Seedling HELP (Flood & Drain Hydroton)

I finally sprouted a couple seeds (afghan) in rapid rooters!! but i have a few questions! I used rapid rooters to germinate/sprout in a dome/tray and used a water bottle to spray and keep everything moist.. then after a week i transplanted to the hydroton. the bottom of the rapid rooters are like 1/4-1/2" from the flood level. I’m using an a/c 400w hps, like 10-12” from the tops on 24/7 and flood every 4 hours in 1 gallon pots. i already know i fucked these seeds up from over watering (they are drooping a bit) and transplant shock, i transplanted them on the 24th and like no vertical growth has occurred but the leaves yellowed a bit so i gave them 200ppm of maxigro and i think they’re just recovering now. but i have 2 more I’m transplanting tomorrow so i want to make sure i don’t mess things up on 2 new ak-48 seedlings, so heres my questions...

1. Once transplanted, should i water the rapid rooter directly? i was using a spray bottle but wasn’t directly watering the plug, just around it. also, should I still be flooding every 4 hours when watering from the top?
2. How often should i water the top? when the plug is like really dry, like a beige color? or when its still kind of moist (light brown)? or should i just not hand-water them myself at all and make the roots stretch to the flood level?
3. Is it safe to transplant into the flood table at such a young (1week) age? some people say to wait till the roots develop but logically i feel like the more roots sticking out the sides and stuff, the more damage can be done and more shock when transplanting. any thoughts?
4. Should i put hydroton on top of the rapid rooter when in the pot or should i leave the rapid rooter uncovered?
5. What could be causing the tips of the taproots to turn brown? the taproots on the afghans were brown and skinny/shriveled. i read some places it could be from light hitting it or under watering and some other stuff too… or maybe my heat mat?
6. Also, i have a thermostatically controlled heat mat. when should i take it off?

Sorry i typed so much but i would really appreciate if you could help me out!!! thank you!!

my bad i posted this twice it wasn't showing i posted it so i posted it again and don't know how to delete the other one

Post some pics in regular lighting (can't really see the color of leaves under an hps) and people will help you get it everything sorted out.

Rapid rooters are the shits for F&D hydro. They hold water too long and they make a mess in the res.

Go with rock wool for F&D hydro. 2"x 2"x h" pieces.

My table gets flooded to the max.

I start seedlings in the table under a 1kw hps.

I put the top of the rock wool flush with the top of the hydroton.

I don't water from up top but the current schedule that I'm using is 5, 6 minute F&D's every 24 hours, 4 hours apart. Three minutes to fill the table and three minutes for this table to drain. This watering schedule is not an absolute and may need to be change due to altitude and local environment.

I plant while the table is flooded. Cup the root zone with your hands and shove the snip into its prospective position. Place a reflective plastic sheild at the base of the snip...about 5"-6" square.

I cut the res to 1/6 NPK as directed per gallon of water for outside fertilizer instruction. There wasn't any special hydro nutes when I started this so...

bird mcbride said:

Rapid rooters are the shits for F&D hydro. They hold water too long and they make a mess in the res.

Go with rock wool for F&D hydro. 2"x 2"x h" pieces.

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i bought the rapid rooters on accident, i thought i was buying root riots plugs and got the rooters instead and i flood every 4 hours 24.7 so 6 times per day. it takes like 4 or min to fill the table but i have the pump running for 6 min then it takes like another 4 to drain back to the rez

KryptoBud said:

Post some pics in regular lighting (can't really see the color of leaves under an hps) and people will help you get it everything sorted out.

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http://postimg.org/gallery/22wbc3epg/

heres a link to the gallery http://postimg.org/gallery/22wbc3epg/ ... theres 3 different plants, the first 2 pics are of the plant that was the most promising but i think its now over watered. the second 2 pics are of another afghan plant that i never planted, just wanted to see how it would do without being potted for 2 weeks and the last 2 pics are of the plant that seemed like everything was going decent (besides transplant shock) and now it has a slight droop and the cotyledons are turning like yellowish color around the edges and a purplish/gey color in the center of the cotyledons... though i must say i think the new leaves on the plants in the pot grew a tiny bit since last night they are still drooping. any thoughts?

