My very first grow - AeroFarm

[adambn255]

Hi!

I have decided to start...
It is going to be my very first grow so I would like to ask all experienced farmers here for advices and opinions.

I have collected so far:
1. Grow Box 0,8mx0,8mx1,6m
2. PLANTASTAR 250W lamp + ballast
3. AEROFARM
4. 2 fans (small&large one)
5. timer for lamp
6. fertilizers:
a) GHE One Part Total GRO
b) GHE One Part Total Bloom
c) pH Down
d) GHE Bio Roots

I have ordered some seeds from weedeedbank.com but still havent got any of them delivered ;-(
Fortunatelly I have found some very old seeds that my friend has given to me more than a year ago.

I have started germination using the paper towel method 72 hours ago. Until now only one seed has developed a small root (0,8cm long). I ve moved it to the aerofarm.

I have just planted the seed onto the stones not using rockwool - I am starting to suspect this is a first serious mistake - is it?

I have also added some TOTAL GRO (about 25ml/20l) and Bio Roots (2ml/20l) - isnt it too early for this seed???

One of forum users that is growing with aerofarm had a timer for aerofarm sprinkles - mine is on 24h/day as written in the manual - is it ok?

I am only going to keep the box at its present location for a week or two and move it somewhere else later.
After moving the farm I am planning to arm the growbox in another fan and connect its output to the building ventilation system with a smellex inside piping.

I am looking for your comments and advices.

Adam

 

[orzz]

I have just planted the seed onto the stones not using rockwool - I am starting to suspect this is a first serious mistake - is it?

I am looking for your comments and advices.

Adam

Yes put that seed in some rockwool, I holds some moisture.

 

[adambn255]

It's been a week now since I have found this forum and started digging around.
As I feel much familiar with everything here I would like to make a short update and let you guys know how I was doing.


My understanding of the subject is much better now but still none compared to what I need to sucesfully grow my plants...

Ok - so what have I changed?
1. transferred all the seeds to rockwool
2. added timer for sprinkles. Now the sprinkles are being run 15 min on / 45 min off
3. added airstone to the res.
4. just started adding nutritions - half of recomennded dose of: BIO ROOTS, TOTAL GRO.
5. Water - I am using tap water that I let stand and vaporate for 2 full days

The Plants:
2 seeds of ORIGINAL SKUNK - I cannot tell much about the seeds - I got them from friend long time ago and I was surprised they are still alive. I dont know their gender nor if they are for outdoors or indoors. (2 plants in the first horizontal row)
1 seed of Early Bud - outdoor, unknown gender, purchased from weedseedshop.com (center)
2 seeds of INDOOR FEMINIZED MIX - purchased from weedseedshop.com

As you can see from the picture only 2 youngest out of 5 plants have developed roots - it happened 1-2 days ago.
The plants with developed roots are - one of the indoor feminized and the outdoor early bud.
The plants coming from oldest seeds have not developed any roots visible outside of the rockwool yet.

And now we're coming to the tough part:
pH - how to deal with it?
I have changed my water yesterday.
It was a tap water that was left alone to vaporate for 2 days.
I have added half of the recommended dose of BIO ROOTS and TOTAL GRO nutrition.
After that I have regulated the pH using pH down buffer from GHE to aroound 5,5 - 6
Today I have decided to test the pH - not that I was expecting any changes - just for fun - and it was much over 8-9!!!!
It also happened in first week - I checked the pH after few days since regulating it to 6 - and it also was 9 !

Do you think that water is an issue?
Should I try using distilled water?

Any comments and advices will be higly appreciated!


Adam

 

[jake43]

I can't comment on the setup, but DO NOT use tap water. It f-ed my plants up in 2 days.

Get yourself an RO filter or distilled water.

Trust me on this, I try and tell everyone now about how awful tap water is.

 

[adambn255]

pH meter that I ordered last Friday has been delivered today. I was glad to find out it also has a built in digital thermometer.
I couldnt wait to use it so I have calibrated it and tested my water.

I have found out to have 2 problems:
1. water temp was too high (27 C)
2. pH has changed to 6,7!

