a sieve. You water the plants via a watering tube that you make. As you water the plants the hydroton acts as a wick and absorbs the nutrient water delivering it to the roots. I'm no artist but I have drawn a model so you can get a general idea of what I'm doing. I plan to run a 5" air bar with a 20-60 gallon pump. If I decide to continue with the setup I will take actual pics along the way so that others can duplicate it if they want.
However if it is true that the roots can sit in oxygenated water I can eliminate all the excess stuff that I don't need. I can just put my net pots in the lid, fill with nutrients and add my plants. Correct? I will be sprouting from seed in a germination bio dome using seed sponges. From the dome they will go to the system.

I currently use a dwc setup. Its been great to me, all i do is change the water and nute solution every 2 weeks. Ph the water, add nutes and put it back under the light. I have a small 3in air stone with a 5-10 gallon air pump. I just started flowering and now i change the water once a week.

PigBenis420 said:

I currently use a dwc setup.

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I just checked into DWC, I didn't know what it was..duh In my defense I did say I was a newbie at the beginning. That is so much easier!! And saves me $ on the medium, not to mention all the other supplies that I didn't need. Perhaps another time I will try that method but right now I'm itchin to get started!! I need a few more things and some tinkerin in my grow room but I hope to be up and runnin by this weekend. I found a couple seeds in my last purchase that I'm gonna grow just for the hell of it for practice. Those seeds weren't a happy bonus when I pd $100 for a quarter..tsk..tsk.. I don't expect much from them if they even sprout but it's worth a shot for experience points..
So how far do you fill ur resevoir? I have 2 20 gallon totes, 1 for veg 1 for flower. I will be growing 5 in each tote as I am allowed 12. This will leave me another tote to keep my 2 other plants, which I hope to be regenerated mothers. I have been deciding whether to use 3" or 5" net pots. I've been leaning towards 3 so my girls have plenty of room between them. Any suggestions?

When you first fill the res and you have little sproutlings fill the res to about an inch above the net pots. Once there are roots popping out everywhere, you can keep the res water about an inch under the net pots. Instead of going with 5 in each try for 2 or 3 just as a starter. 3 inch net pots sound good. What kind of medium are you using again?

PigBenis420 said:

When you first fill the res and you have little sproutlings fill the res to about an inch above the net pots. Once there are roots popping out everywhere, you can keep the res water about an inch under the net pots. Instead of going with 5 in each try for 2 or 3 just as a starter. 3 inch net pots sound good. What kind of medium are you using again?

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Hello! Thanks for the reply. I decided to go with 5 3.5" net pots in 20 gallon totes. Leaving another smaller tote for my 2 mothers. I am using hydroton. I was going to use rockwool but it's not easy to get that into a round net pot. I wanna spend less time dickin with details and more time growing! So I opted for safe and easy.

***A quick update for everyone****
Those seeds I said I was gonna plant in an earlier post... Sunday I put them in the bio dome and put them in the closet. Today I have a small red stemmed curl coming out of the sponge. Omg am I exstatic!! I just sprouted my 1st mj plant!! Of nebula... Proud moment for me, so proud I took a pic or 2...


How long should I wait to put it under light? The dome says they can stay in there up to 15 days, but that doesn't sound right..

Feed them light as soon as they break out of the medium like yours are!

henery said:

Feed them light as soon as they break out of the medium like yours are!

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How long do I leave them in the dome before I move them over to the veg tote and how much light should I give them? I figure about 2 weeks or until it has it's 1st set of leaves and a good root system. My sprout is red, what's up with that?

Congrats on the little ones queenbee! In so far as how long to leave them in, you can leave them as long as they fit. I usually move mine out of the dome when I see roots coming out of the plug. You can move them out as soon as you see the tap root coming out of the bottom, but I have found they do best if the roots are coming out of the bottom half of the plug. One note on the dome, you might want to leave a small part open to allow air to move in and out of the dome- if it is completely sealed you can get problems with mold and fungus. The red you are seeing is probably a phenotype (trait) of that particular plant. I would be willing to bet you will have purple stems on that plant when it's all grown up, but I don't have any cash for that bet. One last thing- don't feed it until you see the first set of true leaves; I wait until the colyteons have withered before I feed. You may not have to wait that long, I'm always afraid I will kill it if I don't feed it early, so I wait for the plant to tell me that it needs to be fed. Kinda like this . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGRN39oifsE

. . . just less singing.

Ms QueenBee,

Check out my, "1st DWC fom seed 12/12" thread for some ideas.
Also check out Boomer57's thread.

Good luck !

Hey thx for the post homegrown. I definately have roots coming out of the sponge. Right now they are under 24 hr light and have been since Thursday 8-19. I measured them yesterday the 1st sprout is 3" tall already and the late bloomer is 1 1/2" tall. I went to the compassion club last nite and someone told me to go ahead n veg em and another told me 2 keep babyin them. There's belief that the 1st sprout is most likey male becuz it shot up so fast. My sprouts are now 5 and 3 days old. Every other day I open the vents on the dome. The temp in the room is usually between 77-81 with a humidity of 44-53%. The outside temp is starting to drop 2 upper 70's so I'm getting lower humidity but the temp is staying ideal. I'm really hoping I get lucky and one of these is a female but if it turns out not I may just plant him outside and experiment the shit out of it! I'm just crazy excited to start!! Oh and by the way the sprouts arent red anymore. The stems are white with green leaves. The only remaining red is where the leaves come outta the stem. I know there's a term for that but I dunno what it is lol. I have enclosed pics taken yesterday and today. I looked at them again just a few minutes ago and one sprout is starting to get a network, web of roots.
yesterday

today

queenbee420 said:

I'm really hoping I get lucky and one of these is a female but if it turns out not I may just plant him outside and experiment the shit out of it!

