new guy sharing my first time hydro grow

Hey guys, after spending some time searching around this forum, i've decided to share some progress i've made following a bunch of tips on this site. I'm hoping to get more advice on maintaining the progress i've had so far considering this is my first time ever growing anything. here's a few pics to give you an idea of where i'm at. Today is exactly 3 weeks from planting germinated seeds.

Looks like an ebb n flow. How often do you flood? Also what kind of light are you using? They looking happy

hehe nice. i can tell you, you are much further along than most first hydro growers.

Looking good and thanks for sharing with us!

Looking really good. Alot of noobs after 3 weeks have half that. So what ever your doing your doing it rite. If you feel like you need a hand feel free to ask. How long you gonna veg? Looks like you could go about 2 more weeks but can't see the higth you have to work with. Plants grow 2-3x the first 5 weeks of flower

Warlock1369 said:

Looking really good. Alot of noobs after 3 weeks have half that. So what ever your doing your doing it rite. If you feel like you need a hand feel free to ask. How long you gonna veg? Looks like you could go about 2 more weeks but can't see the higth you have to work with. Plants grow 2-3x the first 5 weeks of flower

Click to expand...

2nd this. one of my strains has more than trippled in height since 12/12

Hey thanks for the replies guys. So far they have been planted for just about 4 weeks. I'm planning on taking a few snips now that they're a big bigger than the pics and putting them under a CFL for 12/12 so I can identify male/female. The current setup is...

Single 400W Metal halide in a wing reflector
A 400W HPS is waiting on standby for flowering =)
10 Gal reservoir
The tray is about 2x2x7"
Tray sits on a PVC tube frame that I built.
An Oscillating tower fan

For the first 1-2 weeks I had lights set to run 18/6, but then switched to 24 hrs. I have since seen a SIGNIFICANT difference in growth rate. While lights were 18/6, I was flooding for 15 mins twice a day. Once 1hr after the lights came on and once more 1 hr before they turned off. Now that I have switched to 24 hrs, I flood once every 8 hrs for 15 mins.

Seeds were germinated using a "personally modified" paper towel method =) and 3 days after planted in 4" rockwool cubes. I didn't add the clay rocks until after they had grown some. I started with plain water for at least a week and a half. my water stays between 80-115ppm and i've slowly worked my way up with micro and now i'm a little over 700ppm (600 in nutrients). I'm not sure when i'm supposed to be using the "Grow" nutrient. I thought flowering would've been too late but i'm not sure. I'm also having an interesting issue where my Ph keeps rising in large amounts over about 3-5 days. Not sure what thats about.

Try to keep it at 5.8 - the rockwool has a high ph if not pre treated, so does hydroton and you don't need 'grow' if using GH flora. just use the micro and bloom. 5/10ml veg then 8/16ml flower per gallon. -'lucas formula and you should be fine.

Really beautiful, good job!

if you ph is rising and ppm is falling the girls are hungry. you can up the feeding

nice plants bro

Very nice. They look real healthy. Great job for the first time!

Wish mine looked that good the first time

Thanks for the compliments guys! I'm definitely paying pretty close attention to these. Last time i changed the water, it was set a little above 700 ppm, now it's gone up to more like 850 =\ the PH keeps increasing too. Does anyone know what the rising ppm means? (i thought it was due to the fact that the water keeps evaporating + drinking over time) I've attached another that i took at the time of writing this. I'm just a little scared to bump up to 1000 ppm just yet lol.

if ppm is rising they are drinking more water than nutes. id top off the rez with some ph adjusted water.

What big said is true, but if your getting large ph swings within 24hr you need to look into water temp!
And look at your plants roots! Large scale ph swing can be caused by bactiria out breaks.

Are you keeping your reservoir topped up daily with water? That is the 1st place to start. You should be noting your daily PPM reading AFTER you fill your reservoir back up to the 10 gal mark to see just how much your plants are eating. I personally only top up nutes every 3 days or so.

nice first grow! i am also doin my first grow using te flood and drain system.

the raising ph over 3-4days is normal... this is because the water flooding the tray and feeding the plants gets recycled and drained back intoyour resivour right? this happens to me also.. its normal sometimes the plant releases some stuff to adjust the ph etc.. but its mainly because the tray drains backt into the tank... perfectly normal.. the more plants u have inthe tray they more you will have to adjust the ph...andas they get older into the flowering stage it effects the ph level more frequenstly.theonly way to avoid this is to make drain to waste instead of recycling. but u will need to top up water and nutes more frequesntly so its not worth it.

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ahh.. now i'm feeling somewhat nervous.. i'm gonna do some checking on my roots. I don't top the res off every day (which could be a problem) I notice after about 2-3 days it has dropped significantly and i add more and correct ppm then PH. What temp should the water be? Sometimes i notice it getting a bit warm. slightly above lukewarm. after i refill it once, i usually end up changing all of the water and cleaning out the res altogether (about every 6-7 days)

Thanks again for your replies too