First Grow CFL Hempy Bucket

so far no smell. i do have some natural magic odor gel but i havent opened it yet im waiting for flowering so i can use them

I believe, you have to water them daily, until the roots hit the resevoir.
I dont think your roots are there yet, are they?
Peace

yes they are because i put the rockwool cubes all the way at the bottom of pots and the roots are outside of the cube so they are hitting the water. i watered the big papaya yesterday inside the cut up gallon and its still full of water i think i need to make a bigger whole or something i dont want the plant to drown in water

Does the resevoir have a chance to dry up? It sounds like you modified this technique maybe?
Peace

no it hasnt dried up i dont know why i drilled the hole 2 inches above the bottom and there are no holes on the bottom of the cut off gallon but the water seems to stay maybe the plant isnt drinking as much as it should? today i will make the hole bigger so hopefully it drains better idk.

best of luck with your grow!

at the begining you say your going to use black trash bags to block the light... i would suggest not doing that... using cfls you don't want any light to be absorbed by the surroundings!!! next trip to home depot look at the panda plastic they have (one side is black, the other is white) and just line the thing with that... for a small area it won't be expensive... that will give you reflectivity on the inside, and no light leaks either!!!

happy growing!

thanks man. i really want to get rid of those damn trash bags they are making my grow room even hotter than it should be. ive been using my AC to get temps down but im not home for 10 hours of the day so my AC isnt on during that time and that is the hottest time. today im lucky its raining so its cool today. i will look into the panda plastic. i was thinking bout using mylar but wasnt sure if light would leak.

A couple of things come to mind;

Hempy used/uses 1000 watt lights in his "hempy bucket" grows. The amount of evaporation you see with a single 1000 watt light compared to CFL's is gonna be huge. What his lights may evap in a day it make take weeks for a CFL to evap.

I would lower the hole..or do no hole at all if I were going to be around and can water daily.

If the rw cube is sitting it the water that is NOT good. The only way you can do this is and avoid rot (and you may still get it if temps go high enough) is to add an airstone/bubbler below the roots. (crude DWC)

good luck

bt dt

Once again BT DT, has sound advice. One of the points of this style is to have the resevoir dry up. Yours can't. I'd lower the hole.
Maybe you need to re-read about the method, and sharpen up your knowledge. I'm not saying this to be mean, as you and I have talked and I realize your smart, but a refresher might help ya.
Peace

thank you guys for all your advice i will put the hole lower and and get rid of all the water that is in there right now. i will be putting up panda plastic and more fans for ventilation. i now realize how important it is thanks to video man. i have made a few mistakes in this grow so far but i am learning and my next one will be even better. looks like back to home depot i go.

another thing is i didnt remember or take into account that hempy was using 1000watts. that is definetly a major wrong i will correct and hempy was using 1 gallon of water to water his plants i never used that much water for mine i guess i will just water around the bottom of the plant to make sure the area where the roots are get watered properly instead of watering through the plant

Yes..drying up is a part of it...as is a slight "NFT" benefit as water is introduced and runs down the roots when the roots form and grow larger.

I'm pretty sure hempy's take on it is that the perlite acts *somewhat* like a sponge and sucks up a bit of water....not ALOT..but some. This allows a lot of airspace/water and promotes root growth. The downside of using 100% perlite is that there isn't much capability to hold water in perlite...thus hempy came up with the hole 2-3" up on the side of the bucket to retain enough water to last from one day to the next. Ideally the water should be GONE in a day and more water is intro'd. (This is basically setting up a manual "cycle timer")

your plants are small and so are your lights. Thus...I'd go without a hole in the side and water straight through... your plants will love you for it.

good luck

bt dt

ok. so how much water do you think i should use in a 1 gallon pot?

Dude you dont have any vermiculite in there?

I'd wait until it's nearly dry...then I'd water it and let it drain well...repeat as necessary/daily..whatever it takes.

if you are using 100% perlite the water will pour right through....but some will hang about in the cracks...etc.

guessing..I'd say a pint a day right now...heading upwards as the plant grows..but it's really yer call because no one else is there to feel how wet/dry your pot is...etc. Just gonna have to find a sweet spot and go with it. I don't think you can overwater in straight perlite if you have good drainage holes in yer pot.

good luck

bt dt

thinking about this... seems like a great medium to use for a drip irrigation system... it would keep it moist but still arated, it seems to me...

what do you think videoman, btdt?

and good choices about ventilation... it is one of the most important factors that is overlooked a lot!

I think the method that thedutchie13 is using is best.
Nothing to mess up, no air stones, no pumps and great yeilds.

You are correct in that most people often do ventilation as an after thought, and it is so very important. Not just for achieving the correct temps, but to replenish the co2 that the plants have used up too.

You'll see alot of posts here asking about home made brews for co2, but they have crap for ventilation. A proper ventilation system will beat any home brew, all day long.
Peace

thats what i'm saying

cuz even with the home brews
if theres nothing exchanging the oxygen rich air with fresh air, then no matter how much co2 you have around, something needs to change the little microsphere around the plant and there leaves....

i am using a perlite vermaculite mixture of 3:1. i will find out how much water to put. i will not put drainage holes in the bottom though because i want the roots to have a rez once they grow big but i will adjust the hole on the side to be like 1 inch instead of 2 atleast for right now. thank you to everyone here today that helped me out a ton shout outs to video he is the man

today is june 6 19 days from seed. this morning i drilled a hole in my cabinet for a passive intake i have a circulation fan inside my cabinet and 2 exhaust pc fans. i currently have 6 lights setup 2 42w cfl's and 4 23w cfl's for a total of 176watts my biggest fastest growing plants have 2 lights on them each the other 2 plants of mine each have 1 23watt cfl. one of my papaya plants is severely stunted i think it was due to overwatering because the rockwool cube held too much water and so did my medium and it wasnt drying out because i had no ventilation whatsoever i learned my lesson and now i have what i consider adequate ventilation. i noticed now that my grow medium does dry out i do the finger test to check if it needs water or not. yesterday i watered my citral and my bagseed with nutes and they seemed to be doing wonderfully this morning. my 2 papaya plants will be getting watered with nutes in 2 more days or so. im waiting for my medium to dry out a bit. i did take them out and squeezed some of the excess water out of the rockwool cubes. the first set of leaves on my biggest papaya plant have turned completely yellow/brown and are crispy. i have 1 or 2 more leaves with a brownish tip but it seems fine. the stems will be nice and strong because i have that fan blowing directly on my plants and its pretty strong looks like a mini hurricane.

hmmmmm i dont think i left anything out oh yea i switched the fans to a different outlet so they will be running with 24/7