My Grow Garden 1st attempt baby!

no offence but i would much prefer a person to help explain it better so there is interaction

Pics are being taken now.

Here is my Hydro Kit my frend gave me.
he said he had about 6 inch tall plants in it but neglected to
take care of them.

the water sits in the cups that are this big

when its on water comes up the blue tower and pours out openings in the top and water runs thru the plastic "stones"
here is the kit running

and here are just a few of thos plastic "stones" i ha mentioned


i have a full spectrum grow bulb and a uv ray light that im going to try growing with

does anyone have any suggestions as to how i should use them or if i shouldnt use them at all?




I have some seeds germinating right now


simple paper towel method

they are already starting to show root thru the seed so now idk what to do
should i place the seed w. the exposed root into my hydro kit and turn on my lights an let it start?

will the seeds drown like that?

or will they accually thrive?

or is this Hydro kit only good for clones?

well due to the overwhelming responses that i recieved from everyone willing to help me
and aid me in my journey

thanks everyone so now because i didnt know what in the world to do i took the 5 skunk seeds i have that were already rooting out and the first 2 round leaves were starting to come out of the seed casing. none of the casings fell off yet also the top bag of germs the what i call "Baggers" are all rooted and i little more along then the skunks because they started a day before.

anyway
i placed 3 seedlings in each of the 5 gallon buckets i have and i have 2 buckets so idk you guys do the math lol
thats roughly lol 6 plants total
i also filled all the cups on my hydro kit with one seed each and for an experiment i filled one with 3 seeds in a triangular pattern.

i also placed in a 2.5 gallon bucket one seed in the very middle im going to try and do some LST with it so that is wht i did tell me if i did anything wrong and ill try to fix it all before its to late new pics of the finished grow room will be up soon i just need to finish the walls





maybe a little guidance would be nice

hey tiki, just wanted to encourage you a little. That's a (dare i say) cute hydro setup, and i hope it works. I won't be much help on th ehydro front, but i can tell you you probably shouldn't keep more than 1 seed per pot or when they grow they might tangle there roots and choke each other out. And you will probably need nutes because i'm pretty sure plants need more than just water, and they will be happier/bigger for it. Maybe you dont want to get that big though because your pots look pretty small, but whatdo I know, i grow in soil... You might also want to find a different grow light.. like CFL's or T5 HO florescent($25 for a 24" 1 lamp fixture). You didn't really spec. but it sounds like you have an incandescent grow light and those aren't that good... any way, people are watching even if tey aren't helping , so keeep it up man.

hey ty fiender

i will get on to geting that light does anyone know where i can get them a cfl or T5 HO florescent idc which ill get one tho

what nutes should i get?
and i need help knowing at what points do i put them in and how much

what should the average temp be in my grow space and same w. humidity if tht is a factor too

cfl's you can get anywhere.. walmart, Homedepot, anywhere. you could also use a cheap florescent "shop light". A 4' 2lamp fixture should cost about 10 - 50 bucks at walmart or HD. The t5's are neat. I use them for veg and clones and you can just chain a bunch of them together for more light if you need it later, but you probably need to go to a Grow shop to find them.
Temps should be between 70 and 85, but not much over that, and not lower than about 55 at night. I've heard that a 10degree drop at night helps, but i don't think it's necessary.
RH should be 40% - 80%.
It might be in your interest to check out the CFL subforum in Indoor growing to get some ideas for a lighting scheme and just read around a bit to see what the Hydro people are doing for Nutes. It's basically Grow nutes until you switch to 12/12 and then you give Flower nutes, but your in Hydro so there's probably more to it than that.... idk, i'm into soil. Most of the popular lines (foxfarm, botinacare, general hydroponics) have a 3 pack or a 2 pack that contains most of the stuff you need for the diff stages.

this is basic info, i know, but i hope it helps.
f

oh, also, with the nutes, it's a good idea to start slow and work up. meaning: start feeding at 1/4 or 1/2 strength until you figure out how much your plants can take. It's easy to over-nute and burn em.

