Water pump not top feeding, urgent!

I am currently growing some seeds under a cfl in my DWC and the water pump is not top feeding my plants as I want it to. It was top feeding just a few hours ago and has all the sudden stopped..



I added water, changed some of the tubes, and even tried to plug it into a different spot.
can I get a quick response because I’m not sure how to feed my seeds unless the rapid rooters are being fed the nutrient water.

As you can see in the photos, there is not water draining from the three net pots that have the rapid rooters. (Top left, middle bottom and top right)

are rots in water and airstones running? if yes, the plants should be good till you get a new pump. even without airstones your good {kratkey method of hydroponics}

go go kid said:

are rots in water and airstones running? if yes, the plants should be good till you get a new pump. even without airstones your good {kratkey method of hydroponics}

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The air stones are running, but there is no roots in the water. How do I fix this until I get a new pump, if this is what the issue is?
do I water through sprayer? If so, do I add nutrients (how much) and how many times do I spray them since they are in a rapid rooter?

i keep my RR's dark and moist until they pop the surface and then add light.

take the impeller cover off. does it spin?

Yeah check the pump make sure it is actually pumping, clean the impeller if its dirty and the hole it sits in, make sure the shaft moves freely, clean everything, put it back together, turn it on, it should spin and pump water unless its fried and doesn't spin.

If it's possible top up the tank/tray so that the bottom of the pots are approx 1" submerged.
I've grown plants for years at at a time stood in nutrient with no airstones.

A useless but interesting piece of info, I've got a 4 way air pump, I put bubble tubing in 4 pots then covered with perlite, another 4 pots got perlite only.
So I've 4 getting "oxygen" and 4 not, all stand in a tray of nutrients, at the end of the crop the ones without the bubble tube had a significantly bigger root system, the ones with extra "oxygen" barely left the pot where the norm was a tray full of roots?

Now if you can fk up putting oxygen into a pot then I'm 1st to admit I did, but air tubing bubbling is very very difficult to get wrong it's idiot proof?

Needless to say I never continued with it but I'd be interested to hear what your thoughts are on this, the general acceped knowledge is more oxygen around the roots the better?
That absolutely wasn't the case for me with a direct comparison?

Edit... I've just had a closer look at the photos, what are you feeding?
A syringe full per day should be sufficient if the temps and humidity are near enough.

Star Dog said:

If it's possible top up the tank/tray so that the bottom of the pots are approx 1" submerged.
I've grown plants for years at at a time stood in nutrient with no airstones.

A useless but interesting piece of info, I've got a 4 way air pump, I put bubble tubing in 4 pots then covered with perlite, another 4 pots got perlite only.
So I've 4 getting "oxygen" and 4 not, all stand in a tray of nutrients, at the end of the crop the ones without the bubble tube had a significantly bigger root system, the ones with extra "oxygen" barely left the pot where the norm was a tray full of roots?

Now if you can fk up putting oxygen into a pot then I'm 1st to admit I did, but air tubing bubbling is very very difficult to get wrong it's idiot proof?

Needless to say I never continued with it but I'd be interested to hear what your thoughts are on this, the general acceped knowledge is more oxygen around the roots the better?
That absolutely wasn't the case for me with a direct comparison?

Edit... I've just had a closer look at the photos, what are you feeding?
A syringe full per day should be sufficient if the temps and humidity are near enough.

Click to expand...

I keep my temps around 85, and try to keep my humidity above 60% for right now, however I will say that my dehumidifier and humidifier haven’t came in so I’m crossing my fingers until it does.
with the oxygen, I’ve been told that the more oxygen the better, but how big was your Reservoir? I have an 18gallon, and two of my air stones cover the entire ground of it.
with the 1” (inch right?, sounds like a bad question haha) submerged, I was actually putting them 1”from the net pots, this way there is a little bit of a “air bubble” where the oxygen can sit between the water and the roots. Correct me if I’m wrong of course.
I’ve been feeding them some water, I was giving them 1/4 nutrients per gallon, ph 6.0-6.2, it was being top fed that but now that the water pump is broken I’m assuming I just spray the rapid rooter with phd water until it’s a little moist.

Distortionist said:

Yeah check the pump make sure it is actually pumping, clean the impeller if its dirty and the hole it sits in, make sure the shaft moves freely, clean everything, put it back together, turn it on, it should spin and pump water unless its fried and doesn't spin.

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I checked the pump itself, it was a bit warm so it seemed to be pumping. Im heading over right now to check it out this morning. I fed them last night before I left, so they should be good for now. I’m gonna check out this and report back!

User1534 said:

I keep my temps around 85, and try to keep my humidity above 60% for right now, however I will say that my dehumidifier and humidifier haven’t came in so I’m crossing my fingers until it does.
with the oxygen, I’ve been told that the more oxygen the better, but how big was your Reservoir? I have an 18gallon, and two of my air stones cover the entire ground of it.
with the 1” (inch right?, sounds like a bad question haha) submerged, I was actually putting them 1”from the net pots, this way there is a little bit of a “air bubble” where the oxygen can sit between the water and the roots. Correct me if I’m wrong of course.
I’ve been feeding them some water, I was giving them 1/4 nutrients per gallon, ph 6.0-6.2, it was being top fed that but now that the water pump is broken I’m assuming I just spray the rapid rooter with phd water until it’s a little moist.

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I'm not seeing any plants, hence my comment about a syringe full?

Re oxygen... Yes its generally accepted more oxygen is better so I'd be interested to hear how got my results but I'll leave for another time not to side track your op.