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That would suck if both were guys- they are throwing out roots pretty well. Even if they are, you are getting good practice. Here's to hoping!

Thx for the wishes of luck. I will update as it progresses. I decided to go ahead n start veggin em. I started the 20/4 cycle tonite and are about 9" from the lights, using LEDs. They are still in the dome tho with the top off. The veg tank is in the works. I'm using tap water so it has to sit for 24 hrs, filled the tote tonite. Tested ph to test out the strips, ph was at 7.6ish. Whew! (Still waiting for meters to arrive so I bought strips so I could get started) Will be tweaking the ph tomorrow evening and will hopefully have em in veg tote by Tuesday at the latest. What would you recommend as far as leaving it in veg mode b4 switching to flower cycle? I've heard from 3-4 weeks and up depending on how long you wanna age the plant. I'm thinking that maybe I'd leave it in for 4 weeks since I'm starting a lil early and go from there..

It really depends on the plant and how much room you have. I start flowering when they are 12" to 16" tall because some strains will more than double during flower, with HID lights it will take less time, but the stems will be thinner since it is growing so fast; by using LEDs it will take a little longer, but the stems will be thicker. I remember from one of your older posts that you were thinking of a dwc or aeroponic setup. If that is the case, the ph will need to be lowered to around 5.5. If you are in soil you would want 6.5, but over 7 and the roots won't be able to absorb the nutrients. If you don't have ph up or down, distilled white vinegar will help lower ph while baking soda will help raise ph- just remember that a little will go a long way. Ph up and down are fairly inexpensive; $15 or less per bottle at the hydro store.

HomeGrown&Smoked said:

I remember from one of your older posts that you were thinking of a dwc or aeroponic setup.

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I have decided to go DWC with the 20 gallon totes holding 3-5 plants in 3.5" net pots/tote. I have a 14" air stone ran by a pump with a 20-60 gallon capacity. I'm shooting for the plants 2 be female and get short bushy plants. I plan to pick up some clones at the club wed and get something else goin if these 2 sprouts don't make it or end up male. Nutrients...start adding when they're about 5-6" tall is what I heard. What do you think? I'm using Gh Flora series with koolbloom. Also going to use the gh flush.
And ph was recommended at 5.5-6.5. I was aiming for 6.0, too high?
Oh btw.. (Fun fact I left out earlier) I did hear that baking soda vinegar thing for ph. But I couldn't remember which was which so when I checked the ph and it was so high I added a shit ton of baking soda but the results weren't changing. Then I remembered about the 24 hr rule with tap water. So tomorrow I will have A LOT of tweaking to do since I added the wrong thing at the wrong time.
My 1st mistake, among many I'm sure..
Maybe I should just start over with new water?

I gotta comment again and give you some ideas about a really nice aerospring design I came up with, I dunno if anyone has hit on this since theres a lot of replies, more replies than I get to my posts :/
But anyway, good practice if you plan on having at least medium sized plants is to go with one plant one tote. My original plan on my first grow was to put 3 plants in a 37 gallon tote, good luck with that, I vegged for 30 days under 1000 watt mh using AN nutrients, I could have done one plant in that tote (unless I wanted to scrog then I could probably do two), so anymore I say one plant one tote. lemme spam this photo of a really nice design(if I do say so myself) once more.....errrr better yet just drop on over to https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/346967-my-first-grow.html#post4373353
since I'd have to up the photos again if not. Good luck and happy growing. I've had some bad things happen in dwc and the plants in the aerospring totes are doing 100 percent better than true dwc. And get some ph down, to adjust ph up just add water since tap usually comes in at a higher ph, 5.8 should be your target but I warn you , in dwc if you don't keep res temps down you're asking for trouble, completely opaque buckets too, most totes aren't opaque at all, the ones I put together I painted the outside with black paint then a coat of white.

With a ph of 6 you are still getting a good spectrum on minerals that can be absorbed by the roots, but at 5.5 it allows the plant to pick up the most nutrients. There is a nute chart on the form I will try to find for ya. When I work with seedlings I will wait until the plant shows that it is lacking nutes before I feed it. The leaves will turn lighter green and start to droop a little, just follow the chart on the GH bottles for cuttins or seedlings and that will have you good to go. After cracking from the shell the plant has stored carbohydrate energy that it uses in the first few weeks of life, getting roots established etc; I try to wait for that to get used up because my biggest fear is overnuting and burning the roots. For example the tall one is getting pretty close to 6", but it is still underdeveloped- it needs to grow some more before you feed it. One thing, the tall one is looking goo but you might want to get a couple of toothpics ready in case it gets too top heavy.

Here ya go queenbee . . .