I think the truth may hurt :(

Don't manually water the top!!! The roots will find the water if its touching net pot!!!

jimmyjam22 said:

Don't feel too bad matey. A LOT of first timers get that wrong. I taught a mate to clone once and did about 20 clones with him. I told him not to fiddle with it or get it too wet. What did he do? He couldnt help himself and fiddled with them.. Pulling them open to see if he could see roots n shit like that. Out of 20, 1 survived...

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I guess its like a new toy that we want to play with but aren't supposed to and of course we're newbies so what do we do....play with it anyways...but but no one was looking

jusanothertoker said:

I guess its like a new toy that we want to play with but aren't supposed to and of course we're newbies so what do we do....play with it anyways...but but no one was looking

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That is SOO TRUE! I gave my mate a stern talking to before I left his house and I felt like I was his Dad telling him not to touch the presents under the tree or something lol. But I knew deep down he would... LOL

jimmyjam22 said:

Don't manually water the top!!! The roots will find the water if its touching net pot!!!

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Even if the rockwool dries out? I must be making this way harder then I am supposed to....I guess the rockwool can retain the moisture it starts with for the cpl of days for the roots to find its way out?

I think I put to much hydroton in the net pot...i put about 2 inches of hydroton then set the rockwool on top and surrounded by more hydroton

You HAVE to have an air pump/air stone. It's a must in DWC. Else, the water won't get oxygenated and your plant will choke.

I put a hole where I want the max water level to be, then fill up til it drips from the hole.

Right now you need to water the top until you get an air pump. Since you have 2 inches of hydroton, fill your water up about an inch over the hydroton when you get your air pumps. Until then, don't let the roots hit the unoxygenated water. You have to top feed for now.

VoidObject said:

You HAVE to have an air pump/air stone. It's a must in DWC. Else, the water won't get oxygenated and your plant will choke.

I put a hole where I want the max water level to be, then fill up til it drips from the hole.

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Thats where I messed up...I thought I needed the air pumps/stones but the guy I bought the system from on ebay said not to worry about it b/c the water is constantly moving with the top feed throughout the 6 buckets...he said set it up on 15 min on and 15 off and not to worry about the air stones....obv. should have listened to what I have been reading on here and not his advice. I bought air stones/pump from wallyworld and took them back

Did you read my tutorial? It's in my signature.

VoidObject said:

Did you read my tutorial? It's in my signature.

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Yeah I subscribed to it thx a lot...so should i just ditch the top feed and just get an air pump/stones and make them all individual dwc's?

Maybe use the top feed later when they get big enough to handle more water?

I think you've been misled somewhere.. Here's the deal with top feed: It's needed at the start when there is no root-to-water contact, or a root has yet to spring from the bottom of the cube.

You ditch the top feed after a few days once your seedling has sprouted. I don't use one at all, and instead manually germinate/top feed until I see a root, then they go in the DWC setup.

damn im all messed up without the top feed there is no need for the water pump....how do I get the system to recirculate? the pump is hooked up to the top feed.

the buckets are hooked up in 2 separate rows so there isn't one return line....just one line going out to each row

after this I swear no more ?'s haha

Use the top feed until you can get air pumps/stones. Water level should be an inch below the net pot so the roots have space to grow into.

I have to agree with ledgrowing, I'm not sure what's wrong with the roots in the first pics. Here's my system, which has worked 100% btw. After germinating in a wet paper towel I transfer the seedling to a standard rock wool (or lately sure to grow, I like them better) cube/hydroton/net pot configuration. I keep the water within a few inches of the bottom of the net pot and pay close attention to the color of the hydoton. The pebbles in the lower half of the net pot should be a darker color than the pebbles in the top half, indicating that they are damp. I also gently press my finger on the top of the rock wool every few days, It should be moist but not wet. If either the pebbles or the rock wool seem to be heading towards totally dry I hand water about a cup or less from the res. This means that I am watering at most twice a week for the first two weeks. As soon as there is visual evidence of roots I stop hand watering. The trick is giving the roots almost, but not quite, enough water so that they will continue to look for water sources, e.g. continue to grow. To this end I also transfer my plants from a 3 gal rubber maid tub to a tall cat littler container (volume unknown) as soon as the roots are long enough and keep no more than 50% of the roots mass submerged. This causes the plants to grow longer less dense root masses than in the smaller container, which in my experience helps prevent root rot since anytime I've had dense mats of roots the center of the mat was never healthy.

Why do people think they have constantly fuck with their plants. For the most part just leave them alone and they will do just fine. Why does everyone always want the perfect grow so bad that they kill Their plants trying to get it??

They don't look bad place them in a cup of soil. Water and wait. Best bet if you want to try to save them.

its hard dude. many things these days come with instant gratification, growing doesnt. its all about patience. I've dug up seeds too. I cant remember the saying, but it goes something like "don't dig up your fucking seeds". at least thats how i remember it. i stopped digging up my seeds.
monitor ph, ec, rh, temp, i fuck with those now instead, and taking notes. practice makes perfect.

Vumar said:

Instead of germing and transplating them, try sticking them in the rockwool cube and cover with a humidity dome. This way you dont even have to bother transplanting the germ'd seed into the rockwool.

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word!


stupid paper towels

I hope they're looking/growing better by now.

I'd say do the full vegetative dose if they have over four nodes. If not you might wanna stick to half of the veg dose til then. I know I hit four nodes before 2 weeks.

Yeah I think mine is still a lil behind looks like the 4th node is taking place now so I will just hook it up with the lower dose of vegetative @ 3ML/Gallon think Im gonna gonna increase light to 75% @ 450W since I have moved the light up to 18" seems to be doin aight.....thx bro

I just got my PPM meter in today and checked my tap and its 31 PPM is there any reason to use distilled when my tap is that low?

Is it still recommend to leave the water sit out 24hrs?

Also added nutes to my only one left and the PPM is 280 and I'm on day #17