User1534 said:

The air stones are running, but there is no roots in the water. How do I fix this until I get a new pump, if this is what the issue is?
do I water through sprayer? If so, do I add nutrients (how much) and how many times do I spray them since they are in a rapid rooter?

Click to expand...

I may be wrong but from what I can see your seeds haven’t even popped?

If this is the case you don’t need the pump. Heck, you shouldn’t even have them in there under lights yet. All that’s gonna do is dry out those rooters faster.

They don’t even need the pump until you’re seeing roots.

A seed has enough nutes in it to provide for the sprout until it opens up and shows its cotyledons. So plain water right now. All I would add at this point is maybe some bennies to get some “mikes” growing on the roots early on.

Really until they pop you could keep them in a humidity done with heat pad. Put them in the tent in the hydroton once the cotyledon opens.

At this point (once they pop and open) I’d take same RO water, cal-mag it to about .3 EC (150 ppm on the 500 scale) and some basic one part nute like Megacrop or Jacks to about .7 EC. (350 ppm on the 500 scale) and water that in.

You don’t need pumps at this point.

Water that in a once a day. Once it needs more than once a day (rooter dries), throw the pump on it.

Now, once you get your first or second set of true leaves you’ll want to bump up to 1.0 EC ish.

Carry this on, most likely your going to ramp up quick here to around 1.6 EC to prevent yellowing at the bottom. The plants going to need nitrogen, just don’t overdo it. Watch the amount of green.

From here you should have it licked.

For a report, completely forgot to put this up, but the water pump is fixed. I took it apart and put it back together, put it on its side, and plugged it in and used a screwdriver to kick start it. Hoping that it doesn’t break again, but I think it was just a one time thing.

DrKiz said:

I may be wrong but from what I can see your seeds haven’t even popped?

If this is the case you don’t need the pump. Heck, you shouldn’t even have them in there under lights yet. All that’s gonna do is dry out those rooters faster.

They don’t even need the pump until you’re seeing roots.

A seed has enough nutes in it to provide for the sprout until it opens up and shows its cotyledons. So plain water right now. All I would add at this point is maybe some bennies to get some “mikes” growing on the roots early on.

Really until they pop you could keep them in a humidity done with heat pad. Put them in the tent in the hydroton once the cotyledon opens.

At this point (once they pop and open) I’d take same RO water, cal-mag it to about .3 EC (150 ppm on the 500 scale) and some basic one part nute like Megacrop or Jacks to about .7 EC. (350 ppm on the 500 scale) and water that in.

You don’t need pumps at this point.

Water that in a once a day. Once it needs more than once a day (rooter dries), throw the pump on it.

Now, once you get your first or second set of true leaves you’ll want to bump up to 1.0 EC ish.

Carry this on, most likely your going to ramp up quick here to around 1.6 EC to prevent yellowing at the bottom. The plants going to need nitrogen, just don’t overdo it. Watch the amount of green.

From here you should have it licked.

Click to expand...

Top feeding your plant is purely based on giving the seed/seedlings a consistent amount before they’re roots are out I thought. When the roots come out, that’s when submerging the roots comes into play and that’s when I wouldn’t need my pump anymore; once the roots hit the water, it’s game over for a tiny plant as it can fully use the nutrients and water to however it wants.
Of course, taken with a grain of salt.
I did turn off the light, gonna wait for to see them popping out of the ground before putting it. However, I did see a lot of result with other people’s grows on putting a seed still in the ground with 18/6 light but I have been convinced to wait haha.

thank you so much!

User1534 said:

For a report, completely forgot to put this up, but the water pump is fixed. I took it apart and put it back together, put it on its side, and plugged it in and used a screwdriver to kick start it. Hoping that it doesn’t break again, but I think it was just a one time thing.


Top feeding your plant is purely based on giving the seed/seedlings a consistent amount before they’re roots are out I thought. When the roots come out, that’s when submerging the roots comes into play and that’s when I wouldn’t need my pump anymore; once the roots hit the water, it’s game over for a tiny plant as it can fully use the nutrients and water to however it wants.
Of course, taken with a grain of salt.
I did turn off the light, gonna wait for to see them popping out of the ground before putting it. However, I did see a lot of result with other people’s grows on putting a seed still in the ground with 18/6 light but I have been convinced to wait haha.

thank you so much!

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Good luck homie.
I still think the pumps unnecessary till you see cotyledons but maybe I’m missing something.
Doesn’t matter minor detail, it just tickles my autism.

User1534 said:

For a report, completely forgot to put this up, but the water pump is fixed. I took it apart and put it back together, put it on its side, and plugged it in and used a screwdriver to kick start it. Hoping that it doesn’t break again, but I think it was just a one time thing.


Top feeding your plant is purely based on giving the seed/seedlings a consistent amount before they’re roots are out I thought. When the roots come out, that’s when submerging the roots comes into play and that’s when I wouldn’t need my pump anymore; once the roots hit the water, it’s game over for a tiny plant as it can fully use the nutrients and water to however it wants.
Of course, taken with a grain of salt.
I did turn off the light, gonna wait for to see them popping out of the ground before putting it. However, I did see a lot of result with other people’s grows on putting a seed still in the ground with 18/6 light but I have been convinced to wait haha.

thank you so much!

Click to expand...

But you don't have a plant or a root?
I concur with the chap above the pump is pointless atm.

The pump is most likely broken if you had to kick start it with a screw driver. My pump does the same thing but I'm only using it to mix a rez and not distribute nutes. I usually just give it a smack and it will start but I cant use it on a timer because of this.
Mine had a little ceramic piece holding the impeller in place that broke into pieces but I can still use the pump if I jump start it.