Grow Mediums Hydro help, planting soon!

[BossTezzir]

Hello everyone,

I will be attempting my first grow within the next few days (seeds are currently germinating). I've been doing lots of research on autos and hydroponics but couldn't really find much related directly to growing autos hydroponically. To start off I only have a small 9 plant 3 gallon grow box for the moment. Anyways, I had a few specific questions I haven't been too sure about:

1.) I know nutrient levels may depend on the plant and your choice of nutes but I was just wondering if there was a general rule of thumb I should follow mainly as in how much how fast & when you know to add more or raise amount.

2.) How long do you go before changing out the water? I've seen anywhere from a week to 2 weeks so maybe in the middle?

3.) How and when to flush? Been kind of confused about this one do you just add water to balance it out or do you change the water and leave out nutrients?

4.) Also, another topic I've been trying to get more info on. Is there a better option of water to use as far as tap vs. distilled?

Thanks in advance! Any other helpful info you may have would be greatly appreciated as well.

 

[Roark]

Welcome aboard.
1.most feed at 1/4 strength of what the manufacturers recommend. So lets say it says 5ml per gl.
That would 15ml in 3 gl rez. Hard to divide equally. So I, personally, would do 5 ml gives you plenty of wiggle room.

2 changing rez. Well 7-10 days seems to work really well for me. I've gone 2 weeks before. 7-10 is better I think.

3. A flush in hydro is usually where you dump your rez wash it out and "flush" fresh water through the system. Here is what I did in straight hydro.
Dump rez, scrub down an rinse. Then fill rez half way, in your case all the way, and cycle the water through like 3x's in an hour to pull nute build up out of the system. There are products for this. Dump rez again, rinse dump an refill. Add nutes and feed as normal.
I did this everytime I did a rez change. More so later on in late veg an bloom.
Topping off is where you add fresh water to the rez inbetween changes.

4. Distilled has no salts. So you'll have to add cal to get it like 80-100ppm, BEFORE you add nutes. Depends more on what your tap has in it. Advanced nutrients has a p.h perfect hydro nute line.
I use cutting edge with tap. Has always done me fine. Issues sometimes but I'm learning to accommodate.
Hope this helps as a starting point. Also read up on the autoflower lifecycle. Its a great guideline.

 

[Roark]

Must have scared um off.

 

[BossTezzir]

Sorry for the (very) late reply was having problems with my laptop and the site wouldn't allow me to sign in on a mobile device. Anyways, I real appreciated the response very helpful information. The seeds I originally had germinating to start off with didn't work out I think due to the fact I may have rushed it a little too much and didn't have all the info I needed and also I used peat pellets and only had 1 plant sprout out of 9. So I restarted this time using rapid rooters and a germination kit & sprouted 4 of 5 but only kept 2. They are only a couple weeks in but were doing great until a few days ago one lady ran into some issues not sure if it's nitrogen problems/nute burn or something else. Other than that I believe all is well, at least for my first time grow.