Wow this thread was great. I read it once thru forwards, then read it again from the back to the front, and now again front to back again. LOL. This is my first real attempt growing. I tried once a very long time ago when living with other family members, climbing up in trees and hanging the plant so I could give it sunlight and keep it out of the grandparents eyes. Those were the days and unfortunately a bad storm claimed the perty girl.
But I was lucky enough to receive an AG as a gift from my mother of all people, happened to already have the cord on hand to plug the lights in separate. Still need a timer, but not until the 12/12 cycle I gather. I'm going to try to follow your procedure as closely as I can. If it ain't broke don't fix it. And yours looks far from broke, they look like totally upper echelon budz. Seriously, my heart leaps at the possibilities when I gaze longingly at your progress photos.
So, I gotta get the mylar sleeping bags for the walls (have white garbage bags duct tapes to the closet walls temporarily. Extra CFLs...question on those, what was the wiring you had to do for the fixture? Just attach a plug to the wires of the fixture? If that's it then I am sure I can figure it out.
Would you mind elaborating on exactly how you change the water so as to not damage the plants? It looks tricky and you indicated it wasn't the simplest thing to do. I have oger hands and often accidentally crush the life out of delicate little beings. I never mean to do it and it always bums me out...
And as far as nutes, I am going to use what came with the kit. I have 2 salad green kits and one tomato, so I think I will use whatever nutes come with the salad greens kit unless that is a bad idea and someone is kind enough to let me know. It seemed like you said first 2-3 weeks go with straight up distilled water, then add 1/2 tab nutes every 2 week water change, and as the plants get bigger then use a full tab of nutes each water change. Do you pre-dissolve the tablet before introducing it into the tank or just plop plop fiz whiz into the tank?
How often did you end up trimming the plant too? Not sure I was able to figure out the frequency from the thread. Maybe reading it backwards the one time has me all confused...
OK, so I think I got it under control enough to get started, but if you'd be so kind as to answer my questions in this long ass post, it'd really help me out. Thanks in advance dudemasterz.