First Indoor Grow- Aerogarden Setup

OoOotay... So ive read hudreds of threads, and i finally decided to put my christmas present to good use after seeing the success that you all had. As with most of you, im sure you had your doubts about this product just like i had, but for the most part. IT WORKS.

at least so for so good that is....

Ive been growing for about 2 years using nothing but the good ol down south sun, and never tried growing hydro. Im walking thru linens and things, and my dick got hard when i seen this mini marijuana manufacturing machine. Ive always thought hydro was too complicated, and imma beast when it comes to growing outdoors with soil, so i thought this machine was perfect for a hydro newbie like myself.

Heres my setup:
I have my Ag in a closet, nothing special, no mylar, no extra lights, just the AG, a few gallons of water, and a broken down shoe box with aluminum foil taped to it. Can u tell im cheap??

Whats a growing in my AG:
Every plant was grown from seed, out of 5 seeds, all 5 sprouted and did real well

I have three plants currently in my AG. I started with five, but anybody that has an AG knows how crazy the roots get... im prayin i dont have to get rid of anotha one, but we'll see. the two i removed are in soil jiffy pots. I watered them with water diluted with root groth hormone, before i add any nutes.

I have 2 AK-47's... Now if im not mistaken i read somewhere that AK-47 is mostly sativa, but these look like indica to me, PLEASE CORRECT ME IF IM WRONG. They are growing perrty good if i say so myself, nice thick leaves.

I have 1 bubblegum x blueberry, its growing relatively slow compared to its cousins, i may need more light for that little bugger

thats enough talking, heres some pics, the plants are 21 days old from seed. ANY, ANY, ANNNNNNNY, ADVICE IS WELL APPRECIATED. I think im doing perrty damn good, but after seeing, a few other AG setup's i know it could be better....

I joined this forum, beacuse i wanted to talk to other people who had the AG....i myself just got it for a present, and the first thing that came to mind, well...this LOL....but i couldent find alot of info on it...i found htis site, and wow.....

your set up looks great, and im thinking of using alot of the ideas for myself

im thinking of useing low ryder 2 as it flowers itself and is small


but im a total noob at indoor growing, as in the past i have been a all outside guy.

hey any tips you could give me would be great....as i wanna get this off the ground


from what i gather from all the AG post i have been reading, its a good idea to just start with a few plants 3-4??? i see your down to 3 yourself...so maybe thats what i will start with

anyway, that plants look great, and i think my low ryder could really do the trick

yeah, its a perrty good piece of equipment for hydro beginners... I would suggest using 3 if there good seeds. I started with 5, and i put 2 in soil, but without a HID or sumthin like that they dont have a chance.

These are things on my shopping list:

CFL's
Smaller airstone (roots are damn near loco)
Some wrapping paper with reflective insides (mylar cost some change)
mini fan

So i took the plants out the AG yesterday just to move two of the plants to different spots, because they are growing kind of at an angle (SEE PICS) It seems like growth has slowed down to a hault... im getting kinda worried... I got the new bulbs, just waiting on home depot to get my fixture.

What should i do if the roots are starting to grow out the top of my pod. Ive kept the label on it, so i know light isnt catching the top of the sponge, could that be the case? I think thats why it has that crazy lean, advice would be helpful, i'll keep ya posted.

Everything's looking normal Smoke. To answer your first post, AK is a sativa dominant plant, but if you have indicas in there it's prolly b/c it's a hybrid. Where'd you get your seeds? In my opinion a lot of the strains carried by seedbanks are just marketed to the consumer, and I really doubt one bank's AK is the same AK as another bank. But I DO know what AK 47 looks like finished, and it has a very distinct taste to it. To answer your question about the roots coming up, you may want to cover the pods with something to help keep light out. One of my plants has a root coming up like that too, and I think that and some other things are starting to cause problems. So yeah...my advice is cover it. Also keep in mind, if you have sativas you will need a lot of good lighting...I hear those are hard to do indoors. Goodluck!

WoW

So i should get something like clay pellets or aqaurium gravel, gotcha...

Should i induce flowering soon? i think growth has haulted maybe because it needs to be fed. I have two types of AG nutes, small nutes and big nutes (the big nutes are just two small). The last time i fed it a small nute was at 14 days. Is it time to start bumping up to once a week maybe?

Kartoon said:

from what i gather from all the AG post i have been reading, its a good idea to just start with a few plants 3-4??? i see your down to 3 yourself...so maybe thats what i will start with

anyway, that plants look great, and i think my low ryder could really do the trick

Click to expand...

I am starting with a full 7 seeds. I am going to grow them for 2-3 weeks and then flower for a week. As soon as i see signs of sex, i will cull all the male plants and revert to a 24 hour veg cycle. If you plant a full 7, odds are you will have 4 and 3 of each sex.

how long til after you flower can you tell? out of all the plants ive grown, ive only seen two males. The 50/50 ratio never really affected me (green thumb i guess). i will be plenty pissed if my two big ones have balls....

