Starting Babies in Hydo, Bubble Stuff. Help

I'm a hardcore Orgaincs & a hardcore Soil person.. However, a "Friend has these Babies sprouted in some dark looking coco blocks-I like Rockwool, and He wants help to do the Bubble thing. If we put the sprouted cubes in the little baskets, set them inside the holes for the container, the concern is that the cube will absorb all the way to the top of the cube, drowning the stem. I GUESS the water level should be at the bottom of the cube.. ( The Man has 50 plus acres, & wants to grow in water !!!) Anyway, what kind of Nutes & trace minerials, etc. do I use. I have the usual molasses, seaweed, Thrive, fish emusion, Greensand, Epson Salt, & Cornmeal. Is there any non-chemical, healthy stuff for the Bubble Bath method, or I have the Ebb & Flow ordeal, and have the big container thing with all the pumps, bubble maker, feeding tubes, timers, all that Frankenstien looking shit, with a bunch of the clay pebbles. What the Hell, Peter? He's got Texas Sun, and using the T-15 "nightlights". But there is a new 1,000 watt Medal Hilide(?) light still in the box. Personally, I'd make compost tea makers out of the whole lot. Any advise would be appreciated.

Hey hey,

If you are going to switch up to hydro, just forget all the stuff you know about organics and additives. Use that flood/drain table INSTEAD of a bubble thing.

Why?

Ebb and flow work freaking perfectly. I have two 3x3 tables that I veg on before switching to ebb and grow buckets. I love this. You only mess with nutes once a week or every two weeks.. The plants love it..

Keep you organics for your soil grow and buy some General Hydroponics Flora Series three part nutrient. That will get you going. Their website has a calculator in it that tells you how much of each to put in your reservoir. Also there is an iphone app GH calculator, too. I love that more than anything.

Since your bud wants to do hydro, just go simple and do ebb and flow.

tommy

tommyo3000 said:

Hey hey,

If you are going to switch up to hydro, just forget all the stuff you know about organics and additives. Use that flood/drain table INSTEAD of a bubble thing.

Why?

Ebb and flow work freaking perfectly. I have two 3x3 tables that I veg on before switching to ebb and grow buckets. I love this. You only mess with nutes once a week or every two weeks.. The plants love it..

Keep you organics for your soil grow and buy some General Hydroponics Flora Series three part nutrient. That will get you going. Their website has a calculator in it that tells you how much of each to put in your reservoir. Also there is an iphone app GH calculator, too. I love that more than anything.

Since your bud wants to do hydro, just go simple and do ebb and flow.

tommy

Click to expand...

Oh Yeah, that's exactly what I needed. Thanks Dude.

I think I'm basically on the right track. The Guy had been using "Peters" and I'm having to argue about the inadequate lighting, & the not using the Peters. Both you & the research I've done today both said the exact same thing, the 3 part fert. Now the question, since I'm sending Him into the Big City, and because there is walls full of all that stuff, what exactly do I write on the shopping list."General Hydo Flora Series 3 part nutrient" shit? or some of that Hurbolt stuff, like Golden Tiger Lady with Moon Beams Plus? The system is a fucking bucket with holes in the lid, an air pump with a root sprayer. So the clay balls, I can use for my sling shot to pop up-side his head. If He tries to use Peters, I'm call HASMAT. I would be kind of excited about it, but having to threaten to walk just to get the RIGHT shit kinda dampens the mood. This is the guy that said that placing the soil potted plants in the Sun during the day, then back under the 54 watt flors at night caused them harm - the Sun causing the harm, not the piss-ass nite-lites. The Ebb & Flow method, I guess you fill the container with the clay balls, and every so often, let it flood & ebb. I don't know the water retetion, seems like perlite with maybe a little lava sand and Zeolite would be pretty cool. So, Tommy, what's your ebb & flo setup like - I'll check out your post & Stuff. Are you familar with lava sand & zeolite? It's nice to be leaning something new, for a change.
Now, the important question for ME. I leanred some cool shit today. I knew that compost is broken down veg matter, microbes, then fungi, then bateria, that feeds the roots. But from reading about the Hydro Ferts, the soil is broken down to another level, salts. And that is what the Hydro Ferts is, the most refined aspect, for the roots to absorb. If I'm wrong somewhere, please correct me. But if this is true, being a soil man, why can't I just pour some of that Hydo shit on my soil, & by-pass the Thrive, molasses, Seaweed, Fish Emulsion, Epson Salt, Greensand, Rabbit Manuse, de-hydraded fish-eyes, whatever? I know the synthetic Ferts weakens the cell structure, causing root lock, inviting diease, , all kinds of bad stuff. But now this Hydro-stuff tells me all kinds of good things. OK, Tommy, what's the verdict?

Hello,
I really really love the GH three part. I love it in soil and I love it in hydro. It is called GH Flora Series and has three parts: Flora Micro, Flora Bloom, and Flora grow. There are nutrient calculators on the GH website and as an iphone app. You input your reservoir size and it tells you how much to mix in of each.

