I need your help! Aero plant issues

[hazee]

Hello Everyone!
This is my first grow. I am a total noob. I've always been a fan and now I have my own place to make it happen.

So I have a grow from seed that has been going on for 20 days now. At first I had serious pH fluctuation and a high ppm ~550. I realized tap water was killing my plants so I got an RO filter and began using that. (my RO tests at 6 pH 40 ppm)

After I fixed that with many flushes I tested my temps/pH/EC...
Rez = 70-75 degrees (root rot possible?)
Air = 68-80 degrees, 50%-80% humidity
pH 5.8 ppm 200 (kept at this for a wk now)

This setup is a design of filthyfletch. I have misters in the rez with 6.5 gals of water and two 200gph air pumps circulating water. I use FoxFarm nutes, and have a 250w mh for veg and 400w hps for flower.

What is up with my plants?? There aren't even roots yet!
-No salt buildup on rockwool, grodan cubes stay moist, misters are on 30(off)--15(on) cycle. 18/6

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Please limit advice to Hydro/Aero as I have never grow in soil.

Thank you.

[[Pictures - 1. Blackberry x White Rhino (sad droopy leaf) 2. DJ's Flo 3. ??? from Nirvana Seeds (flimsy stem + no roots!) 4. The veg closet w/ top44 seedlings

 

[Luke]

What is your water temp?????

 

[Luke]

Ok,70-75 degrees is way to warm.Use ice water bottles in your res or get a chiller

 

[Luke]

68 degrees is what you want

 

[hazee]

68 degrees is what you want

OK.
Thanks man.

At first my rez was exactly 69 deg but now its jumped up to 72 or 73 when I check it. Damn you SoCal spring weather!!!

I do have some Hygrozyme... could I start adding that to prevent root rot? Or will the temps ruin my plants?

 

[hazee]

I have started to look into a water chiller for my 18gallon rubbermaid. I guess I would just cut two holes in the side and hook up piping connecting the pump with the mister system.

Only problem is... I have a 260 gph pump in 7gal of water.
And the only chiller I can find that in my price range is this...

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/for/1144227275.html

Would this work? Could I connect it somehow to multiple rez/buckets?
Are there any better options? (all the DIY threads on the topic are confusing)


Anyone have experience with water chillers?
Thanks!

 

[growinman]

There are no roots yet???<---you said in your first post..... if it's 'aero' how are you getting the mist to the rw without it getting too wet?? I seriously doubt you have root rot from temps at this stage accept maybe from over-watering? I dont believe you want the rw coming in contact with the water in an aero/nft set-up and you just need to hand feed them until the roots come out so they are exposed to the mist. I am not remembering if Fletch even uses rw. Stinkbud's system is with no medium at all but need to pretty much be from clone.
I run a few different aero/nft systems and I believe they're similar to Stink's and Fletch's and I have a GH AF20 as well. I have preferred to use hydroton as a medium as I veg in a dwc in 3" net pots.
I just hate to see you have to go out and buy a chiller right out of the gate on your new hobby-----there are a lot of other things I 'd buy first....and there are other ways to chill water too, though not as convienient.....

Great Luck to you!!

growinman

 

[hazee]

There are no roots yet???

Actually now the 2 larger plants have about 3' roots extending from the net pots. I just put the seedlings in Waayy too soon. I got anxious. Right now the rockwool mostly stays dry as the hydroton wicks the water to it from the mist. Now I have about 5 more seeded and roots coming out of the hydroton already... When should I put them in the rubbermaids?

If you have any ideas for chilling the water let me know. I've tried the ice water bottles, 1/2 gals... lowered my temps 7deg to 71...and it's still fairly cool outside...

 

[growinman]

Actually now the 2 larger plants have about 3' roots extending from the net pots. I just put the seedlings in Waayy too soon. I got anxious. Right now the rockwool mostly stays dry as the hydroton wicks the water to it from the mist. Now I have about 5 more seeded and roots coming out of the hydroton already... When should I put them in the rubbermaids?

If you have any ideas for chilling the water let me know. I've tried the ice water bottles, 1/2 gals... lowered my temps 7deg to 71...and it's still fairly cool outside...

