First Grow, Closet "Ghettoponics"

I sit in my driveway, with a tote that is probably 20" L x 12"W x 6"H
Drilled TONS of holes all over the bottom.
I pour my hydroton in it when I need to rinse, and let the water hose rinse it for 30 - 40 minutes.
When I THINK it's rinsed well, I sit the tote on a 5 gallon bucket and rinse until the bucket is full.
I can see the run-off/sediment floating in the bucket each time I do this.
Hydroton can only be rinse so much.
Plus the more you handle it roughly, the more the clay will fall off too ! Meaning it can NEVER be TOTALLY cleaned !
I then soak it in 5.8 ph'd water for 24hrs prior to use, in a 5gal bucket WITH air bubbling.
I use my net pots to measure what I need, and put the rest away once it dries out.
Hydroton hold oxygen AND nutes VERY WELL. The only thing more porous is rockwool and perlite.

Flo Grow said:

I sit in my driveway, with a tote that is probably 20" L x 12"W x 6"H
Drilled TONS of holes all over the bottom.
I pour my hydroton in it when I need to rinse, and let the water hose rinse it for 30 - 40 minutes.
When I THINK it's rinsed well, I sit the tote on a 5 gallon bucket and rinse until the bucket is full.
I can see the run-off/sediment floating in the bucket each time I do this.
Hydroton can only be rinse so much.
Plus the more you handle it roughly, the more the clay will fall off too ! Meaning it can NEVER be TOTALLY cleaned !
I then soak it in 5.8 ph'd water for 24hrs prior to use, in a 5gal bucket WITH air bubbling.
I use my net pots to measure what I need, and put the rest away once it dries out.
Hydroton hold oxygen AND nutes VERY WELL. The only thing more porous is rockwool and perlite.

Click to expand...

Will my plants suffer one more day vegging in the dome with just PH Water ?

They shouldn't suffer, but may begin to air prune their roots themselves.
At least 12hr soak should be good AS LONG AS you rinsed very very well first.

Thanks for the advice, i actually picked up a 5 gal bucket today, ive seen people use 3 net pots in a 5 gal and do pretty good, tho i might just throw two in because its a pretty big bucket & i dnt wanna buy more buckets than i would need, but i guess the only way for me to see how well they grow is to just try & see, im gonna use another bubbler i made for some bagseed i have & grow a mini just to fool around & see how well it goes, im gonna try my luck & order 2 autos tonight to go in the 5 gal & start them some weeks after the bagseed, ill keep you guys updated

Ok, so the little bubbler i made i put 1, 3" net pot in the middle, soaked my hydroton in 5 ph water & placed a starter plug in the middle, Still haven't gotten that down or up yet, but i DID find some white distilled vinegar & half a cap full dropped my res down from 8 to 5! so i guess ill be using this in the meantime, but i dropped a bagseed in there last night that i had sat in a glass till it sank, it had barely any tap root showing, when i checked on it in the morning it had a nice big white root coming out, so far so good. lol

i ordered two beans last night to throw in the 5 gal

1x Auto Lemon Skunk
1x Roadrunner

its gonna take them a while to get here, so lets see how the bagseed does for now!

But one more question, when do i know its ok to let the light shine directly on the spout? i covered the root with the seed still attached with a small piece of the plug for now

It can shine on there now.
Just have to keep it a certain distance depending on the type of light and wattage.

No superthrive or anything, just plain tap that sat out over night ph'd with distilled vinegar @ 6.

Right now im using a desk lamp w/ reflector with a 30w 6500k CFL hovering over it
Groww BABBYYY


i also noticed some small light leak making its way into my res through the netpots, i even tried to make a reflector with the paper bowl but still no luck, should i make some small squares out of black & white poly to go around my seedling instead?

Progress .

when would it be ok for me to add veg nutes?
im using Botanicare Pure Blend Pro Grow 3-2-4

i like to add ph down after 1/4 strength nutes and superthrive so it has a slight buffer. otherwise it goes down fast.

Quickk has lift off ! lol

What are your current ppm's ?
Let start there then see if we need to increase.

haha i got ghettoponics too, sprout just poped today..




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LOL..... that's pretty ill !
Gotta do what you gotta do !

i have others that are way better, just your regular dwc bubbleponics in the 5 gal buckets, but this is something i tried a very long time ago...but had no idea what i was doing. still had everything i used, just kinda made everything better.... real nutes, real lights, and pump so yea im gonna see how it comes out vs the one two years ago..

Lol ok, so i finally decided to stop bullshitting, & get some quality shit, went to my local hydro store & grabbed

2x 5 Gal Buckets
Botanicare AquaShield
Botanicare Cal-Mag
SuperThrive
PH Down
Full 72 Starter Tray with Humidome & plugs
FFOF Soil(for a later grow, gonna try my luck with some lst @ the same time with all of these seeds i got)

Im ready to go innn. lol, i transplanted my little guy in a bucket along with some friends, ready to set the other one up with some real deal beans, they should be in the mail today or tomorrow.
right now ordering a ppm meter from ebay lol
i think my little guy is stunted, its been a week & yellowing on the first round leafs & getting lime green on the first set, but they did sprout a second set.
i want to start some real roots in my cell tray before i move them into the next pots, do they need much light over the dome or no?

Can you or can't you use up or down with the other, inthe same res?

Ok, so alot of things happened & i got really slowed down so now i have a new better setup.

Room Temp - 73 deg f
Humidity - 45%
I stepped on my res thermometer :\ so i dont know the temp of that, but its pretty chilly.


3 Pot 5 Gal DWC
Lights - 9x 26 watt 6500k CFLs (Ordered 2x 105 watt 5000k CFLs)
Ph - 5.7
PPM - 318
Nutes - 1/3 Doses* - Botanicare Pure Blend Pro*, Botanicare Cal Mag, Botanicare AquaShield
2x Bagseed sprouts (third one had a fungus on it so it was taken out)



Fox Farm Ocean Forest /w MG Perlite

Sick Bagseed from first attempt (Brown roots, but grew through the plug)


1x Auto Lowlife Lemon Skunk
1x Road Runner


I germed these two in coffee filters and placed them in a ziplock on a heating pad in the dark when they had tap roots i placed them in the moist soil mixed of about 30% perlite

I think i didnt water them enough because its been almost 3-4 days and i dont have any signs of spouts, i was thinking about digging them up to check, if they havent grown throw them in the humidome inside some plugs with a heating mat under it..any suggestions?

+ rep to all who post

I cant help but feel like i'm stuck at the seedling phase, anyone with tips?

Ph - 5.9
PPM - 340
Room Temp - 74 deg
Humidity 42%



+ Rep to all that post something helpful

IMHO those ppm's are too high.
I keep mine around 100 at that stage, although some ppl use tap water with ppm's a little lower than yours.

alright, now i have to figure out some ways to drop ppm..lol the first set of leaves are coming in & growing out fast, but the first "fakes" are still folded closed, hopefully this 125 system im ordering will start waking them up

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-125-watt-CFL-6500K-GROW-LIGHT-Kit-REFLECTOR-/290461567820?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43a0dbcb4c

i swear i felt like i had almost everything but i feel like im getting almost nowhere..only time will tell i guess!

but also, my lemon skunk & roadrunner aren't making any moves..

seeds have deff popped, sprouted a tap, & started sprouting the "fake" set, but no movement after that, i even used lifewater bottle tops for humidomes in the soil. been about two days

Had to go back and look at your medium.
Some ppl have "hot" issues with Fox Farm burning their sprouts/seedlings.
Are you testing your run-off ppm and ph ?
That will tell you approx how hot your soilless medium is.