First manual hydro grow. Have question regarding feeding for seedlings

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idohcvtecexi

Member
Hello, I just started my first manual hydro grow and have some questions regarding feeding my seedlings.

I germinated 6 white widow seeds a couple of days ago and waited for the tap root to come out. Well 2 days ago they sprouted so i put them in 2" grodan starter mini blocks.

I mixed up half strength 3-part gh flora nutes at 6.0ph with my tapwater.

My tapwater is 6.98 ph and 214ppm naturally, so after I added nuts and ph'd to 6.0, the ppm went to 241ppm.

Is this too strong for seedlings to handle? They are all about 3/4" tall already.

Also, how often should I feed? I ask because those blocks seem to retain nutes pretty well. Right now I fed them nuts on the first day, then fed them 6.0ph'd water today, and figured as they get bigger I'd feed more than once a day.

Does that sound accurate or should I be watering more than once even if the blocks still fill full?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.



Ps: these seeds are just for experiment to see if I'm successfully germinating and raising the seedlings in the hydro correctly, since this is my first hydro go-round.

If everything goes good, I'm gonna throw those out and start my trainwreck.

(the white widow seeds are from a hermied plant mixed with some no name stuff, so that's why I'm just using these for testing)
 
ru4r34l

ru4r34l

Well-Known Member
It is probably not too strong for some seedlings and will kill others you will have to wait and see what happens, normally seedlings will not require any feeding for the first 10 - 15 days. You dont want your medium to be sitting water logged, and I would not suggest a manual feeding regime unless you have plenty of time to kill in the coming 3 - 4 months as you will be feeding larger plant numerous times daily.

Do some research on different hydro growing methods and see what suits your environment best, manually watering plants could get very tiresome.

regards,

regards,
 
I

idohcvtecexi

Member
Also, I'm just gonna pick the best seed and grow only one big plant under 600watt. I'm a soil guy, and grew 8 plants in may of this year, but trying to convert to hydro slowly but surely. Eventually I'll get a automatically ran, hydro setup.
 
C

cruzer101

Well-Known Member
LOL automatically ran hydro?
You may deliver the water automatically but let me tell you, There is more maintenance involved in hydro then soil grows.

What you are doing sounds about right. It would be best to use r/o filtered water with a little calmag but tap will work.
By adding air stones to your res it will help dissipate the chlorine and keep the pH stable. Keep your nutes at half of manufactures recommended amounts.
 
SlimDigital

SlimDigital

Active Member
I don't want to tell how to care for your ladies so I'll just tell you what I do. I do not add nuts until the fourth set of leaves appear then it's the micro:grow @ 1:2 at a 1/4 tsp per gl and I will gradually increase until I'm at 1.5:3. I use only ph water gh rapid start and superthrive (starter mix) until I see the fourth set.

I use starter cubes so when the roots appear from the cube i put it net pot with hydroton and I just dip the bottoms in my starter mix only when the cube appears to dry out. The roots shot on down and then that's when I start my feeding program.
 
Phillip J Fry

Phillip J Fry

Active Member
I also dont feed the babies until a good root mass is starting to develop, babies burn up easy from to much nutes. Even in full veg mode i only run them at ~250ppm. You can adjust ppm according to what the ppm are after they have drank up some water. If the ppm is higher than it started then back off the food. If the ppm is lower than it started bump up the food. This way the water and food gets used up at the same rate helping keep ph in check. If you are using a medium such as cubes that retain water it is best to let them dry out before watering again.
 
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idohcvtecexi

Member
I was planning on buying an r/o system this week but didn't know what all I'd need to put in it besides nutrients. So cal/mag is the only thing I'd need to put in it with nutrients?

What about when I'm flushing, would i also just use ph'd r/o water or ph'd tap water?
 
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cruzer101

Well-Known Member
idohcvtecexi said:
I was planning on buying an r/o system this week but didn't know what all I'd need to put in it besides nutrients. So cal/mag is the only thing I'd need to put in it with nutrients?

What about when I'm flushing, would i also just use ph'd r/o water or ph'd tap water?
Click to expand...
Pretty much just cal mag along with nutes every other month. flushing pH tap would work but pH 5.8 r/o without the cal mag is what works best for me.
 
I

idohcvtecexi

Member
Alright cool, appreciate your time!

Thanks again everyone, and please continue to post if you have any other things about hydro that you can shed upon me.

My brain is a sponge right now, so everything will be wrote down for future grows.
 
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idohcvtecexi

Member
Hey Cruzer,

If you don't mind, could you break down this statement for me?

cruzer101 said:
Pretty much just cal mag along with nutes every other month.
Click to expand...
Are you saying that every other month I feed the plants r/o with nutrients and cal/mag? Meaning that I only add cal/mag to water every other month?

So the months in-between would be r/o water with nutrients only and no cal/mag?

I only break this down like this because I know the littlest mess ups can ruin a whole crop with hydroponics.

Thanks again, your a big help.
 
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cruzer101

Well-Known Member
No I meant every other res change. That should be every week, so one week add it, the second you don't need to. Dont worry man, little mess ups are easy to fix in hydro, the only real thing that you gotta watch is the water timer. Hydro drys out real fast but most things when caught in time can be fixed quicker cause the plants respond much faster.
 
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