I really love growing in straight hydroton rocks. I have a couple of 3X3 ebb and flow tables.. Each of them can veg 16 clones to about a foot.
Then i transfer into my DIY ebb monster bucket system. It is basically a five gallon bucket withing a five gallon bucket. There are 18 of them plumbed to a 55 gallon drum.
Every few hours the buckets fill and drain. The plants go from one foot to being 4-5 monsters with no additional vegging once i throw them into the buckets.

the system looks like this:


I have not used lava sand or zeolite.. Unless zeolite is diatomaceous earth... is it? made up of ancient arthropod shells?

OK, so in the beginnging there was only rock on this planet. tiny plants grew on it and becan to break it down. The rocks also broke down to physical weathering. All of the minerals in TODAYS soil was once a big rock. Through the plants breaking down this rock into smaller bits (clay, silt, sand) and combining their root juices and enzymes with it, soil began to form. Bigger lichens formed and then woodier plants. All the while breaking down minerals into the soil. Eventually microbes and fungi came along and helped this happen even more. They grew IN ON AND AROUND plant roots, becoming part of the plants and vital to organics.

Hydroponics feeds the plants the minerals it needs without all of the additives. YES I KNOW that they are popular, but hydro was originally sterile and works best that way for ease of use. Adding organics adds a level of complexity that is confusing for beginners. I have had TREMENDOUS success following the GH nutrient feeding schedule in both SOIL and HYDRO.

You can totaly use the GH on your soil grow. They offer instructions called "drain to waste" which is what you do in containers that drip out the bottom.
In soil, tho, you have a medium that is not inert like my clay balls. Soil has living things and components that affect pH, solubility of nutrients, etc. that all work into the equation...
Seaweed is still a good additive, molasses is good to feed root zone microbe life. Fish emulsion is stinky for hydro, but great for dirt. Epsom salt is magnesium, which is in any complete hydro nutrient... I don't know about greensand.. Manure is for your soil life o break down and feed to your plants' roots...

I love both soil and hydro. I at first tried to make my hydro like my soil. I am getting away from that..

Right now I have plants in both dirt and hydro.. I'd like to snap some pics for people that talk shit about either method. they both work well BUT require different mindsets.

tommy

ps- i subscribed to this thread now..

ITDCOFW? That's code for "Is this Dude Cool Or Fucking What"?

great advice tommyo + rep brother

South Texas said:

I'm a hardcore Orgaincs & a hardcore Soil person.. However, a "Friend has these Babies sprouted in some dark looking coco blocks-I like Rockwool, and He wants help to do the Bubble thing. ,,,,
or I have the Ebb & Flow ordeal, and have the big container thing with all the pumps, bubble maker, feeding tubes, timers, all that Frankenstien looking shit, with a bunch of the clay pebbles. What the Hell, Peter? He's got Texas Sun, and using the T-15 "nightlights". But there is a new 1,000 watt Medal Hilide(?) light still in the box. Personally, I'd make compost tea makers out of the whole lot. Any advise would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

OK, I like those coco plugz things.. Rapid Rooter plugz. They are like rockwool, but cool They have beneficial microbes in them AND a small dose of GH Flora Micro to get them going a bit.. If those are not actual "rapid rooters" coco plugs, they may be inert plain coco.. Either way they need to get into a system soon.

In all honesty, your ebb and flow table would be a better bet for beginners. You know how easy it is - mix up reservoir once a week or every two weeks. The thing floods and drains a few times a day. Boom. You come by and top the reservoir off with plain water as the level drops. It is that easy.

pH is a concern, but the GH has buffers in it and cannabis can really handle low low pH and go up to 6.5. If you manage it well, you can get by without many headaches.
Source water will fuck you up, tho, if it is weird. Funky tap water with high calcium or chlorine is not too cool. Knowing what is in the source water will help tremendously in mixing your nutes. For example, if you KNOW you have hard water, there is a GH Micro Hard Water to use instead of GH Micro. It is reformulated with LESS calcium because your hard water has enough. If you were to give them too much CA you would cause problems.

What's cool is that you can forget what you know about soil growing.. Well, don't forget - just use that knowledge on your soil plants.. Then you can build on it by watching the silly little tub of juice flood and drain a silly table with funny tubing and pumps under nightlights.... and see what happens!

If you meant T-5 lights, they are pretty damn great. I have a two foot four bulb that replaced my 400 watt for some vegging and babies. They are newer technology than the fluorescents that hurt your eyes at walmart. I still LOVE 1000 watters.. You can't beat em.. 600s are OK, but 1000 put it out best.

tommy

Of course Rep.

South Texas said:

Of course Rep.

Click to expand...

yo, thanks!
what's the scoop on your project? Did I mention that getting some H2O2 from the hydro store is a good idea to keep things healthy and clean in the hydro?

I ask 3 questions....