New to hydro and would love helpful advice

I have never attempted hydro but have some knowlage of growing in pro-mix . I recently purchased a 4x8 growtek flood table with 80gal rez . I will be using 2 quantum ballasts and hortilux eye 1000w bulbs . I would like some advice on what nutes to run and tips on table and rez maintanence . Also havent decided on medium ; any advice would help .

I have a 3x6 table which has been lots of fun. I wish I had two 3x3's instead, because that thing is a bear to clean, move around, etc. 4x8 I would feel that even more. I also grow in three turbo gardens, which are 22x30 tables. But you'll have fun. You have enough light for your table and that's the most important thing (well, after space). I grow in hydroton, haven't really tried anything else. Hydroton is a PITA to clean when it's new, I've been using the same stuff for years. I've grow large plants in individual pots on the table and also filled the entire table with hydroton and planted 40 clones directly into that. Very successful either way. 80 gallons is a nice size reservoir, you can flood deep (get riser extensions for the overflow fitting so you can flood to the max). I recommend synthetic nutrients, I use Dyna-gro. Also Dutch Master Gold Zone will keep your plants' roots nice and healthy. Aeration is also critical, I use 4 airstones in a 75 gallon reservoir. I live in the North and don't have to worry about reservoir temperatures but if you or your grow room are located in a warm climate you'll need to keep track of your res temps. Under 70F is good. Change out you reservoir every two weeks, keep your pH between 5.5 and 6.0 and the rest is easy. Lots of info on this site, good and bad. Welcome to Rollitup.

i've been doing well with General Hydroponics FloraDuo (grow and bloom) along with Cal/Mag. Using Coconut Coir.

pH to 5.8 or as close to as possible.

Simple and cheap. Reusable if you remove the roots.. (lose about 30% each time)



I always kind of wanted to try supersoil but just too much hastle to gather 10+ ingredients. You only need to add water and do not really need to worry about pH. Plus the buds taste better from what I have heard..

I believe taste has mostly to do with the cure and the genetics than the contents of the soil. THe plant breaks down and uses the nutrients regardless. I don't see how the taste would be effected by soil type. I could understand outdoor vs indoor tasting different because of the different length of flowering and lighting type. More light = higher quality and yield. Generally though a good cure will preserve most of the flowering aroma.

if you just had a drain table with a tray to catch runoff... just any way you can water and not have them sitting in water.



My vote is still GH floraduo and cal/mag though. you can get 1 gallon of grow, 1 gallon of bloom, 1 quart of cal/mag and a 5kg bale of coco coir (about 1 to 1.5 cubic feet uncompressed) for 100 bucks shipped from the internet. Might even be able to get yourself some containers too.

if you want simple just go with the GH 3 part which has the cal/mag added in already. follow instructions on the bottle. you can go with coco since its very similar to promix.

aquarium heater set to 68 and aquashield seem to help alot with keeping my res where i want it. its suggested you change your res once a week but thats up to you. ph at 5.8 or as close like said before.

hydro seems weird going from soil not having to lift pots all the time i sit around doing nothing except on res change day usually.

Most important is keeping track of your ph and ppm's, you should have a meter for both, any medium would be fine, it's up to your choice, best of luck.

Thanks for the advice guys bought hanna combo pen today. Still not set up but I'm getting closer . I think I'll be useing hydrodon as medium .

I was able to get a power cloner from a friend . And was wondering do i dip my colnes in gel . Or do I need a special solution for areo . Or both ? Any sugestions ?

I would go with this jacks classic hydro line:

http://www.jrpeters.com/Products/Hydroponics/Buy-Hydroponics.html

Or dynagro foliage pro/bloom combo. Will have everything the plants need and you dont have to worry about mixing a bunch of different combos to get what you need.

Also quite a bit cheaper.

THCBD420 said:

I was able to get a power cloner from a friend . And was wondering do i dip my colnes in gel . Or do I need a special solution for areo . Or both ? Any sugestions ?

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You shouldn't need the gel in a cloner. Dont think it will hurt, but they should root without it. I dont use my aerocloner anymore, but I used 1/4 strength of whatever grow nutrient I was using at the time to get them started and it worked just fine.

StanlySpedowski said:

You shouldn't need the gel in a cloner. Dont think it will hurt, but they should root without it. I dont use my aerocloner anymore, but I used 1/4 strength of whatever grow nutrient I was using at the time to get them started and it worked just fine.

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Thanks for the help
Why don't you use your aerocloner ? Do you find other methods better in some way . Or more reliable . If so let me know . I have always used Jiffy pucks .Never had a problem but I'm not sure how they would work in hydro . Sooo.... I ended up with this contraption . Friend told me "Its the cats meow" . Realy good I assume .
Still not sure what nutes .. I'm trying to find something with a nutrient and suplement line . And more important to me is a proper feed schedule . I'm new and need something to follow until I learn more by doing .