Ad. 1
Inspired by rollitup users setups I have rebuilt mine to lower the temp.
The outcome was quite nice:
a) air temp lowered by 8 C
b) water temp lowered by 5 C

Ad. 2
I cannot really understand my problem.
I am using 2 days old tap water and a rockwool as a medium.
pH once balanced can go up by 1 in half a day!
Is this usual?
How can I deal with it?
I am using pH down buffer from GHE.

 

[orzz]

pH meter that I ordered last Friday has been delivered today. I was glad to find out it also has a built in digital thermometer.
I couldnt wait to use it so I have calibrated it and tested my water.

I have found out to have 2 problems:
1. water temp was too high (27 C)
2. pH has changed to 6,7!

Ad. 1
Inspired by rollitup users setups I have rebuilt mine to lower the temp.
The outcome was quite nice:
a) air temp lowered by 8 C
b) water temp lowered by 5 C

Ad. 2
I cannot really understand my problem.
I am using 2 days old tap water and a rockwool as a medium.
pH once balanced can go up by 1 in half a day!
Is this usual?
How can I deal with it?
I am using pH down buffer from GHE.

Did u pre-soak the RW?
Get rid of the tap water. Get a filter or R/O water system.
My 70 gal res will go up but not that fast .... the more res water the less the shifts.

 

[adambn255]

Another busy week...
It has started with a dramatic pH fluctuation problem that I couldn't resolve. It led to few improvements of my setup and another few thoughts for the near future.
Ok, so I was having a pH changes of 1 up in 12 hours - I was doing my best to balance it, checking on it and adding pH down whenever possbile.
Chitownsmoking has said smth about presoaking my rockwool so I have pulled my baskets out and flooded the rockwool with pH 5.5 water thinking this could help. Actually it did help a little bit - reduced pH changes to 0,4 every 12 hours which was a great success
But this wasn't my only problem...
The water started to smell a little bit and its temperature was reaching 23,5 C in the end of the lamp cycle. I read it causes root rot so I have decided to fight - I have installed the exhaust piping system for the cool tube and another small fan to supply fresh fair. My tent is located near a window in such a way, that exhaust pipe is going to one side of the windows, while intake fan is located near the opposite side.
The results were quite nice - temperature dropped, but the intent temperature with lights on still reaches 31 C - I am afraid that I need to think of a AC unit for hotter days in the summer...

But hey - temperature is not the only issue - I think it is far too dry inside my tent.
I only have a cheapest thermometer+hygrometer that I could possibly buy but it clearly says that temp is oscilating around 32C and humidity is 0. I don't trust it though so I am planning to get a digital one soon.

I am considering using my simple air humidifier - it is a device that heats water and releases it as a steam.
Once I get my digital thermometer I am planning on performing few tests - like setting different on/off timers for air humidifier to get a humidity of around 40% - what do you think about it?

My airstone's air pump is running only at night as I do not want to heat water with warmer air coming from the outside during the day.

I have just changed water in my res, filled it with fresh demineralised water and added only 1/4 of nutes dose. pH jumped from 5.8 to 6.45 in only few hours ;-(

I am attaching recent pics of my setup, my plants and its problems...
If anyone can tell me what should I do to heal my plants I will be very gratefull.
Adam

 

[kootabuds]

Another busy week...
It has started with a dramatic pH fluctuation problem that I couldn't resolve. It led to few improvements of my setup and another few thoughts for the near future.
Ok, so I was having a pH changes of 1 up in 12 hours - I was doing my best to balance it, checking on it and adding pH down whenever possbile.
Chitownsmoking has said smth about presoaking my rockwool so I have pulled my baskets out and flooded the rockwool with pH 5.5 water thinking this could help. Actually it did help a little bit - reduced pH changes to 0,4 every 12 hours which was a great success
But this wasn't my only problem...
The water started to smell a little bit and its temperature was reaching 23,5 C in the end of the lamp cycle. I read it causes root rot so I have decided to fight - I have installed the exhaust piping system for the cool tube and another small fan to supply fresh fair. My tent is located near a window in such a way, that exhaust pipe is going to one side of the windows, while intake fan is located near the opposite side.
The results were quite nice - temperature dropped, but the intent temperature with lights on still reaches 31 C - I am afraid that I need to think of a AC unit for hotter days in the summer...

