A few beginners questions

Hey everyone I have just a few questions

what is an optimal light to place seedlings under that have been planted in rockwool? Can a fairly cheap light work or should I place them under my hps 250watt with adequate distance.

I placed them under a standard soft white 60w bulb with a heating pad. One sprout is nice and green and one is yellowing and not looking great.

I soaked the rockwool cubes in distilled water for 24 hours ahead of time. Should I add a bit of nutes? I use the general hydro mutes that come with their waterfarm system btw. I have heard yes and no on this.


Also my sprout are the small cubes with the hole in the middle, do these need to be placed onto larger slabs before placing into the hydroton? If not how long should I wait before moving the cubes into the bucket?

Thanks in advance!

what is an optimal light to place seedlings under that have been planted in rockwool? Can a fairly cheap light work or should I place them under my hps 250watt with adequate distance.

You can use either it really depends on what your growing them for, need a healthy strong mother? go HPS but keep it like 3 feet away from the seedlings, only move it closer when they are a nice size and are ready for it but lower it slowly.... If your trying to save some energy go with a lower wattage light like a two 28W blue CFLS, or Floro tubes.. They will grow fine for a while under either

I placed them under a standard soft white 60w bulb with a heating pad. One sprout is nice and green and one is yellowing and not looking great.

You dont mean a 60W Incandesent bulb do you?? The round ones that your mom uses at her house? These will not work for growing you need the spiral type atleast, bigger is better BUT when they are small dont get them tooo close.. 12 inches with a CFL for now if they stretch bring it down but dont burn them

I soaked the rockwool cubes in distilled water for 24 hours ahead of time. Should I add a bit of nutes? I use the general hydro mutes that come with their waterfarm system btw. I have heard yes and no on this.

No nutes untill veg, or maybe 1/4 veg nutes when you see them yellowing later on in the end of the seedling / beginning of veg state.


Also my sprout are the small cubes with the hole in the middle, do these need to be placed onto larger slabs before placing into the hydroton? If not how long should I wait before moving the cubes into the bucket?

They can be done eitherway, it depends what you mean by bucket. If your talking DWC bucket wait untill you see roots hanging down from the bottom then either stick it in the larger rockwool cube, or put the existing one in the bucket without putting it in a bigger one first, its up you.

If you put the rockwool cube into a block, wait until you see roots coming out of the block to transplant

Thanks in advance!

I start germinated seeds in the dwc res but there are many ways to do it and none are wrong (well, some are but you know what I mean). Don't use any light until you see green. I start light nutes at the appearance of the second set of real leaves, but again each to their own. I also use cfls at 6-8 inches to start then in much closer. One thing newbies often do is over-water a rockwool cube. It's better to have a system to waterit from the bottom and not the top. You want the top of the cube to be moist, having wicked up water from under. But if it is too wet it causes stem rot on young seedlings.

I appreciate the quick response. Also as an FYI, when I mean moving the rockwool the the bucket I'm referring to moving the cube into the hydroton in the general hydroponics waterfarm.

I suppose I will wait till I start seeing some good roots before placing it in the hydroton. I just was not sure if I needed to first place the small rockwool cube onto a larger rockwool slab to allow a larger root base. If it is ok the place the 1.5" cubes directly into the hydroton I will stick with that.

I'd get them in the hydroton and a netpot before the roots are very far out of the cube. Otherwise you can't thread the roots through the bottom of the pot.

Well, I can see I will be posting on here quite a bit. Maybe I will start a journal. I have a few more questions while they are on my mind.

I am using the general hydro 3 bottle nutes that come with the water farm, should I use exactly as directed or have any of you experimented with better results? If so I am getting ready to fill the system for the first time, what would you reccomend?

Should I cover the top of my rockwool to help protect from algae using mylar or tin foil?

At what distance from my 250W HPS should I start them off at while they are young?

And last but not least, what kind of watering cycle should I use? I know someone that leaves their waterfarm running constantly but theirs are not rooted in rockwool, therefore does not hold the moisture as much. If I keep it on constant flow im guessing the rockwool will oversaturate.

Thanks! You all are helping tremendously.

Bump thanks Again