Aerogarden CFL Grow with Pics!!!

Hey guys, I'm doing a new grow in a Aerogarden I bought the other day. I transferred 3 of my soil grown plants into the aerogarden system. They have been in there for about three days now. Two of them are looking a little rough. I've included pictures. I need some help, I think it's probably just shock from being transplanted into the aerogarden from soil, but who knows. I cleaned the roots thouroghly before I switched them over to make sure that none of the dirt would clog the filter. I'm going today to go and purchase the ph up and down, fox farm trio (or GH trio), and a pH meter. I was just a bit worried to start these three on nutrients in their current condition.

I'm keeping the ambient air temp in the proper range. So it don't think that is that cause for the droopiness. I've rigged up 4-100 total watt ea. cfls and they are doing great. I had intended on doing this as strictly a soil grow indoors but I was shopping the other day and found this AG in clearance for $60!!! I couldn't pass that up. Also, they are about 3-4 weeks old, however for the 1st 3-4 weeks they have been in soil so that is why they aren't ginormous like they would be in the aero system. I'm thinking about going ahead and putting them into flowering to keep them smaller since this is an indoor grow. Any thoughts? I'm up for suggestions or any advice. I'm by no means a novice grower or plants or a novice in hydro, but this is my first pot grow.... I'm just using bagseed that came off of some mids, didn't want to burn some good seed my first try. I will try and keep posting pics to keep you all updated.

Also, I'm going to need a bit of help sexing these. I know generally you can't tell until you put them into the flowering stage. Do you guys think its to soon to flower them? I know some people go str8 to flowering. I really want to keep their height down. I don't think this will kill my yield too much.


This is a pic of the whole setup, it's in a box I made with aluminum foil around it. There are two fans in the room, only one is pictured, air circulation isn't a problem. I also have two airstones in the aerogarden to help aerate the water.



These are the 3 plants I have left in soil, to finish out or to transfer to hopefully get a full aerogarden of 3 females. I would eventually like to get a mother and just clone. Alot of my nursury education came from propogation, so this is one area I would really excel in.



A bit droopy....



This one is droopin a bit, but it is also yellowing a bit. Probably from the lack of nutrients in the water. I'm going to buy them today.



This one is the droopiest of them all. It was the best plant I had too pre transfer!!! Sucks

My Baby's are booming now!!! I think it was just the initial shock of transplant. I have them on a 12/12 cycle now and I put in the nutrient tab that came with the aerogarden. Everybody talks about how not to use em, but heck I didn't have time to run to get the foxfarm or general hydroponics nutrients so I will at least start them out on the tabs. I will try and upload more pics here in a while, I'll have to see if I can get in there while the lights are still on..... otherwise the pics will be tomorrow.

Aluminum foil will absorb your light, get hot and gives off hot spots, try matt white paint, mylar, panda film ect.

Thanks dude! I really appreciate it! I was planning on putting mylar in there originally but I didn't have any at the time I put the box together, so I used aluminum foil figuring it would be an ok substitute. I will try and change that out.

As you can see the babies are looking better! I added the nootz and I have them on a 12/12 light cycle now. Plus, the air pump I have in there has 2 airstones on it. It's rated for like a 20-60 gallon tank so it's way overkill, but it's doing awesome! The plants love it, their root systems are growing exponentially!

Feel free to post ANY replies, suggestions, comments, questions, etc....

Are you going to stick with CFLs? if you are the foil be ok.
You are burning 400w of electricity on your CFLs, is there a reason why you wont go for at least a 250w HPS? You wont get much of a yield from the CFLs compared to the HPS when flowering.
How did you transfer them from soil?
By the way your plants look heathy, nice one

The CFLs he has prob only use about 100 watts altogether, but i agree that a 250 or 400 HPS would do you much better for budding.