I wouldn't even flood at all if it's seedling. Just transplant the rapid rooter to the mesh pot with hydroton and hand water 1x a day making sure the plug doesn't dry out or get too soaked. 500ml of water a day per gallon pot. Use low light florescent bulbs like a shop light for a week or two. Then when the roots make it to the bottom of the pot, put them in the flood tray with more light. Easy peasy.

Hand watered with 64 watts of light



Then f/d when they are this big with 200w of light. Flood 4x a day (every 6 hrs)


And now 400w of light. Flood every 3-4 hrs.

AlphaPhase said:

I wouldn't even flood at all if it's seedling. Just transplant the rapid rooter to the mesh pot with hydroton and hand water 1x a day making sure the plug doesn't dry out or get too soaked. 500ml of water a day per gallon pot. Use low light florescent bulbs like a shop light for a week or two. Then when the roots make it to the bottom of the pot, put them in the flood tray with more light. Easy peasy.

Hand watered with 64 watts of light

Then f/d when they are this big with 200w of light. Flood 4x a day (every 6 hrs)

And now 400w of light. Flood every 3-4 hrs.

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thank you so very much kind sir, you're always a fuck ton of help!!! i wish i didn't already transplant my ak-48s over 2 days ago, your way sounds way more simple and logical. someone said i could just throw them in the 1gallon pots with hydroton once they had some roots sticking out the side and i should just flood way more often (once every hour or 2) instead of hand watering so the roots are forced to stretch to the water line and every things seems fine so far but on one of the ak48s the cotyledons are pointing up and i coulda sworn they were sticking out the sides already before i transplanted them. is this normal or do you think i might have a mutated/retarded seedling? the first 3 pics are of the ak in question and the last 2 are of the healthy ak (i assume its healthy)

No problem man. Actually the opposite is true though. Flooding less forces the roots to grow, flooding them more causing then to not have to seek out the water. Your seedlings look fine! Start with less floods and as the roots get big, they'll need more floods because they drink more water and need more water to supply the bigger size of the plant.

AlphaPhase said:

No problem man. Actually the opposite is true though. Flooding less forces the roots to grow, flooding them more causing then to not have to seek out the water. Your seedlings look fine! Start with less floods and as the roots get big, they'll need more floods because they drink more water and need more water to supply the bigger size of the plant.

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this is why i hate the internet, people always give out info and don't know what they're talking about, if thats the case then I'm definitely going to cut back on the floods and see how they make out but again thank you, I'm going to take your wise words and put them into practice, i appreciate it man!!!!

jronnn said:

this is why i hate the internet, people always give out info and don't know what they're talking about, if thats the case then I'm definitely going to cut back on the floods and see how they make out but again thank you, I'm going to take your wise words and put them into practice, i appreciate it man!!!!

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No problem bro. If you were doing suspended pots it would be a little different, maybe that's why someone told ya something different, I remember you were thinking about doing that I think, but with 1 gallon pots totally flood less at first, the hydroton will stay wet for longer since there's no roots yet. Just keep a watch that your light isn't too close drying things up too fast. I just pick up the pot and feel the bottom, if the bottom is still wet you're good. Check it every couple hrs for the first day to get an idea about how long they stay wet and if your plant looks fine and the rocks are still wet at 6 hrs, perfect.

AlphaPhase said:

No problem bro. If you were doing suspended pots it would be a little different, maybe that's why someone told ya something different, I remember you were thinking about doing that I think, but with 1 gallon pots totally flood less at first, the hydroton will stay wet for longer since there's no roots yet. Just keep a watch that your light isn't too close drying things up too fast. I just pick up the pot and feel the bottom, if the bottom is still wet you're good. Check it every couple hrs for the first day to get an idea about how long they stay wet and if your plant looks fine and the rocks are still wet at 6 hrs, perfect.

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well I'm doing this as a start for mother plants and once i get these nice and full and ready I'm doing the "Al B. Fuct" s.o.g (if you're familiar with that) but with suspended pots but yeah thats the only thing is the top of the rapid rooters dry pretty quick so its hard to tell if the bottom of the plug is staying moist or if its just the top of it drying out but i raised my light to light 14" but the canopy is steady around 74/75 but humidity is a little low around 40-45. The only thing i noticed about the hydroton i have is it holds a lot of water, even 4 hours after a flood i can pick up the pot and tilt it to the side and probably around 75ml of water will pour out, idk if this is normal for regular hydroton (the kind i have isn't all round balls) but there is a decent amount of water trapped in there