SmokeThisSmokeThat said:

how long til after you flower can you tell? out of all the plants ive grown, ive only seen two males. The 50/50 ratio never really affected me (green thumb i guess). i will be plenty pissed if my two big ones have balls....

Click to expand...

The bigger ones tend to be the males. My males showed sex less than a week after 12/12, and my females took about a week longer. I'd flower around 7-8 sets of nodes.

damn... i really dont want to induce flowering just yet, but i got like 10 node sites already on the biggest, and around 8 on the other.... Im going to start tomorrow, and hope for the best.

i dropped a large nute in the resv. this morning, because i was worried about my nute levels, the roots are drinking like irish school boys.....

still worried about the roots poppin out top (SEE PIC), never seen anything like it, going to pick up gravel now

i'll keep you posted...

You flower till you can tell the males from the females. Then you can RETURN to a 24h veg cycle. The plants should revert back without any harm within a week as long as you dont flower for more than 12 days or so.

SmokeThisSmokeThat said:

damn... i really dont want to induce flowering just yet, but i got like 10 node sites already on the biggest, and around 8 on the other.... Im going to start tomorrow, and hope for the best.

i dropped a large nute in the resv. this morning, because i was worried about my nute levels, the roots are drinking like irish school boys.....

still worried about the roots poppin out top (SEE PIC), never seen anything like it, going to pick up gravel now

i'll keep you posted...

Click to expand...

If you don't want to flower yet, then wait. Either way, the plant is going to flower when it's ready. 24/0 will not necessarily keep it from flowering. The only reason i'm advising you to flower soon is because light will become an issue unless you're doing ScrOG or unless you have some nice back-up lighting on hand. But if you have the extra lighting and space, wait till you're ready. Keep in mind they will probably triple in size after you go 12/12. Another thing you want to look at is the roots. Once the roots are as big as you want them to get...start the 12/12, b/c the root growth slows down during flowering.

okie doke, you both said a mouthful.. very much appreciated, i got cfl bulbs, but the fixture i bought wasn't right, and im too damn lazy to return. so imma get off my ass and get focused. the AG light has worked so good, i figured it would pull through til the end.

Have you all been running your lights 24 hours? i grew mine 18/6 because they do freaky things while their napping!

I just fed them this morning, so what i'll do is cut the lights back on right now, and shut them off at 9am, and start the 12/12 cycle then, just to see if these things have penises or vaginas...

Yea 24/0 is what i did, but whatever you do keep it constant.

Its been a very trying past couple days, alot of up and downs but everything is back in shape. I gave it a large AG tab a couple of days ago, and it looks like that was just what the doc ordered.

Listen to this ...

I went and bought 4 cfl lights, some adapters and light inlets, and some cords. Even picked up a nice light timer for $.97...(Sears be fuckin up!)... I got home, and had envisioned this real nice setup, and it all went to shyt. Long story short, i ended up breaking 3 out of 4 lights, so i have one cfl added to my light distribution... lifes a bytch...

Concerns thus far:

The cfl's i purchased were cool white 28 watt/100 watt replacements ... I have a pretty good idea what that means, but i have seen you all list cfl's like 125 red cfl, etc, etc. I didnt see anything like that, pretty basic. Would they have those type of lights at home depot maybe???

The biggest plant is a beast. I raised the lights yesterday, and im betting money that i will have to raise them when they wake up. I DONT want big trees growing in my closet. A good foot, foot and a half is good for me, as long as its nice and bushy... what would be the best method for this kind of setup???

And finally, i tried to time my timer on my lights to cut on and off with my aero lights, but the aero doesnt want to cooperate.
How do you program the AG from "12/12 to twelve?
I did what the book said, but it seems to just be going be the SALAD GREENS light setting


Anywho, i will post pics soon, shhhhh... their sleeping right now...

Ok Smoke, i gotta couple of questions i need to ask before i can advise you...

Did you buy the figure-8 extension cord so that you can bypass the AG light settings and plug directly into the outlet? If not, go to radioshack and find one (I used the charger cord from my old lap top). This should settle your timer issue? Just set your timer for the current time of day, tell it when you want the darkness...and plug in.



Next question, have you actually switched to 12/12 yet?
If so, you need to keep a very close eye on that light fixture. My 2 males in the AG grew like 3-4 inches from the time the lights went out to the time they came on. 3 hours later, they were touching the lightsm, and when I came in they had been burnt (see my thread). Also, expect your plants to triple in size from the time you start 12/12. Anyways, good luck and be careful with your lights


Sucks to hear you broke the lights man...you may be able to return them. Keep in mind the cool ones mean the blue spectrum (for vegging), and the warm ones mean the orange (flowering). You want a combination of both actually to get the best results. At home cheapo, I found 42 watters in the orange, and 27 watters in the blue. I'm using a combination of both, each one on each end of my Y-splitters that screw into my socket and make 1 socket = 2 bulbs.