But hey - temperature is not the only issue - I think it is far too dry inside my tent.
I only have a cheapest thermometer+hygrometer that I could possibly buy but it clearly says that temp is oscilating around 32C and humidity is 0. I don't trust it though so I am planning to get a digital one soon.

I am considering using my simple air humidifier - it is a device that heats water and releases it as a steam.
Once I get my digital thermometer I am planning on performing few tests - like setting different on/off timers for air humidifier to get a humidity of around 40% - what do you think about it?

My airstone's air pump is running only at night as I do not want to heat water with warmer air coming from the outside during the day.

I have just changed water in my res, filled it with fresh demineralised water and added only 1/4 of nutes dose. pH jumped from 5.8 to 6.45 in only few hours ;-(

I am attaching recent pics of my setup, my plants and its problems...
If anyone can tell me what should I do to heal my plants I will be very gratefull.
Adam

Heat is your enemy. I believe all your problems are heat related.

I've worked out that theres a couple of rules you can't break in hydroponics. The first is grow room temp should be 25-28c, no higher, no lower. 31.5c is too high.

And a 23.5c res temp is also way too high. If your res temp gets over 20c (70f), you will almost always have problems.

Put some thought into some ways you can cool the room further. If your res is in your grow room, cooling the grow room will cool the res. But this might not cool the res enough, you might need to throw in some frozen water bottles every few hours during lights on. Thats what I am doing at the moment and it solved my res temp problems, and also no more ph fluctation, it sits on 6.0 for 3 days now.

Good luck. I was in your shoes 3 days ago and was throwing my hands up in the air trying to work out why a) my plants were drooping, b) my ph was fluctuating wildy, and c) my res got all foamy oily crap in it after a day or two and it stank. I fixed them all by cooling better (both room and res). Now its all going great.

 

[adambn255]

I was happy to find my plants alive after being 3 days away from home. Looks like my heat/pH/nutes problem didnt do much harm...

What have I commited this week?

1. Balanced pH (hopefully)
It was said my pH is rising all the time because I have not presoaked my rockwool with low pH water in the beginning.
I took baskets out of the system and flushed them with a pH 5,5 water.
After that treatment my pH has risen by 0,05 in 3 days - SUCCESS!

2. upgraded my grow room (spent even more money)
* I have bought 100l (4 res changes) of demineralised water and I am storing it next to my tent - I can change water anytime now
* my previous analog thermo/hygro meter was cheap piece of junk that was showing 0% humidity all the time - a brand new digital one shows humidity of 25% and avg temp of 25 C with min at 18c and max at 29C
* My plants started to smell a little bit!!! I have installed my carbon filter in the tent and connected it to cooltube. I wonder what the influence on min/avg/max temp would be?

I am getting ready to change my res water soon. I have made a lot of mistakes with nutritions dosing.
week 1 (germination) - no nutes
week 2 - 1/2 dose of nutes (faaaar to much! i think this caused a nute burn)
week 3 - 1/4 dose of nutes

I think my plants are ready for full dose of nutes now but I'd rather ask you for advice big time growers

Comments appreciated.
Adam

 

[Agent88]

I think my plants are ready for full dose of nutes now but I'd rather ask you for advice big time growers

Comments appreciated.
Adam

Hello Adam, I have been keeping an eye on this thread as I have an aero farm conversion kit on its way to me. This will allow me to accomplish largely the same the same kind of project that you have here.

I would agree that you start with 1/4 nutrient strength, then 1/2 and then a full dose. I see you started on 1/2 and it created a problem for your plants. Quick acknowledgment of this issue allows for minimal damage to the babies; and I can see that you have reacted great and have bumped the strength down to a 1/4. As far as going from 1/4 straight to full dose in one skip, I would not recommend it.

I think that perhaps due to the plants receiving the 1/2 strength dose when they were too young, that they would now be less likely to cope with a large increase in nutrient strength.

This is because of the stress caused to the plant during the time when the 1/2 strength dose was initiated.

The plant would not grow much more tolerant to the nutrient but would instead be shocked, thereby creating the need to have an even weaker dose than what the plant could originally handle.

You should continue to work your way up slowly and not to jump a step because it seems like it could be appropriate, if you know what I mean.

Also with aeroponics I find that the nutrient is more efficient at feeding the roots, and therefore you need a much weaker solution.