jronnn said:

well I'm doing this as a start for mother plants and once i get these nice and full and ready I'm doing the "Al B. Fuct" s.o.g (if you're familiar with that) but with suspended pots but yeah thats the only thing is the top of the rapid rooters dry pretty quick so its hard to tell if the bottom of the plug is staying moist or if its just the top of it drying out but i raised my light to light 14" but the canopy is steady around 74/75 but humidity is a little low around 40-45. The only thing i noticed about the hydroton i have is it holds a lot of water, even 4 hours after a flood i can pick up the pot and tilt it to the side and probably around 75ml of water will pour out, idk if this is normal for regular hydroton (the kind i have isn't all round balls) but there is a decent amount of water trapped in there

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If the top is drying out, top feed until it stays moist, you don't want it to dry out too early. You can keep flooding, too, just give it 1 top feed a day. When the roots get established the plug can dry out with no issue.

Sounds like you're using plantit brand, or similar, hydroton, they do hold more water.

AlphaPhase said:

If the top is drying out, top feed until it stays moist, you don't want it to dry out too early. You can keep flooding, too, just give it 1 top feed a day. When the roots get established the plug can dry out with no issue.

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AlphaPhase said:

Sounds like you're using plantit brand, or similar, hydroton, they do hold more water.

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yes sir, smart man, I'm using "plant it" brand hydroton. and I'm definitely going to top feed just once a day to keep the tops moist, now I'm just trying to figure out how many times i should flood, probably just going to do once every 6 hours with 24/7 light... the thing thats fucking me up is i been flooding like every 2 hours and the smaller ak48 looks like its doing perfect (the plug on the smaller k48 gets dry way quicker too) and the taller ak48 looks like shit and it sucks because i cant tell if its over watering or under watering because its still so small, i feel like it almost looks underwatered, what do you think?

I don't think you can underwater ever flooding every 2 hrs, floods every 2 hrs would be too much for 2 foot plants. I'm gonna say over watered. Possibly too much light

AlphaPhase said:

I don't think you can underwater ever flooding every 2 hrs, floods every 2 hrs would be too much for 2 foot plants. I'm gonna say over watered. Possibly too much light

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ahhh ok I'm going to try adjusting some things then, I'm so pissed, i wish i would've thought of the mesh pot thing you told me a while ago but thanks again bro i appreciate it!!!

AlphaPhase said:

If the top is drying out, top feed until it stays moist, you don't want it to dry out too early. You can keep flooding, too, just give it 1 top feed a day. When the roots get established the plug can dry out with no issue.

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hey alpha sorry to bug you yet again but I’m trying the way you suggested but I’m a little strapped on space and material (i don’t have a 200w light) so I’m trying to make it work as close as possible to what you told me but i have a couple questions if this would work... once the rapid rooter sprouts and has roots, can i put the plug in a 5” net pot with hydroton under my 48w of T5 and hand hand water for a week or 2.... then transplant the 5" net cup into a 1 gallon pot and surround the net pot with hydroton and start flooding under the 400s? or would the air/light pruning of the roots in the net pot keep the roots from growing more in the 1 gallon? do you think this would work?

also,

when you said "hand water 1x a day making sure the plug doesn't dry out or get too soaked” how would you suggest watering? I’ve tried a syringe but it doesnt wet it evenly, i tried using a spray bottle seems to over water the top of the plug and using a straight water bottle seems like it would overly soak it so what would you suggest using? it seems hard to get the whole cube wet without oversaturationg the top or watering unevenly (I've wasted a few plugs experimenting)... or is ok for the plug to get soaked on top because the water sinks/distributes to the rest of the cube? it just really seems like i would have to almost literally soak the cube for it to stay moist for 24 hours…. my cubes now dry out in an hour or 2 after a nice top spraying but thats also under my 400 so that could be flawing my experiment. but anyways any input/help is appreciated man sorry i been bugging you so much I'm just trying to get this shit down packed so i have a consistent method of growing seedlings and transitioning them to veg

In dwc if your roots are not out of the plug, fill your water level up to the bottom of the plug or just below and the bubbles should keep it moist. If the roots are out of the plug, fill the water level up to the bottom of the roots and the bubbles will keep them moist. The roots will reach for the water and grow incredibly fast in dwc, but I never hand water anything but seeds when they're starting in my dwc.


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