Yeah It Helps A Ton
Im About To Post A Few Pics I Have 3 Soil Pots Going Right Now
What Type Of Light Should I Give The Plants For The Three Diff Stages

They Where Germinating Then They Started To Get Large Roots So I Transfered Them To Soil Hoping For The Best

Ill Get The Pics Up Shortly So U Can See Wht I Mean

I decided with my large amount of seedlings to sprout that i would take the real good seeds and put them into soil.
everywhere there is a flag behind it is a seed
in the tiny black bucket there is only one seed in the very middle that is where im going to give LST a try it caught my eye and seems very majestic in appearance and i would love a larger yeild from one plant and i have been reading slot about it and it doesnt seem all that difficult

I NEED TO KNOW WHAT NUTES ILL NEED AND WHEN I SHOULD FEED THE SOIL PLANTS THE NUTES


the walls still need to be foiled off and a door situated over the front
any and all ideas welcome

there's 2 types of lighting you want. more blue for veg and more red for flower. There are specific color temp.(Kelvin) numbers but i don't know them. higher #'s (6500?)for bluer, lower #'s (2500?)( i could be way off on those numbers, but it's something like that) for redder. Generic cfl's usually come in "daylight" for more blue and "soft white" for more red. t12 florescent is cool white and warm white, t8 florescent have a lot of different numbers you can buy higher numbers = bluer, lower = redder. t5 flo's go by the kelvin numbers i don't know, but mine came with the bluer lights.
I also see the people that go Flo start to finish usually run a combination of red/blue lamps, which is probably good because you get a more complete spectrum than with just one color, but with decent light of either type you should end up with something.
later,
f

so i should get a "daylight" CFL and a "soft white" CFL
and keep the Daylight on for vegging and then switch to the soft white for flowering?

if your not using that little hydro setup and you want biger plants you might want to bite the bullet and just get, like, a 250, 400, 600, or 1000w HPS light. THere more bucks, but if you want bigger plants it's the way to go. I just thought you were staying small, because i don't think your hydro kit has much room for roots. If you get a bigger light as mentioned you should really seperate your seedlings into different pots so they don't tangle... or so i've heard.

with the number of plants you have, your going you need a few cfl's because you need them to be real close to the plants (like 2 inches away from the leaves) for them to be effective. but, yes daylight for veg and soft white for flower.

awesome thats no prob for the light issue i just need to get the bulbs
the hydro kit is pure experimentation im just trying to make little plants inside of that i dont even think anything is going to grow in there to tell u the truth.

i looked up CFL lights and i as soon as i saw them i new what they were.
i had some in my house in the different light fixtures. i have 4 total i have 3 on the buckets right now. 2 of them are 13 watts which is around 890 lumens each and the other one i have on is slightly bigger and brighter not sure i would have to take it off and i wouldnt want to do tht right now

i have the plants on 24/0 light and they havent poked thru the soil yet is that ok?

when should i switch to 12/12 for vegging?

and when its time for flowering should i switch it to 14/10 or 10/14

12/12 is for flowering.
18/6, 20/4, 24/0 - these are all acceptable veg light cycles, but around here people fight about which one is best. I think 24/0 is probably best for Florescent lighting. i keep my t5 flo's on 24/0 during veg and my 1000w hps on 18/6 for veg. A lot of people say 24/0 is best for everything but under the hps my plants just seem happier with a dark period. if that makes any sense...

as far as Cfl lumens, more is better, and the higher wattage cfls put out more of them. another hottly debated topic is adding more lights to produce more lumens vs. just having higher watt cfls. it makes sense to me that one needs more watts per lamp instead of more lower powered lamps. sooooooo what i'm trying to say is that you probably want the highest watt cfl's you can get, and the 13 watters prolly won't be enough once your plants get bigger. i read about people using 40w cfl's with success.

as for your seeds not popping yet.....patience.

and luck, and hope, and fingers and toes crossed.

try not to get too worried about it all, but it's hard to not get all wrapped up in it.
in the mean time take a toke or whatever and read about what everyone else has going on. this is a great place to kill the time when nothing new is happening with your own grow, which it seems is most of the time....

later,
f

don't worry about nutes yet because you wont need them for a while. btw, what kind of soil are you using?