I'm switching from soil to hydro - migration advice?

I've been growing organic indoor gardening in a stealth room for about a year now. While I've had some rewarding grows, I am just so tired of dealing with teas and lugging bags of soil, as a repot. I'm not a young guy and need to have a system that is less labor intensive. So, I am ready to make the switch. The only problem is, I cannot have a break in getting my Dad the meds he needs.

I run a 4' x 4'w - 8'high tent, with a small veg area (1.5' x 3' - 6'high) with (5) 1.5 month olds which are currently in soil. I'm about 2 weeks away until the harvest is complete and the 1.5 month olds will go into the tent. I want to go ahead complete the next cycle in soil and clone to setup for hydro. When I clear out the veg area, I want to set up a DWC for the veg area and prep for installing an RDWC system in the flower tent.

One question I have is - has anyone had decent luck with rinsing off the soil (or soaking the roots in water/nutrient) and sticking it in a DWC without a clog? May make an ebb/flow for the one plant while finishing the other soil plants?

The other is, anyone using Botanicare products - if so, which ones do you suggest?

Thanks for any help with this!

cbdprospector said:

One question I have is - has anyone had decent luck with rinsing off the soil (or soaking the roots in water/nutrient) and sticking it in a DWC without a clog?

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I don't know about clog, but I tried this once and got root rot. It was a long time ago and I don't really remember the details but I wouldn't recommend it.

- Jiji

You are probably better of getting a little aero cloner and taking cuttings from your soil plant and using them. You can DIY one really cheap, or I picked up a little one gallon aero cloner for $40 from amazon that will hold 8 cuttings and included some starter nutes and cloning gel.

After 4 days I have little roots already showing, in another 4 days they would probably be ready to put in some hydroton.



If you are going DWC, you may need to hand water for a bit until your roots come out of the netpot.

I should also mention, I also just switched to hydro from soil, so I am just getting my head around it. I went with GH 3 part with Floralicious+, liquid Koolbloom, Cal/mag and StressZyme+. No issues so far, but I have been watching it like a hawk since I am not sure what to expect. I started with just tap water, but since my water is pretty hard (around 420ppm) I switched to RO water and wont go back while doing hydro.

I plan on taking the 6 best clones out of this cloner and put them in a 2x3 ebb and flow tray with only 2 weeks of veg before I flip them

jijiandfarmgang said:

I don't know about clog, but I tried this once and got root rot. It was a long time ago and I don't really remember the details but I wouldn't recommend it

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Thanks for the reply! I was reading something that talked about the contamination from the microbes - I'm scratching that idea.

hbbum said:

I should also mention, I also just switched to hydro from soil, so I am just getting my head around it. I went with GH 3 part with Floralicious+, liquid Koolbloom, Cal/mag and StressZyme+. No issues so far, but I have been watching it like a hawk since I am not sure what to expect. I started with just tap water, but since my water is pretty hard (around 420ppm) I switched to RO water and wont go back while doing hydro.

I plan on taking the 6 best clones out of this cloner and put them in a 2x3 ebb and flow tray with only 2 weeks of veg before I flip them

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Thanks for taking the time to give me such a good information. As I mentioned above, I'm going to scratch the whole idea of rinsing the roots of my soil teens and clone as usual,only gear it for hydro. I have an aero cloner already and even though I usually use rapid rooters I actually used it on my last cloning cycle with some spares - it scared the shit out of me once when I went back once and saw my clones bent over limp because I had a clog in the one sprayer - but once it stayed consistent, they rooted real quick. I'm going to add another sprayer in there in case one pump clogs this time around.

I too am trying to wrap my head around this different method of growing, I'm really cautiously excited about it as I look at all the hydro method options that are out there. As for water, I have an RO filter in my room and it has the option to auto fill the tank (when I get one) so I should be set there.

Thank you for listing your nutes for me, that's another thing I'm figuring out! I subscribed to your grow - looking great so far!

