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How often do you have to top off the 5gal buckets? I am diffenitely going hydro with this system, and dr D, how long would quarts of nutes last? meaning how many grows, with lets say 6 plants.
when u start off you said to have the water touching the bottom of the net pot. Once the plants roots start growing where should you keep the water height at?
I keep the water about 1 inch below the bottow of the pots, this is the line I re-fill the chambers each time I give them nutes.
I have had the water as low as 10+ inches below and havent run into any major problems, except that the plants need more nutes and water solution when there is that little soln in my res.
So it is really your decesion, just lower it a bit and dont worry too much -- this stuff works like magic
You will mostlikely run into problems, thats why its a good thing these forums are here for us. Grow on man!
Savonavo- how many days before you have to add more water in the buckets?
Does no one know the answer?wtf. I am planning on have three bubble bucket setups and a few soils to take cutting from and so forth. I was just wanting to know how many days before you have to add water/nutes to the bucket? Thanks all stay high!!
hi superb plant what kind of yeild can one of these get????cheers alza..
p.s i got 2 of these bucket 35ltr 40x40 cms would these work & what size of net pots??
Hi ALZA thats a large bucket you got there, you could grow a tree in there and expect high yields check the plant in the very first post of this thread with a two week veg she yielded 90 grams....peace
hey dr d . so do you think this bucket is too big i have seen some net pots they range from4ins/6ins/8ins.what would be best.and what size of air stone would i need.....cheers alza....
Id usually use a 6 inch netpot but for a bucket that size id probably go for a 8 inch.
I dont think the bucket is too big no, give em a good veg and you will have somne monsters, theres plenty of room for a huge root system there... peace
I add nutes 1 time a week. I actually mean I re-fill the buckets to the desired level I want and then add nutes only about once every 7 days, on the same day preferably.
I have actually had a very very sucessful grow 2 grow's ago when I completely forgot (too many things going on to handle the grow properly) to add water and nutes for a whole week. I did this 2 times on this grow and my yield was superb. The weeks I missed were weeks 5 and 7, so that means that for the 8 weeks of flowering I only gave them 6 feedings/re-fills and they turned out great. Hydro is forgiving if you don't over-do things. Just under-do things like I do, dont try to maximize the ppm in your solution, just estimate a bit on the low side and make adjustments every week accordingly.
I usually dont fill up the buckets every week untill the veg has gone for a couple of weeks, because the roots are small and just developing and your plants are small and not drinking that much of the water+nute mixture.
But after about 3 weeks into veg, i start the 1 time a week fill and re-nute. And all the way through flowering I do the same.
I have never once checked my ppm and only flushed my hydro systems on 2 out of my 3 grows and everything seems to be the same yield wise.
Hope this helps, and sorry for the delayed replies, people are busy out there and I don't check back on this very often. But if you need more help just send me an IM and I will.
do you smoke roots? Roots should be as few as possible: Smaller buckets and pumps, less waste.
Do you exchange the water ("flush") once in a while in order to remove the salts which the plant cannot use? If for instance the fertilizer contains more nitrogen than the plant needs then the concentration of nitrogen in the reservoir water will rise. So mineral composition is set off even if one corrects EC and pH.
The plant senses the overload of salt and fights it by growing more roots, dumping the salts therein. These roots --although growing like mad-- are lazy and do not function well in terms of supporting the green growth and seedset.
Cut short: Siphon off old water! Of course, the better one understands the fertilization needs of the plant the less often one must exchange the water.
Do you change (flush) your res? If not you should by the sounds of yellow color
How hot is your room/cab??? If it is anywhere in the 90's that is very bad, if it is in the region of 70-85 degrees F then you are fine and the heat is not your problem.
Yellow leafs during veg is probably a nute solution problem, not the exterior enviornment.
You should make sure your pH is between 6.5 and 5.5 after adding the nutes, and also you should start off with a new nute solution if your are not getting nice large dark green fan leaves.
I suggest chaning the nute solution, do a full fulsh and then start from scratch with a underestimated nute solution at first, then bump it up to full blast after they start to look happy.
im not really sure how long it will take to come back, probably at least a week if not a couple of weeks.
I have never had this kind of yellowing problem before, most of my problems are because of mites, but I hope my advise works out and your plants pull through with full health.