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

[Pyru]

Starting to venture off into my first grow.

I've decided to use an emilys garden setup I found at a local nursery for $10 on clearance. Due to the small res I'm only growing 3 plants instead of the 6 you can technically grow in this thing

gear:

144x3 led reflector series light from mars hydro (top led) running at 20/4
upgraded air pump to a tetra whisper 100gal
running 2 air lines off pump into 4 air stones
48x24x60 apollo tent on amazon
small 700w oil fin heater (garage grow)
random metal boston desk fan zipped to tent beam in the corner on same timer as light

tap water is about 30 TDS
Ph is around 7ish from the tap


So far I've sprouted 3 seeds in rockwool, and after I started to see roots emerge from bottom I transplanted to hydroton in my Emily's garden.

after first true leaves emerged and the cotyledons started to wilt I added 1tbsp of GH floragro which bumped TDS to 400

everything is growing ok but I've noticed the centers on two of the plants are yellow, not sure what could cause this


ill add photos later, thinking I need to lower ph. I have some seachem acid buffer for my fish tank

 

[Soylent Green]

I suggest you keep your ph around 5.8-6.0!
Use some rootstimulator and lower your TDS to 200 or less (EC 0.2-0.3)
Keep your fan on 24/24!
Love your plants!!

Show some pictures so the yellowing can be explained!

 

[Pyru]

Let me see if can add some pics

 

[Happy Horticulturist]

Stones look a bit dry but rockwool looks wet.

Hard for me to say what's up because I'm not familar so much with rockwool. Seen too many pics of it in the past with green algae growing on it so I stay away from it.

Also I don't work in TDS I work in EC because its' universal and much easier to grow with.

Tap water is generally EC 0.2 - 0.4 and that's about what you want your nutrient strength to be for the first few days. Once they start growing their second set of new leaves you can gradually bump it up to around 0.6 - 0.8

Sounds like Soylent Green users stand TDS though and if 200 TDS = 0.3 EC then 400 PPM is 0.6 EC which is slightly too high right now.

The second thing SG pointed out is that your pH needs to be 5.5 - 6.2 with 5.8 - 6.0 being the 'best' range to aim for.

Buy some phosphoric acid for your pH down as if you had one pH down choice to buy for hydroponics that would be the one. Most proper 'hydro stops' sell this stuff. Personally that's all I ever use (apart from nitric acid in grow, but phosphoric acid is also good for growing).

 

[Pyru]

I flushed my water to 80ppm and have been keeping ph around 6... It's weird though the GH ph liquid tester is off, my API liquid freshwater aquarium ph tester shows a 6.0 and the GH shows 7.0... Don't know who to trust

 

[Happy Horticulturist]

get a reliable and fairly expensive pH pen, they're kinda worth their weight in gold.

I have this Horticare pen which is awesome.
http://biggrowhydro.com/ph-ec-tds-m...th=338&zenid=817792ab24a36582ff7808bb05e1068e

Also great are the Bluelab pH pen

and this Ecotester one is also great
https://rmsupply.co.uk/conductivity-meters/740-conductivity-meter-ecotestr-ec-low.html

Any of them that have 'auto calibrate' on them and cost more than $50 are generally good to go.

Stay away from the cheap $10 chinese pens like these ones
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Electric-...cs-Pen-Aquarium-Pool-Water-Test-/121282936157

They will go faulty and you will end up reading the wrong pH thinking everything is fine.

 

[Pyru]

Thx Happy I'll look into that, might be hard to convince the wife I need to spend more lol. For ppm I use a digital tds pen that came with my zerowater pitcher filtration unit

so do you think I should leave it at 6ph and 80ppm for a week or so? I had to flush the rockwool with tap since I at first poured the initial 400 ppm nute water over it , that's why they look wet now, trying to clean it out. I'm also going to only water around the rockwool from here on out, try to provoke the roots to venture out into the hydroton

 

[Happy Horticulturist]

In clay pebbles you have to make the ph about 5.8 - 6.0

As I said I don't understand PPM or TDS (I think PPM is confusing and it sucks compared to EC). If you can talk to me in EC I can help you. Hopefully someone else can chime in and speak TDS/PPM language with you

Although generally this is the idea. You want to start the nutrient level low and slowly and surely increase the nutrient level. This creates a pressure on the root zone forcing more and more nutrients up into the plant. If done slowly and surely at the right speed with the correct pH and the right nutrient profile (i.e. nutrients that are made for canna and your growing system) then the plants will slowly start to go dark green and grow nice and fast and healthy. If they ever go a little bit too dark green you want to ever so slightly back off the nutes, give them some time, before pushing/increasing the nutes again.

One of the best nutrients to give small plants is called Formulex, it's very good for seedlings.

After that I would switch to something like Advanced Nutrients A&B or Canna A&B

I would generally give low EC feed around 0.4 when they are small seedings and as they grow their second set of leaves bump it up to 0.6 and then 3rd set of leaves 0.7, 4th - 5th set of leaves 0.8 and so on. Once in a while I'd run plan water through the system to flush it out for a few hours, dump the water and then give her nutrients again. This just helps to clean the system and remove some of the salts that maybe built up.

 

[jackmc]

Hello Pyru, I've wanted to try Emily's garden for a while. I grow hydro in rockwool cubes in clay in DWC. You should be able to get away with tap water for the first two weeks. I'd start at 300 PPM in the third week and increase by 100 PPM per week until you hit 600 PPM. I'm on my third grow and am finally not burning the tips. Good luck.

 

[Pyru]

Okay cool thanks everyone, I've noticed two are starting again to grow so I think flushing out the nutes and maintaining the proper ph is helping. Is it normal for ph to raise from 6 to 7 over a few days? I wonder if hydroton leaches stuff into the water?

and my third and more severely affected seedling (pics 2 and 4) still looks horrible, I wonder if it will even recover. Is it wise starting more seeds now to grow them staggered multiple weeks apart? Or will that mess with my potential flowering cycle and whatnot?

excuse typos, on my phone