......so you do have them in net pots with hydroton: so your rw is those little plugs and sitting in the clay?
For your seedlings I 'd do it the same way you are except I would just hand water them until the roots are out, then set them up in the upper part of your net pot(on top of the clay rocks, and a few around it) and then just hand dip them as needed and force the roots to grow out a bit....though keep the rw moist too, especially if your not there for hours at a time.
It's so much easier to get away from having to use seed and just go straight from rooted cutting to the hydroton with out the same concerns of over-watering. I do germed seeds in the rw 4" cubes and drip feed for about a week and then dip in my nute-solution......by the time I need to let the roots grow out of the cubes they show m/f and I can pick moms and then I put them on hydroton in 1/2gal pots and flood/drain them to the level of the bottom of the cubes.........
IMO, rockwool sucks for aero----just too much extra work. You can even use rapid rooter or root riot plugs without the same concern as rw, though they are a sponge too.......
Are you using a cycle-timer? '30 off 15 on'---minutes, or seconds?---- I think you need to look back at Fletch's schedule(thinking StinkBuds too)
and see if that's too much on time, at a time.........I seem to remember 1 minute on, 4 minutes off. My GH AF20 is on 24/7 and my diy aero/nft's and cloners are 1 on and 5 off in light on only........
I would think you can get your new kids into the system asap, you just dont want to soak the rw........
YES!---Your water temps are major concern! I am not sure I understand your res set-up, but you should be able to easiely keep it at or below ambient room temp......And I know I am going to get slammed for this but my res's are always in the low 70's in my aero set-up, maybe more in the res's for my flood tables....... My room temps stay between 65 and 80. I pump lots of air into the res's. The res's for my tables are 25gal black rubbermaid type that I do keep out of the direct light. I use Canna nutes and GH Flora Series as well(I always used FF when I was in soil-HOT SHIT). I have yet to grow any funk, algey, slime, rot.....and roots have always looked very healthy, except for some exposed roots I had in a table that didn't drain too good grew some slimy algey but was fine.
Is your res in the direct light?? I think from your res being so small that it is more easily affected by the room temps, plus the fact that your still 18/6 probably keeps your room temps up for more hours a day. I would think to get the res temp down to room temp in the lights off cycle, using frozen water bottles, or whatever, and then do what you can to insulate it from the warmth of your on cycle as much as possible. I think it's going to be tough with that small of a res. Personally, I 'd just be aware of what to watch for and go for it. Water-chillers are great to have, a necessity in a lot of cases, a cadillac in others. How much do you plan on growing? For how long? Are you going to get bigger, stay the same, or dont know? If you buy a chiller make sure it's what you need, big enough, etc.... Get some other opinions here at riu. Oh, you be up a creek with these temps most definately if you were doing a dwc!

.......if you really meant 200ppm you may want to up your nutes a bit too. FF scares me in hydro though.......go way easy with the grow big!

Great Luck! Hopefully someone else chimes in here too----I know the pro's will disagree with a lot I say, so take that with a grain of salt!! haha, and know that I am not a pro!

growinman

 

[hazee]

Hey, THANKS man! This thread has saved my girls for sure, ++Rep
and your post was really comprehensive.
Yeah, I went at it kind of haphazardly in the beginning. Now I think everything is almost down, and I've learned an insane amount in a couple weeks plus the plants are still alive. I am going to go back and check out what others have been doing for the timer. Originally i thought that some of the problems my plants were having was related to overwatering, but i guess that shouldn't really ever be an issue besides with the Rockwool. Right now I have my timer on at [30 min on -- 15 min off].

In terms of the temps... I did a flush with ro water that I'd let sit in the freezer for a little while ... [65 deg] and then after a couple hours threw a 1/2gal of ice water in there and its still hanging at 69 deg. I'm never gone for more than a day so I figure 1 or 2 of those could take care of the temps.

All the plants are looking better now, 3 out of 4 have roots that reach 6" or so and the seedlings are huge!!! Correctly Ph'ed rw makes ALL the difference. Their roots are already 4" long.

My question is... since I have a few plants that have been suffering in veg for 3 weeks, and new seedlings whose roots are going to be almost the same length in a couple days...
Would it be alright to have them all together? Could the seedlings + older plants take the same ppm to start (~200)? Or should I decrease/increase?

--about 120ppm of the 200 is FF Grow big.
I'll get some pictures soon, maybe I should get a journal going.

 

[growinman]

...........
I'll get some pictures soon, maybe I should get a journal going.

Hey there, hazee; yes, I was going to recommend you starting a journel. You'll get regular followers and it's an easy place to point people when your having issues and a great place for feedback on your grow......

As for your seedling question..... I 'd keep them all together but keep your nutes geared for the newest kids----and I think you'll find you can up it pretty quickly so it shouldn't be much of a issue...
So is your system a double stacked Rubbermaid, or single. I didn't know Fletch did a rubbermaid system too---the design I used of his was with the channels(pvc fence posts) like https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/18869-how-build-aero-setup.html (you can ask him questions w/rapid response @ www.greenpassions.org , order parts, systems, etc)and then there's also SB's @ https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/116859-harvest-pound-every-three-weeks.html that is packed with already asked questions, problems, concerns, etc.......... SB does a double-stacked rubbermaid set-up, I think.........I know his pvc channel is great!------check his cloner out......

growinman