The best aeroponic system in the world that us lot have access to is the Atomix Aeroponic system. Nothing compares to the technology; the results are shocking. Theres a thread on icmag forums where I saw a guy get over a kilogram dry from one machine, and he never had to push the e.c past 1.0.

As far as I remember, he had to start off with a 1/8 strength dose or less, and had to work his way up to find what strengths were best for his plants.

I doubt that the aerofarm will have this issue, as it is more of a highly oxygenated hydroponic system than true aeroponics, but it would be worth keeping in mind that it is best to use what works well for your plants, and to not feel that you inclined to use as much as they say on the bottle. Perhaps going at 3/4 strength for the first grow would be wise.

All the nutrient companies advise optimal feeding charts. They use the most high tech systems, with perfect conditions for temperature, humidity, co2, oxygen content of the air etc, so it's only safe to assume you'd want to hold back a little on the advised dose until youve got the Nasa Gardening setup and years of expertise needed to never make a mistake.

The best part is you save money on nutrients, and to begin with this technique will improve your yield too.

Good luck!

Oh and last thing, do what jake43 said and get a RO filter! From what I can see you're already on your way with the distilled water which has the same use. When you have a filter, you can make as much as you like.

I recommend the Vyair 5 stage RO filter. It's available on eBay for 70 pounds / 150 dollars. It's what I use; this thing makes about 10 letres of filtered water an hour - and for 70 quid, that's not bad!

Once you have the RO, you'll want some germs for your res. Beneficial bacteria and Beneficial fungus, and something like Voodoo Juice from advanced nutrients.

The ones you should definitely get for root rot issues/improving the roots are these:
Voodoo Juice - beneficial micro organisms
Piranha - beneficial bacteria
Tarantula - beneficial fungus
Carboload - This feeds the living nutrients listed above.

Also good and almost necessary is Sensizym.

Using these, you will never get root rot. Never say never is what they say, but I feel unless you do some really silly things, these additives will not only eradicate the possibility of attack from the root rot but the yeilds that the plants are then capable of will have you hooked in awe. Dont forget bud blood and big bud. I use all of these with Sensi 2 part (2 part fertilizer which covers the main food source).

Agent 88

 

[adambn255]

Hi Agent88,

Thank you for reading my thread and for those great professional advices.

I have never heard of the nutririons you recommended but I did buy some GHE organic compositions for aeroponics. They are: BIO ROOTS, BIO BLOOM, and BIO PROTECT (for spraying on leaves). I think that together with GHE TOTAL GRO and TOTAL BLOOM (nutrtitons for veg and bloom phase) they are easy to use for an amateur like me and provide quite good results.
I am going to look for those you like and maybe use them for next grows

Ok, back to my story:
This was a very dramatic week. I have done many things and encountered new obstacles on my way to happiness

1. installed air humidifier
It's a steam one. I let it on for 16 hours inside a tent - humidity rose to 36% but I got few leaves burned a little bit.
Now I only switch it on occassionaly and I try to do it at night - I am planning to get a timer for it soon.

2. changed the lamp!
I found out my first lamp's specs online and read, that 95% of its spectrum is red. ;-(
Salesman said it is universal - I could suspect that there is no such a thing that is both good and universal
I ran to the shop and got a brand new one GIB growth spectrum 250W. I am going to use the first lamp for flowering.

3. trimmed my plants (!)
I found some video manual that said it was necessary to trim small plants.
First I cut off the nuteburned parts of big leaves. Than my lady decided to cut whole burned leaves off. I finished the work by cutting off some of the upper big leaves to let more light through for the lower branches.
The next day in the morning I decided to never smoke again with scissors nearby my plants

Check yourself if I have ruined them or not yet

Adam

 

[morrisgreenberg]

you didnt ruin them, but it may impede your growth progress, let em grow out a bit and clean up the lower 1/4 for the sake of air flow, you wont need your scissors unless mid flowering you want to get lower bud sites some more light, and only then if you prune take ONE clip here and there max, never touch top leaves, these are your solar panels, but enough of the lecture, they look healthy and happy, so your doing something right =)

 