I read your 1st 2 paragraphs. Sound advice. Buy a 3x3' ebb and flow tray, for this space. Do not turn you veg area into a hydro area. You will not be able to keep up with the vegetating plants. Keep your veg room growing slow and steady. This will always provide you with clones if you are attempting to truly start a perpetual grow. Best to keep to keep your propagation space in a low light, low growth environment, for safe keeping.

latewood said:

I read your 1st 2 paragraphs. Sound advice. Buy a 3x3' ebb and flow tray, for this space. Do not turn you veg area into a hydro area. You will not be able to keep up with the vegetating plants. Keep your veg room growing slow and steady. This will always provide you with clones if you are attempting to truly start a perpetual grow. Best to keep to keep your propagation space in a low light, low growth environment, for safe keeping.

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Sound advice indeed. When I was first deciding which way to go, I did end up choosing ebb and flow as the method I wanted to use. It seemed to be the easiest to maintain. As for the veg area, I guess I didn't take rapid growth into consideration. (oddly). Right now, I run a 300w LED in the veg area with (5) 70 day old plants using LST training. It's crowded but they are healthy. I will definitely put in a lower lights with this setup and add the 300w to my flower tent giving me 1600 total watts of lighting in there. Thanks for the input!

cbdprospector said:

Thanks for the reply! I was reading something that talked about the contamination from the microbes - I'm scratching that idea.

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Glad you scratched that idea because I was going to post the same thing the other guy did. I've tried transplanting from soil to hydro twice and failed miserably both times due to root rot. This was years ago though. Lesson learned.

I have transplanted from soil to dwc with no issues. bennies help.

I have too you just have to be cautious .

I also say get an aerocloner

as to the botanicare in dwc I ran the organic line with additives for a while but aftet I used the last up I switched to gh
just cause I wanted pretty bone white root lol
the botaicae is good and I recomend it but it will make your roots look "brown"

either way you roll youll be much happier you ditched the dirt

although I will return to organics in coco one day

cbdprospector said:

I've been growing organic indoor gardening in a stealth room for about a year now. While I've had some rewarding grows, I am just so tired of dealing with teas and lugging bags of soil, as a repot. I'm not a young guy and need to have a system that is less labor intensive. So, I am ready to make the switch. The only problem is, I cannot have a break in getting my Dad the meds he needs.

I run a 4' x 4'w - 8'high tent, with a small veg area (1.5' x 3' - 6'high) with (5) 1.5 month olds which are currently in soil. I'm about 2 weeks away until the harvest is complete and the 1.5 month olds will go into the tent. I want to go ahead complete the next cycle in soil and clone to setup for hydro. When I clear out the veg area, I want to set up a DWC for the veg area and prep for installing an RDWC system in the flower tent.

One question I have is - has anyone had decent luck with rinsing off the soil (or soaking the roots in water/nutrient) and sticking it in a DWC without a clog? May make an ebb/flow for the one plant while finishing the other soil plants?

The other is, anyone using Botanicare products - if so, which ones do you suggest?

Thanks for any help with this!

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you should try rols then. no new bags of soil and no repotting.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/recycled-organic-living-soil-rols-and-no-till-thread.636057/

If you think changing resi's , ph-ing, adding nutes every times, etc... isn't going to be much work, You are mistaken. Hydro is far more work than soil. Costs far more as well. The quality and trichomes production will drop in hydro. Plus not to mention all the chemicals you will be taking in.

general rule of thumb is don't run organic nutes in DWC. I use botanicare kind which contains no organics.

I have never ran soil, but I think the maintenance and difficulty of hydro depends on your setup. Mine is very automated and I just watch things grow for the most part, but individual buckets are a bitch to fuck with daily. I run a 12 site 100 gallon dwc and usually only have to change the res once a month or so, with topping up mid-way. other than that I check ph (usually doesn't need to be touched) and bubble tea once a week and do some training/cleanup/etc. The one thing I do on a daily basis is change out a fresh block of ice once a day.

hyroot said:

If you think changing resi's , ph-ing, adding nutes every times, etc... isn't going to be much work, You are mistaken. Hydro is far more work than soil. Costs far more as well. The quality and trichomes production will drop in hydro. Plus not to mention all the chemicals you will be taking in.

