Grow Mediums First Grow - Emily's Garden DWC / Mars Hydro 144x3 LED

[Happy Horticulturist]

Yip I agree with KsjAuto.

You need to start feeding plants (in a hydro system with clay pellets) from the very first day 0.4 EC (including your background water EC, so if your water is 0.4 EC don't add any nutes... if your water is 0.2 EC then you need to add 0.2 more EC)

After say 3-4 days you want to bump up to 0.6 EC, every few days bump it up 0.1 EC

Leaving them for 21 days without really feeding them properly from the beginning and they're going to start cannibalizing themselves.

 

[TxOld Dude]

Me too. The only thing else that appears is that maybe the rockwool is staying too saturated. I've seen this with root-soaked plants in soil that can't pick up nutes. A lot of root stimulators have a light fert schedule in them. Give that a try to kick them off before adding regular fert. They could use it as well as maybe a very small dose of epsom salt to help de-stress them.

Just my 2 cents...

 

[Happy Horticulturist]

People get good results from Rockwool but personally I've never like the stuff.

I've always used Peat Jiffy pellets for rooting cuttings and germinating seeds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIG89vN5XUc

 

[TxOld Dude]

Yup, Miz Dubya had a little early mildew on the stem in the rockwool plug I had to neutralize. Couldn't have gotten far cuz I was peekin' at it 4-5 times a day! LOL!

 

[Pyru]

I just changed water and added 1/4 tsp GH floragrow in the 3 gal reservoir. Ppm was 95 after so it seems like that's .1357 ec after doing a conversion calc (tap water here is .04 ec / 30 ppm) Yeah I might just sprout my last 2 beans and toss them directly into the hydroton this time instead of using rockwool and see how it goes

 

[Happy Horticulturist]

I personally would feel iffy about tossing them directly into the hydroton. I'd be worried the seed could fall too deep into the hydroton. I'd suggest a jiffy pellet instead my friend. Your chances of success increase by a large enough margin to justify the tiny cost of the actual peat pellet itself.

0.14 EC is very very low.

I personally wouldn't feed anything below 0.4 EC and that's only for the first 1-5 days. I'd gradually but quickly up that to 0.6 and then up to 0.8 and 1.0 and then up to 1.4 - 1.6 EC and if you can even higher up to 1.8 EC

Anything under 1.0 EC is very low and only for baby plants. Anything under 0.4 EC is starving territory.

 

[KsjAuto]

Listen to happy hort and up that food ASAP... Like now
You already have perfect tap Water
So that is perfect..but thoes girls have zerro food ZERRO,
Up that food,, they should survive and hopefully grow big,,,,,
But no food = dead plants,,

 

[Pyru]

But wasn't that my problem initially? When I added seedlings to the hydroton I had it at about .57 ec, but I guess from what you guys are saying is that was too high to start seedlings initially. I'll add some more nutes to the res when I get home later. So basically I need to get it to 0.4 ec (280ppm) then within the next couple days gradually bump it to 0.5 then 0.6 watching for burns

also so I had 3 beans left out of my pack so I started them in a paper towel this morning, I think the system can handle 6 plants, 3 gal of water in the res might be pushing it as far as root space but I have a ton of air pumping in

 

[KsjAuto]

When you added the seedlings did they have any roots to soak up nutrients !!!!

they need some days to develop roots.. and they will not grow at this point.
might take up to a week if you use the small rockwool cubes.

The light green / yellow is nitrogen deficiencies
Lack of nutes.

the spots is because it eats itself... just my to pennies...

i got that almost all the time ( n def at seedling stage) because i go slow on nutes the second week. (second week is the first week with nute in my grows)
You should see the yellow colour disappear in 24 hours.

300 ppm / tds
ec 0.6
That should do the trick

maybe as low as 250ppm
You can aways go slowly but 250ppm i whould say aint alot


:Sharing One:
EDIT:

you might try to hand water around the cube.. if roots have not hit the res..
Maybe hand water one with 200ppm one with 250pm one with 300ppm
At this point you have nothing to loose. only the time you spent
:Sharing One:

 

[Pyru]

When you added the seedlings did they have any roots to soak up nutrients !!!!

yeah the tap root had just started to pop through the bottom of the rockwool cubes when I added them

and ya the roots haven't hit the res yet, with emilys garden the white pots are super deep, but hydroton sits inside of the water (bottom of each pot) so it wicks up