Transfer from soil to aero - How big/when?

I posted this is the 'General' forum but it didn't get any hits. Maybe this question is more suited to the hyrdo forum:

I'm germinating some seeds in soil right now and will need to transfer them to aero when they sprout. I plan on pulling them straight out of the soil, dunking whatevers left of the root system in water to cleanse, then put them in my aero units. In yours guy opinion, when should I do this? Like how big should I wait for them to get before pulling?

I did this to my soil plants when they grew to be about 4 in. tall so they had enough roots. then, like you said, just dunk the roots in water and massaged out as much dirt as I could. Placed them in my homemade aero system and they did fine. very minimal stress (that I could see). This is my 2nd grow (1st grow were males =/) and my plants are doing awesome now. 3 weeks into flowering and about 1.5-2 feet tall now.

Upsilon420 said:

I did this to my soil plants when they grew to be about 4 in. tall so they had enough roots. then, like you said, just dunk the roots in water and massaged out as much dirt as I could. Placed them in my homemade aero system and they did fine. very minimal stress (that I could see). This is my 2nd grow (1st grow were males =/) and my plants are doing awesome now. 3 weeks into flowering and about 1.5-2 feet tall now.

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Shit, one of my seedlings is about 4 inces already! She's only got 4 leaves, the two oval ones you normally see on seedlings, then two normal MJ looking leaves (really small tho). The first seedling sprouted on Friday, the last one looks like it will come up tonight. So anyway, were your plants as young as mine when you pulled them? Or do you remember about how many nodes they had at the time of pulling?

I don't remember exactly how long I had them before transplant. I just remember not wanting them to get too big (too much roots to handle) and not too small (too fragile to handle the stress). I think I waited until the second set of stems started to form. If the main stem seems sturdy enough then you should be fine.

I went ahead and transferred them last night (4 days after planting seed). They were still very young looking but I said screw it and did it anyway. Well I ended up snapping two of them in the process but both appear to be doing well today. I snapped one's bottom end off so it doesn't have any roots and the other was snapped up top so I left him in tact and he just leeeeaaans. I even dug up the one seed that hasn't sprouted yet and it turns out it did crack, just hasn't came up yet. But since it had a root I put it in my aero too. I took some pics of the snapped one and the just now sprouting one.

Anyway, my original worry of them being wimps and not being able to handle it was way off. These lil gals are pretty resilient it seems no matter what age. Maybe that's why they're better known as weeds not flowers haha.

they look great, you are doing exactly what i am going to be doing, and the one that is slowly sprouting, i would put a things between it or even a tooth pick of something to help it lean upwards. other than that they are great, and remember slowly add nuts dont rush it, seen to many babies die that way.