DIY 50-60 site hydro

i wanna build a 50-60 site hydro machine to start plants indoors, then transplant outdoors. any ideas on how to do this? i wanna keep it as cheap as possible, what would i need to buy thier only gonna be in thier 2-3 weeks any ideas?

Are you cloning in the system? If it's not for cloning, I don't think I'd bother with hydro for a couple weeks. You'll probably get more stunting from putting them into the dirt than would counteract the slower growth from just starting them in it.

really need help wanna get this setup ASAP so any help or links to someone with a setup like this would be great!!

so i should just start them in dirt, than transplant them outdoors? space is kinda a issue to but i might be able to throw something together in my garage. im planning on growing at least 50 plants, cause i got plenty of room to spread them outdoors.

Are they from seed? You could also try rockwool, but it's a little bit of a challenge to master the watering technique.

ya im gonna start all from seed this year. next year hopefuly ill have a few mothers set aside but ya gotta start somewhere. and do u mean growing in just rockwool, like put it in pots and water them?

You can use a drip or ebb and flow hydro system with rockwool cubes, then transplant those into soil with little shock.

AeroKing said:

You can use a drip or ebb and flow hydro system with rockwool cubes, then transplant those into soil with little shock.

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ok cool u know any good ones for this, or any links/info on how to build one?

Sorry, not my style, but I bet you can get it to work for you. Good Luck!

ok thanks ill figure something out ill keep u all posted

from the sounds of it you would be best starting in rockwool plugs, then transplant them into the big rockrool cubes. they plug right in.

this should be enough space in the cube for their roots to develop and u can transplant them into buckets or into the ground from there with a god root structure.

you could do a flood table to soak all the cubes at one time and then drain them to a res below. you could have them for about 2-3 weeks before they would outgrow the space you would have for them in that flood tbale assuming you have all the cubes touching.

this would be my method of approach given your situation, it would make for transplanting the cubes easy as oppossed to many soil filled buckets or bags which can be messy heavy and obvious.

hope this was somewhat helpful.

~TheKnown

ok thanks for the advice, i think ill go with that setup, the rockwool cubes and the tray.i could just basically have the tray sitting on a table, or sawhorses and have a drain plug on it with a bucket below it? how often daily would i flood and drain it

I would start them in dirt also. I would use 16 ounce cups and 50 wont take up that much space. In a few weeks the cups should be full of roots and ready to transplant.

sweet what lighting do u reccomend with this? i was planning on getting sum 4 foot fluros and just have them close together

bwill said:

sweet what lighting do u reccomend with this? i was planning on getting sum 4 foot fluros and just have them close together

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flouros will do you just fine till you are ready for transplant, they do quite well for veg.

considering the sheer number of plants you are seeding, i would use the tubes instead of CFL's to better dispurse the light amongst your babies

good luck and let us know on your outcome

ok will do thanks 4 all ur guys help

oh btw does anyone know if theres a way to tell male from female seeds? i heard from a buddy that females have specks or stripes on them.

never heard of that before. I know though they go through a process to make seeds feminized.

if this round of plants is going to be outdoors, i would honestly just plant em in soil. I have experienced signifigant recovery time transplanting hydro clones to soil, like a week sometimes. If they are going outside anyway and you cant use clones, then i don't see much of a hydro benefit. You could, as allready stated do ebb and flow in rokwool that can be transplanted to soil. But if you have a few weeks to let em gro in soil indoors, it's much easier, first-time freindly, and hardly that much slower at that stage of growth, imho.

you can buy feminized seeds for more $, but there is no way to tell if any certain seed or plant is male or female until it exhibits it's sexual characteristics. This occurs naturally after the plant reaches maturity in veg state. This is also characterized by the nodes becoming asymetrical, as in branches that stop growing on opposite sides of the plant. To tell early, wait till you have a few 2 inch long branches, cut one, root it, and stick it under 12/12 to initiate flowering. Or you can potentially cover a branch on a plant under 24hr light for 12 hrs a day with a lightproof paper bag for a few weeks.