Starting out, need some advice

I have a 3 smaller plants ive had outside since late summer and about 9 inches tall, starting to flower a bit already since weather changed for fall. Talking to my friend who gave me 6 waterfarm buckets and he said as long as i give it 18/6+ of light it should go back to veg but might be a bit stunted.

Anyway i have the buckets, hydroton, nutrients, and a big tub to mix solution in. I am also working on a resevoir/controller out of two 24 gallon storage bins with a float and also plan on making the buckets an in-line/recirculated setup soon. Also, i've heard good and bad things about these buckets.

My questions are: Should I even try to transplant from soil into the hydro? seems like a bad idea to me, would have to wash roots for a while to not get dirt and shit in buckets.

Second question: Lights.....I plan on purchasing 3 lights in time, 1 CFL for clones, 1-400watt HID(not sure HPS or MH)for veg and 1-600watt HID(HPS) for flowering.

I think i'll probably get 400W first as its the cheapest of the 2 HID's and this hobby like all, will become a use/learn/upgrade type hobby.

I ahve never tried to transfer from dirty dirt to hydro, but i'm sure it will be quite messy and hard on the plants. I would continue the grow in soil this time if it were me.

since you are buying a 600 hps for flowering, i would recommend the 400 MH. But, why not save oyurself some cash and get 1 really good 600 or 1k light with a dimmable ballast and HPS/MH compatibale. LUMATEK comes to mind.

I'm currently on my first grow and went aero. I was given a soil plant that had been vegging outside and was prob a week or 2 into the natural flower stage. I put her back under an 18/6 light and she went back to growing healthy, she's giving me problem in flower at the moment but I think that's unrelated to the transfer.

Anyway, to your question....I did some research to see if I could carefully wash off dirt from roots and transfer to my aero system and 95% of people said the shock would likely kill/hermie the plant. So I just left in soil pot, but moved her indoors. So...if I were you I wouldn't risk it unless you don't mind possibly losing one plant...then you could experiment and if all goes well, do the other 2?

Second question about lights, I am a newbie, but had a similar plan to you. CFL for clones, 400w MH for veg. I didn't end up getting cfl, just put the clones + seedlings in rapid rooter plugs next to vegging plants under 400w MH, but a little farther away (3 feet, but will be trying more like 2 feet next time) and it worked well. But...cfl is cheap initial and running costs, so it wouldn't hurt.

i went ahead and tried one, set the entire pot in a 5 gallon bucket of luke warm water until it washed roots lose from pot. changed water in bucket 4 or 5 times to keep it clean and got roots pretty clean, this will be a good test of at least getting nutrients right in solution. I mixed 15 gallons, pH of water previous to mixing was about 7.5ish, after it went super low off charts when i checked solution in single bucket after an hour of mixing. So i added .4ml of pH up and now its right at 6.0. I went between clone/seedling and early growth with the solution mixture as i didn't want to shock the plant with too much. I have a ran an extra air line down into the pot to add extra circulation/aeration in the waterfarm bucket. Once i get some more buckets going i'm going to go with a recirc/reservoir/controller setup that i'm piecing together as a diy. i also built a clone tub thing with a water pump hooked up to pvc and has the misters in the pvc so i'm ready for that.

I ended up just getting a 8 T5 tube cfl light for now. Ordered bulbs that pr0f recommended and i'm going to give that a try for a month or two until i save up to get a 1k dimmable. I can always keep the cfl for clones and veg at least. I'll update on the transplant. I went between clone/seedling and early growth with the solution mixture

so how did it turn out?

ive made the transition a couple of times with no problem, you got the right idea, plenty of oxygen saturation n a weak solution to start. you can bump up the nutes pritty fast as soil/hyhro transfered plants get hungry pritty fast. good luck n if you want a diy undercurent build check mine out in my journal. if you need spacifics i will be glad to help.

whats up HR lol looks as tho we were both posting at same time

lol its all good bro just lurking the forums

hellraizer30 said:

lol its all good bro just lurking the forums

Click to expand...

same here bro, thought i might be able to give back some of what ive been given

well as of now, the transpant looks fine, no signs of yellowing or wilting yet. I left lights on all night and pump for the hydro. pH was a little higher today, around 7.0 i didnt mess with pH yet because its not sky high and i dont want to keep messing with solution. I'll check in a few more hours to see if its gone down a little, if it hasn't i'll add .25mL of down. i'll look it up in meantime, but any suggestions on what to water the plant i'm keeping in soil? it wasnt as healthy as the transplanted, but its not in bad shape, its also in flower, but its only 6-8" too. it's just been on rainwater its whole life. its in a little 4" pot, i'm going to knock bottom out and put it in a 3-5 gallon. what should i use for soil? i'd like to turn this one into a mother possibly.

I purchased a HydroFarm 4' 8lamp CFL, and i am also in process of ordering the 10-12 of the bulbs discurssed here https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/358190-led-without-leds-my-first.html] pr0fesseur's recent thread

In a couple weeks I plan on purchasing a 600watt or 1000watt HPS as well. I plan to have clone section, and 1 veg room 1 flower room, and 1 intermediate/flower/expirimental room that i want to try going from clone to flower to keep them short and the trimming bottom 1/3 of plant. At least i'll have a space to mess around with certain things and not mess up everything else.

hey ohio,
You mentioned it was already in flowering------if so---it will revert back to veg----but that takes a while.

I've rinsed dirt off roots a few times---about 50-50 survival rate

Well it's been almost 4 full days and transplant is doing ok, very little new growth, but i can see some starting, i'll post some pics, they were pretty rough looking when i brought them in. They must be somewhat healthy/strong to have survived no care whatsoever for about 2 months outdoor in a hot/cold/rainy/hot/cold/rainy climate we get here in late summer/fall. The dirt plant has new growth in a few spots. I went ahead and increased the nute solution a little bit to the more between aggressive growth, and growth. I started off really low, the seedling/clone recommended strength because i didnt want to have it be too strong since i was transplanting to hydro and it was already flowering. I'm building 2 cloning buckets out of black 5 gallon's with lids, cut holes in lid got a 396gph pump hooked up to pvc with mist nozzles plugged in. Not done yet, but almost done with one. Is there any reason my friend who has about 7-10 plants in veg 5-6 cuttings? he was acting like he couldn't give me any clones for a few weeks..... but i've read on here from several people that taking one here and there won't really hurt them. I know if i make him feel bad he'll probably just do it. So i guess i'll have to guilt trip him when he comes over next. i need to post in the soil forum about anything i could do for my soil plant to help besides giving water.