First Time Grow

Ive been lurking the forums for awhile now and decided to finally start up a small personal grow of my own. Its a DWC setup with an 18 gallon rubbermaid, rockwool, hydroton, 5 CFL 23watt 6.5k lights (adding 6 more today or tomorrow), with 2 12 inch bubble stones with 2 air pumps.

Im having to use tap water since I do not have access to RO water but I recently got some rain water and am using mostly rain water now with a bit of tap mixed in to get enough for the tub. PH has been balanced down with sulphuric acid/water mix to around a PH of 6. Im measuring it with a mix liquid that measures between 4 and 8.

The lights are on an 18/6 with an hour in the middle of the dark cycle to hopefully promote the plants to be female. Not sure if it actually works but i figured I would try it anyways.

The plants are 1 week old and no roots are showing through the rockwool yet. 1 plant looks stunted and another one has a bit of yellow on the edges. I water them about once a day and let it almost feel dry to the touch before i rewater them. Was hoping this community could add their input and maybe give me some tips to help with the grow.

I will be using lucas formula with the simple change formula once ive added back a full 18 gallons of water back to the res.

Here are some pictures, let me know whats wrong with the sprouts. Thx

Oh and I need to pick up a TDS/EC meter locally if anyone can recommend one that can be bought locally at a common chain store.

they look a lil molded ? i cant tell by pic. Those do not need ANY nutes right now, they are too young. What are your temps? do you have plenty of ventilation?

if your usen a tub and rockwool ect.. you should throw a water pump into your tub and run 1/4 feeder lines to each net pot?

wyteboi said:

they look a lil molded ? i cant tell by pic. Those do not need ANY nutes right now, they are too young. What are your temps? do you have plenty of ventilation?

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The temps are between 78-80. Im using the built in bathroom fan to remove and replace the air. Not sure what the humidity is but going to get a meter now so hopefully will now that soon.

Foolieo said:

if your usen a tub and rockwool ect.. you should throw a water pump into your tub and run 1/4 feeder lines to each net pot?

Click to expand...

I have read about multiple people not using water pumps and just air stones like im doing. Am I wrong on my assumption that it can been done this way?

im not really sure tbh. im noob my self and have been building a tub just need the space so i can put it to use. all my efforts of searching if i needed a pump or not ended with people telling me that the pump is a esential element of growing in a tub u gotta have some way to get your nutes directly to the plant.

would you mind taken a picture of your cfl lid that u made? with the lights off wondering what it looks like under that vent duct u used

The temp is 86, humidity is 47%.

Oh and here is the youtube video that tells you how to build the light fixture i have. The only difference is i couldnt find the T splitter at home depot so I used a Y splitter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs_QRorECvo

The temp of the water is 76. Not really using the water at the moment except to water the rockwool since it is PH balanced to around 6. Plants are looking a little worse. I water them about once a day. I just completely saturate the rockwool cube and then wait till it is dry to the touch to do it again. Is this the right way to do it?

i think you need to get those in soil/soiless right now before they die! Then water when the soil is almost completely dry. i am not knocking hydro or nothin but you are not ready for that yet, or maybe that system aint right ? i dont know but i do know those proly wont die if you plant them now!
(also it does look like you should have got smaller lavarocks , those look a lil big for those seeds ? ) no food right now either

yea there is just too much air/light getting to those cubes. they need to be all the way down in that lavarock.

Ok, well I put them down in the holes of the DWC and then i made circle card board cut outs and put them around the plants so that all the hydroton and rockwool is hidden from the light except for a small hole in the middle where the stem sticks through. I will check under them daily to water the rockwool when it gets dry. Do you think this will help the plants?

[EDIT] Also do you think I should add 6 23watt 6500k lights now or wait till they are a bit bigger? Right now I have 4 23watt 6500k lights and 1 42watt 2700k light on them.

Yes i think it will help.... we dont want no light/air getting to that cube. And you might as well add those lights ... adding some more cfl's never hurt no one!

Ok, I added the lights and put the covers on them. Still not looking too good but I will continue to monitor them to see if they start looking any better. The temp seems to stay between 84 and 88 degrees and the humidity between 45 and 50%. Also will make sure the PH stays arounds 6. Is there anything else I should be monitoring? I'm using a rain water/tap water mix since I didn't have enough rain water when I filled the res last time. I have enough rain water now for a full container so I may change the res soon to get the tap water out of there. I think the tap water has a ph of around 11 so I have the use small amounts of sulphuric acid to ph it down. I still think I might have hard tap water. How do I check it? Also, any other suggestions on what to do to maybe figure out what might be wrong with these sprouts?

11 is not even safe to drink AT ALL! you sure your meter is right? If so then STOP usein the tap immeetionatly! What is the ph of the rain ?