I'm looking for a light setup. the only problem is the limited space in the current location for the hps. But I'm considering it, I'm just a little worried about the heat its going to generate. But yes as jointmcfatty explained, my 4 100 watt cfls are really only pulling using like 92 watts. They are like 23 watts each i think. But yes, I'm fully aware that HPS would be better, I'm looking into it. I will post more pics tomorrow. They are really starting to grow now, it's exciting!

You may consider getting reflectors on those CFLs. It looks like that you're wasting a lot of light by not having a reflector. It'll make a big difference in terms of yield.

Home Depot or most hardware stores will have these clip on work lights with reflectors that would work well in your situation. They are highly efficient with the 23 watt bulb size. Get the wider reflector, not the more narrow one, if you get them.

I hope that you continue this thread with updates; I've always wanted to see how these little Aerogardens do.

Well guys sorry for the very long delay since my last update. I've been in and out of town. Anyway, the babies are looking great! And I've got some sex pictures for you! Yeah porn! I think we ended up with 2 females and one male in the aero so far. I'm going to pluck the male and put one of the backups into the aero hopefully we'll get a female. From this point on, I'm going to be doing clones... it's much faster and there's no guessing game. They are looking very healthy, about a 1ft. each. The male is the biggest fucking plant in there, the stalk on that bastard is huge! Too bad he's got balls.... They are still in the flowering cycle, with the temp constantly between 80-84 degrees. The humidity is right around 46-50%. I'm still only using the nutrients provided with the aerogarden, I just decided to do everything stock on this grow and make upgrades next go round. Let me know what you think. Also, let me know if you think I've sexed them right, this is the first time I've sexed pot, so I'm new at it, studied it alot and seen a bunch of pics, but I just want to make sure I'm doing it right in person. Love to hear your feedback.


As you can see the grow is going very well! They are getting bigger everyday!!!!



I'm still using 2 fans to circulate the air and an air pump with 2 airstones to keep the water aerated. The roots are booming!!! I'll have to get some pics of those, quite impressive.



This is the first pic of the Male! This is the biggest one! Stinks, the stalk is extremely thick....


Close up of the male, this is the plant on the far right if you look at the zoom out view.




Another pic of the same male, just a bit different angle.



This is the female, it's the one in the middle



Another view of the middle female




This is the female on the far left side.

Nice plants you got there man, shame about the male like you said. You wanna get him out of there tho. Not to hijack your thread or anything but does anyone know? Would using a HPS cost more to run than buying a few more CFLs with reflecters?
Hope it goes well and keep us posted

they arent really 100 watt lights they are equal to a reagluar 100 watt incandescent, but only prob 23 watts. you arent gonna get much bud there maybe a couple joints off each plant , pretty much a waste of time.

Yes they are 23 watts, but I'm willing to bet that it's going to be more than enough for me for my first grow... not a waste of time. I think you need to step back and quit sippin so hard on the Haterade.....

plants look really good! im bout to get an aero garden myself, which one did u buy and would u recomend it?E-wEzy

ardalee said:

Yes they are 23 watts, but I'm willing to bet that it's going to be more than enough for me for my first grow... not a waste of time. I think you need to step back and quit sippin so hard on the Haterade.....

Click to expand...

Instead of getting defensive you may want to consider that the other person has actual growing experience...

Get some reflectors on those CFLs! You are wasting an awful lot of light and in these low power grows you need all of the light that you can get. You will roughly double the amount of light hitting the plants if you use reflectors.

Also, you might want to put an air stone in the reservoir. The Aerogardens have a reputation for root rot and pumping some air into the chamber is going to help prevent that and likely boost your yield.

He's running 2 air stones in the rez allready,he's good to go in that area.

hey panhead nice to see another michiganer on the forums (go green, go white), not to hijack this thread but I was thinking of a similar to set up to ardalee, except in mine it would be in a "home-box" (www.buy-the-home-box.com), then i would remove the lighting system that comes with it and letting my own ballast hang down from the box....thoughts?

also i forgot to include i'm lookin to grow approx 4 plants