[morrisgreenberg]

as for your PH, its totally normal, thats why you need to check it daily at the minimum, the plants take up water, some water evaporates and whats left is a higher dose of unused nutrients in the water, changeing the PH and also the nutrient solution becomes more potent, you have a PPM meter? you will notice the ppm rise on a daily basis, to ofset this you top off with fresh water, PH if you need to lower the rez, some nutrient brands act differently in this way, for instance with my GH was very salty compared to dyna-gro and the PH was a lil more erratic

 

[adambn255]

thanks for sharing your knowledge Morris.
I never thought of water evaporation as a reason of my pH changes but it seems perfectly reaonable if you think it over
I am just going to check my pH now.
I don't have a ppm meter yet but I might be buying one next week - seems like it's a tool that might come handy.
I have noticed (or is it my imagination?) that the plants are doing better with a new light. I forgot to post a root pic yesterday - here it is !
Adam

 

[morrisgreenberg]

those roots look great, get on ebay and get a cheap PPK meter, i got a HM tds for 25bucks plus shipping, water goes fast especially when you have a nice root structure like that, wait till the plant is in flowering, 6 plants will drink 1-2 gallons a night! at this point ya gotta be ontop of the readings, plants always leave behind fertilzer

 

[morrisgreenberg]

also check your water temps, summer is coming and your using high intensity lights, 75F and over is a problem, you use anything for the water protection? aquashield or hygrozyme?

 

[adambn255]

also check your water temps, summer is coming and your using high intensity lights, 75F and over is a problem, you use anything for the water protection? aquashield or hygrozyme?

I never used hygrozyme or anything that protects them from heat.
I have noticed that after 10 hours of light water temp rises to 24,4 C which is 76F.
It wasnt exceeding that temp though.
I am trying to chill the water with frozen water bottle but I can only fit a 1l coke bottle there because of small size of my res. Of course there is no chance I could do it more often than once a day in the evening.
I have set my lights for 18 hrs from 6am till midnight.

I have also changed the nutes dosing to 3/4 - I have noticed that my pH down is becoming less effective if more nutes is added.

I am going to Amsterdam tomorrow to do some shopping - I plan to buy ppm meter, hygrozyme and maybe something more

Adam

 

[morrisgreenberg]

i dont know man, 76F sounds too close for comfort, you do not want root rot, it will demoralize you, but and this is big, with hygrozyme i know a dude on here that maintains that exact temp, even up top 81F, but i wouldnt go that high, one thing you can do is run the lights at night time during the summer months, this helps, the bottle of ice is such a pain in the ass its not funny, is there anyway you can run some ducting from your cooler rooms into there or put an a/c in the wall? i have one rule since i went hydro, if an a/c is not a viable option in the room, no hydro, dont want to be 8 weeks into a grow and have warm water, its a heart breaker

 

[orzz]

I have noticed that after 10 hours of light water temp rises to 24,4 C which is 76F.
It wasnt exceeding that temp though.
I am trying to chill the water with frozen water bottle but I can only fit a 1l coke bottle there because of small size of my res. Of course there is no chance I could do it more often than once a day in the evening.
I have set my lights for 18 hrs from 6am till midnight.
Adam

Hey Adam, I looked back through post and didn't see where your rez is located. Can you put your rez outside of your grow room? I have mine outside of my tent and the temp is a pretty constant 68 degrees F.

 

[adambn255]

another week passed...
I have just received my nutrition meter - it was said to be very accurate and was highly recommended. It has an option to set alarm when the nutes level moves by 0,5 (either way) it flashes red light.
I havent had time to experiment yet - I want to check if my root compositions or other organical substance make any difference to the score.

Ok, now I have few serious problems:

1. my nutes and magnesium
I am using GHE ONE PART nutes, http://www.eurohydro.com/one_part.html
I spoke to a friend who told me it is not possible to have a one part solution with magnesium, cal and iron as they react together. In this case my nutes lack magnesium and iron! I also have FLORA series (3 part) from GHE which I could use - what do you think?
Is my current nute providing enough of everything to my plants?

2. EC
What EC level would you recommend to let my plants grow healthy? Last time I have added something between 1/2 and 3/4 of recomended dose - I have also topped the res up twice with another 10-15% of clean water alltogether - now, the nutes meter shows 0,8
It looks kinda small to me - What would you say?

I am attaching new pics