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I appreciate it your input, I really do. But I listened to the pros and cons of organic vs hydro before I did my first grow - and I chose to go organic and have stayed organic ever since.

I have had some great grows with soil, I just want to go soiless now and am asking people in the Hydro for some advice. If it turns out that I was better off with organic soil than soiless then I can always go back to it.

Sorry for the long message - I just want to make sure this doesn't turn into another organic vs hydro debate.

Hydroburn said:

general rule of thumb is don't run organic nutes in DWC. I use botanicare kind which contains no organics.

I have never ran soil, but I think the maintenance and difficulty of hydro depends on your setup. Mine is very automated and I just watch things grow for the most part, but individual buckets are a bitch to fuck with daily. I run a 12 site 100 gallon dwc and usually only have to change the res once a month or so, with topping up mid-way. other than that I check ph (usually doesn't need to be touched) and bubble tea once a week and do some training/cleanup/etc. The one thing I do on a daily basis is change out a fresh block of ice once a day.

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Which is my point exactly. I already have a growtronix system with a laptop operating, monitoring and reporting and I love it. I have a whole algorhythm for Co2 enrichment. I have a water source and an ro filter made to work with a resivior to auto fill it. I will have a drain system to make it effortless to work with.

So I bought 5 hydrofarms and thought that would do me good for my first grow. Then I found http://www.hydrofarm.com/product.php?itemid=12452 on sale because some one modified it to have air stones and a drip top. I have had excellent results so I bought another one. I can do 4 large plants or 2 large plants and 8 small plants (like autoflowers that I start at a later date.) Check out my current grow you can see the results. Feel free to message me.

Trust me no probs with my "hydro" budds
trich production is down wtf
and my budds are swwet till the end of the roach

just cause you had bad results

saying hydros not as good is a lame statement
just my 2

i had been doing soil for the past few years, and just switched to an ebb and flow table. i have 8 plants in the ebbe and flow table and 1 in a bubble bucket. at first the bubble bucket clone was getting so much bigger than the others, which was taken at the same time as the rest and put into the bucket a week prior. i have an air pump that is a little overkill for the system, but when i bought it i too was thinking of setting up a rdwc system. it was stirring up the water too much, causing rapid evaporation/ maybe even concentration of nutes. everything was good until a week in and they started to burn a little ( still trying to dial the system in, my first run with not much access to coaching). now all is good and the table is catching up with the bucket. so not sure now that rdwc would be the way to go? seems easy enough, but with hydro seems that when things go wrong...things can go terribly wrong.

me personally.. I'm going to stick with ebb and flow for the next few, and take it slow. i think that it is the most forgiving method of hydro to figure out the science of the whole thing.

i am using GH Flora series, with floralicious, liquid karma, and hygrozyme. i plan on using some HG roots excelerator once i get a little scratch. i have a grow journal going, check it out. i appreciate any and all advice..

happy growing

Cold$moke said:

Trust me no probs with my "hydro" budds
trich production is down wtf
and my budds are swwet till the end of the roach

just cause you had bad results

saying hydros not as good is a lame statement
just my 2

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Awesome - thanks for your input!

The hydro vs organic debate will go on forever. I'd rather try things for myself so I can form my own opinion and my own extensive research has led me to go hydro - I'm pumped to get going!

I am really liking the switch since I went to hydro. But they are right, it is not really less work. I only have a couple plants, they go through about a gallon of water each per day right now, so for me, I am lugging water in quite often. Also swapping and cleaning the res every 7-10 days takes a bit of time, but it is a labor of love and I enjoy it.

From a cost standpoint, I go through a lot more nutrients so that is more expensive, it is offset by not having to buy soil, but in the end I think it is still a bit more. Should be able to get away with a shorter veg time (I probably went to long) so you may save some additional money with the shorter time.