WoldofWeedcraft said:

Ok Smoke, i gotta couple of questions i need to ask before i can advise you...

Did you buy the figure-8 extension cord so that you can bypass the AG light settings and plug directly into the outlet? If not, go to radioshack and find one (I used the charger cord from my old lap top). This should settle your timer issue? Just set your timer for the current time of day, tell it when you want the darkness...and plug in.



Next question, have you actually switched to 12/12 yet?
If so, you need to keep a very close eye on that light fixture. My 2 males in the AG grew like 3-4 inches from the time the lights went out to the time they came on. 3 hours later, they were touching the lightsm, and when I came in they had been burnt (see my thread). Also, expect your plants to triple in size from the time you start 12/12. Anyways, good luck and be careful with your lights


Sucks to hear you broke the lights man...you may be able to return them. Keep in mind the cool ones mean the blue spectrum (for vegging), and the warm ones mean the orange (flowering). You want a combination of both actually to get the best results. At home cheapo, I found 42 watters in the orange, and 27 watters in the blue. I'm using a combination of both, each one on each end of my Y-splitters that screw into my socket and make 1 socket = 2 bulbs.

Click to expand...

Thanks W.O.W... To answer the first question.. NO.. i dont have that, and imma lilttle confused on what that figure 8 does, but if you say i need it, i'll give it a shot.

To answer the second, i keep trying to switch to 12/12 but my Aero lights keep cutting on after 7.5 hours... its really pissing me off but after i get the figure8 problem solved right?? Just like i predicted, i had to raise the lights when the awoke this morning, no new burns, but a couple of tips got burnt earlier last week... no biggie...

And im going to home dept first thing tomrow... i heard they have a wider selection of lights.. gonna try not ta breakem either!!!

Anyway, heres sume new pics on whats goin on...

Ok man, don't fuck with the light schedule until you get the figure 8 cord. It's called a figure 8, b/c the plug that plugs into the AG light is shaped like an 8...the other end just goes into the wall. Right now your lights and your water pump are on a factory setting (tomatoes, herbs, salad greens, etc.). You want your own light setting, so the fig 8 cord lets you hook the lights to your own timer (i.e. you don't want the water pump on a 12/12 cycle...it has it's own schedule). Before you even try to induce flowering, make sure you got this cord man...otherwise you're gonna stress your plants by changing the light cycle, and this can induce hermaphroditism. I'm a biologist, and I remember studying botany and they said that plants have an internal clock that knows when to expect dark vs light...and this clock is almost accurate up to the minute. So if you move the schedule around, it's not gonna flower properly.

check out my aerogarden grow in my journal you might get something out of that

WoldofWeedcraft said:

So if you move the schedule around, it's not gonna flower properly.

Click to expand...

Fuck......... i got to radioshackyesterday at 6:15.. they closed at 6.... Today is presidents day.... ugh..

See, thats why outdoors reigns supreme when it comes to novice grow. Good soil, good nutes, check PH, sun comes up, sun goes down... not much work at all.... but this indoor shyt...ugh...

BUT IM NOT GIVING UP!!!!

At this point, if iget one female and two males, fuck it, letem grow... i need some more seeds anyway, and who knows the hybrid could be some bomb in the future!

ANYWAY.... updates*

*I still cant find these damn cfls that everyone keeps mentioning... maybe im retarded... but the highest watt i found was a 40w/150w reaplacment at lowes for 10 bucks.... i see people listing 125w cfls in their setup, is that equivilent to an incandesant or the actual watt that the cfl puts out???

*finally got off my lazy ass an got a small enough airstone

*replaced the water today, dropped one large AG nute
( the roots are looking Gi-normous. The roots sfrom all three plants seem to have grown tagetha, dont know if this is bad, but it seems inevitable. I had two take those two black sticks out just to replace the water. Didnt stickem back in. Do i even need them anyway?)

*The plants are looking good...

The biggest plant:
The nodes are really booming, some are already big enuff to clone. Nothing really new here, still waiting on new cfls (broke 3 out of 4)... i think imma just buy an ass of the 23w and give up on looking for anything bigger. Once i get those in imma put two on this plants side and watch it explode.

2nd biggest plant:
For the most part, shes not two far from her sister... a little more bushy, less nodes, and shorter. all she needs maybe is some cfl love and she'll be good.

Smallest plant:
I dont care what anybody thinks, this one is gonna make it, and get bigger and bigger once i start to flower... shes a sativa for sure which W.O.W informed me, was hard to gorw indoors, but shes trucking. I got my one and only 28w cfl one inch over top of her. Hoping to see some more action from the nodes overnight.

All in all, i think im doing OK for a novice grower with not many, if any, mods to my AG setup...

I'll keep ya posted....