Well i really thought i had it down with hydroponics, But alas my years of veggie growing in the back yard seem to have failed me. I setup at a friends house in a wardrobe i gutted and put a hydro system in[
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/58277-so-i-built-growdrobe-pics.html]
But the first grow was plagued by problems, managed to harvest 2oz but my aero setup really let us down. Turns out that the water here sucks, ph is high as hell, 450-550 ppm really just crap. So i could fight it forever, spend more cash on water treatments or buying water/RO system or just get some dirt and do it that way.
Also switching to dirt allows me to eliminate the reservoir, thus giving me more space in the bottom chamber. So now i should be able to clone, veg, flower and keep my moms happy all at the same time. I have a separate small cab i set up to hold the moms in his closet. It holds 2 under a few cfls, so far so good, they seem to like it in there . The mothers were in fact the first plants i put in dirt, as it seemed like the best way to keep a plant for a long time with the least effort. For now the clones come from 2 mothers i grew from bagseed, appears to me to be indica dominant.
I would love to get some strains going but the only guy i know who would sell me a clone wants $50 a pop. I do hope to get some lowryder #2 seeds soon, When i do i figure i'll just toss my current moms and put 1 male and 1 female in my mother cabinet and let em do there thing so i get more seeds. Then maybe do a LR#2 grow under the HPS.
I went to the store today and bought eight 8" square pots four disposable roasting pans to go underneath them, some miracle grow moisture control, and some perlite to loosen it up a little. I have some clones going that i cut early this week, when they root i will move to dirt in some pots i made from the bottom half of my ISO bottles [recycled baby] I will veg them for a few weeks under my cfl array, top and then move the best 8 up under the 400 watt HPS probably straight to 12/12 from there but i may veg a little more, i plan for very short plants so i will flower at under a foot to finish under 3'. I really hope to hit .5g per watt this grow as my last wasn't even close.
Any input on my pot size? Think they will be big enough to grow little 2'-2.5' plants in? I know people use 1 gal per month of growth but i have also seen 2oz per plant from a buddy's grow in cut up 2 liter bottles. So i figure this should fall somewhere between the two. I also plan to top dress the pots in hydroton as per the FAQ, I have no great excuse for not having taken clones and started vegging weeks ago but i ended the last grow alot earlier then i had expected to due to generally being disgusted with the results. But in the future i hope to hit a harvest every 8-9 weeks since i can have pre-rooted and vegged 1' tall clones ready to go ahead of time. I had wanted to do a journal for my first grow but being a noob i decided to wait till my 2nd grow.
Starting this one now so there will be no backing out. I promise i will post some pics of the reworked cabinet soon, i took some today but now i can't seem to find my camera.... Any input appreciated, all questions answered, Tell me what you think. Anything you see as a problem?