$15,000 Mistake Learn from mine. Epic Fail!

whoa, you flushed every week with cleares? In rockwool? I would say that was your prob, or to any one doing that, there is a place to improve. I am pretty sure that clearex is supposed to be used max twice, and I would say once in rockwool, at the end. It stops the plant from uptaking nutes. So it needs some time to start again. A week is not enough. Plus rockwool should never be flushed. It really messes with the balance in the cube. Once in a while pour some nutes over the top to get rid of some salts maybe if you think you need to. Clearex at the end so the plant can eat it its leaves. Just some advice.

I understand.


But hell, I use soil for all my growing. I too have thought about trying Hydro growing.

Only.. if I decide to actually try to use Hydro setup.. my plan is to start out with a simple setup.. instead of doing what you did which you pretty much just jumped into the whole Hydro method full blast.

If I were you.. I would have started out with a simple little Hydro setup instead of going all out on something that I (You) know little to nothing about. Ya dig?

I'm not hating on you.. or talking down to you.. im just saying that when I go into something new.. I ALWAYS start out with the simple setup.. and work my way up from there as I learn more about the method.

Good luck to ya though dude.. OH! also,

that plant doesn't look all that bad bro. You said you made a mistake somewhere or something.. but I'm failing to see the mistake. Looks like a healthy little lady to me.

I'm out. Peace dude and best of luck to ya's.

Firstly ebb and flow is an easy system.

It is hard to analyze what your problem is as there are so many factors that can cause the problems you experienced. They look stressed and lots of factors can stress them out. So here are some general ebb and flow ideas.

First soil and hydro PH are not the same. 5.8 is good for hydro. Soil is higher.

Since you have done soil in the past I assume your venting is fine and heat is not an issue....or is it? What about the distance from the light to the plants, too close? Air flow okay?

I run 3x3 trays with each having a 40 gal rez. I currently use 6inch rockwool cubes but have, in the past, used the 4 inchers. I'm going back to the four inchers in order to better control the PH hike. Normally I put the rockwool cubes into a basket with hydroton, however I have had successful grows with just using cubes and nothing else. The 4 inch cubes I completely cover with hydroton in a 9 inch basket after I remove the white plastic, the 6inch cubed I cut the bottom half of the plastic off the cubes and fill to that line with hydroton which live in 11 inch baskets. So with that said I don't think your problem was the cubes. I need to mention that all my grows; the cubes go into the baskets when I go to the bloom room from the grow room. So when they are in grow they are just in the cubes alone.

although I generally try to avoid it, I do at times top feed my new ladies for a day or two when the come out of the cloner.

I don't know what your starting PPM is but if it is high like mine you can have problems with PH hikes and nute lock out. Check it daily. Look into some sort of filtration system if this is your problem. H2O is the starting point it should be good.

Tell me about your light? When I was a new grower I did my grow and bloom in the same tray with the same light. Now I do not. However, when I did I found that going from cloner strength light to 600watt or 1000watt light was just too much for the little ladies. I used a filter (such as growing fabric with additional holes cut into it) to hang in between the light and the plants until they got strong enough to handle the full light. Usually 4-7 days. So watch your distance. They also make a light separators which I now use. However the jury is still out on those things.

I flood my tables 3 times only when the lights are on for 20 min. And I do not flood 4 hours before the lights go out to help control humidity.

I have run multi strains on one tray but I do not recommend it as different strains require different nute strengths. 1 strain per tray is more control imho.

I use GH products, add your Micro first in your full rez of H2O order to prevent lock out. Stir well as you add each. They also make a hard water Micro.

Clearex once per grow cycle as mentioned. 2 at most.

Clean your rez weekly with the nute change.

The plants look tall and gangly so I would guess they were cut from a mother that is under a florescent light. Take smaller clones or put her under a stronger light to make her more compact and strong looking. A healthy beginning is a good start.

What is the conversion factor of your meter .5 or .7?

Drr said:

I'd say not Ph'ing those cubes fucked you.. coupled with the overdose...
the light off might have stressed them a bit but they should recover as long as the light cycle returns to normal.

if your run off from the cube was 7.2 from 5.5, this tells me your medium is over 7.2 more like 7.5-8 maybe higher at worst case 8.5-9

since the Ph of the blocks have to be higher then 7.2 to bring from 5.5. Feel me? thats how ph works in my mind..
I don't know for sure if its like a mirror exact opposite affect.. (ex, it raised by PH of 1.7 so your medium is 8.9.) But I would say its between 7.8-8.5

Does anyone know the starting PH of a rockwool??

Also if your nutes are more alkaline/casutic... it didn't help with the overdose...

it hurts me to see it also... but trial and error is the best learning tool there is..
Knowing is doing...

Click to expand...

When my clones go from cloner to 2x2 cube of rockwool, i just dunk the cube in my veg rez untill saturated. Shit man that ppm is like 1250 and they dont even flinch. PH is the key. I bust my balls to keep a 5.8 +- .1-.2

Rockwool is a picky bitch in my experience... if you can't water for 2-3 days because of over watering (common in rockwool) the ph quickly starts to rise to unacceptable level in a few days. Then your stuck, do I A) water to correct ph, at the cost of oxygen deprivation, droop, ect. or b) wait to water, while the ph continues to climb quickly to 8. In my experience it took about 3 days to climb from 5.8 to 8 and I was using a rez ph of 5.5 to help compensate. Basically, it was a huge headache that I avoided this round by changing up mediums. Love my new mix of 50% hydroton 50% rockwool mini-cubes, but others love coco, pure hydroton ect. Maybe rockwool just isn't for you.

Oh, and 1/10th of the scale would have been a good starting point. $1500 wasted is more tolerable no?

My RW goes strait to a basket with hydroton in it and recieves the same water that all my other veg plants get. I am on a drip by the way.