New Grower Vast and Fast, 1st grow, aeroponics

[spacyanne]

Hello everyone

Whilst posting in the introduction forum, I was advised to post details and some picture's of my grow here, in the hope that, should there be a problem someone might be able provide some help

Here is the first attempt at taking a picture of the girlez.

Forgive me for the terrible picture.

The girls are now 27 day old, very compact and bushy. They are planted in 3 inch rockwool cubes under a 250w Dual spectrum Sodium lamp.
Feeding, is currently 150g of H20/Formualex/PM catalyst, PH 5.3 with TDS 543 ppm at source once a week. The value of 150g being the maximum feeding added to the rockwool so that enough O2 can be taken up. Initial H20 PH 8.3 with TDS 160ish. No Ca/Mg have been added but, as soon as they are re-housed in the hydro, treatment of RO H20 will commence.
Temperature is min 15°c and max 29.1°c, these boundary values were extremest whilst reaching equilibrium. Usually, with the light being S5 switched on,18/24, the mean temperature is around 24-25°c with lights out drops to approximately 18°c.

The ventilation out-take fan is run full out at 195 cfm with the in-take fan being only 100cfm. The plan was to create a positive pressure environment so that it would become difficult for microscopic objects to enter the grow-tent.

Sometime soon, when the root masses are bound fully to the cube and showing they, will be added to the Amazon aeroponics unit.

Tomorrow, further pictures will be taken in the attempt to show the plants in more detail.

Any advice or alternative perspectives on the grow would be greatly appreciated. Especially from anyone who might have grown the Vast & Fast variety

 

[wwwillie]

Hey and Welcome!!
Looks great from what I can see!!
Seriously, sounds like you have it together! Looking forward to following your grow and learning about hydro.
Peace and happy growing. Here's a big ol' :karma Cloud:, just 'cause!

 

[spacyanne]

Hello Wwwille

The last few days have been really busy, mostly, by spending lots of time putting right the silly mistakes which were made in getting this far in the grow. However, eight little Vast & Fast girls are now in the amazon aeroponics system

The last several days have been really challenging because of changing my bottled water and, using, a hard water version of Plant Magic Grow A&B.

The PH was, at one point, was a little high but, they all, except one poor girl, have recovered to be transferred into the hydro.

Perhaps, they will all look better over the next few days

 

[spacyanne]

Hello Peeps:screwy:

Eight young girls are now safely-ish re-housed in the Amazon Aeroponics system with another, eight places to be taken at a later time. After scowering some of the UK seeds sellers o line for some blueberry seeds, 5 Dutchmaster Blueberry seeds were eventually bought. Also 5 Devilmatic and 2 Quicksatan were also procured. I'm still awaiting arrival of some 50mm net pots so an electric propagator can be used aeroponically. There is no doubt, that bringing up the young plants in a 3inch Rockwell cube made the processes a little more stressful than, a pure aeroponical infantcy.

Here are the 8 transferred Vast and fast girls:

As can be seen, they look as if they have had a difficult beginning. It was really quite time consuming to free the dense root systems from the rockwool cubes with out damage. The task would be much simpler if the Amazon net pots were larger too.

 

[wwwillie]

Wow they look swell!!
I am going to have to explore the hydro stuff. I just know myself and am sure I will over complicate and over think the whole thing!
Can't wait to see them progress and flower!
Can't you leave them in the rockwool cubes and put the whole thing into the hydroton? I thought I saw that somewhere (see I'm thinking to much about it already!)
Peace

 

[spacyanne]

Wow they look swell!!
I am going to have to explore the hydro stuff. I just know myself and am sure I will over complicate and over think the whole thing!
Can't wait to see them progress and flower!
Can't you leave them in the rockwool cubes and put the whole thing into the hydro? I thought I saw that somewhere (see I'm thinking to much about it already!)
Peace

Almost 15 years ago, I tried growing in potting compost but, nothing, except, one super skunk seedling germinated. In the end, the grow was not finished, perhaps, they were over watered.:banghead:

Homebrew hydroponics has really been revolutionised by the plummeting costs and power/size ratio of the little aquatic power heads. Another important factor is the wide spread use of plastics, rather than, glass, for hydroponic construction. To make life a lot easier, the Amazon was bought, as cheap as possible. In my own particular case, buying the system helped in allowing to be "up and running" very quickly. However, it will probably take the first grow to become familiar with the system maintenance and up keeping regime so sometimes, I really wonder if whether, in the beginning more time and care should have been spent becoming used to the system and technique. Therefore, to homebrew, build and test a hydroponic system is definitely the smart way to go. There are some really useful tutorial videos on YouTube showing how aeroponics hydroponics systems that, can so easily be homebrewed very easily and cheap.

Regarding the next round of seedlings, devilmatic, blueberry and quicksatan, they will be started in rockwool plugs, 25mm in diameter which are to be held in 50mm net pots in the propagator. Using rockwool in net pots to germinate the seedlings is really so simple but, in the grow above the rockwool cubes were much to large so as to fit easily into the net pots, 74mm used on the Amazon aero hydro.

I just hope that the first eight plants to be used in the hydro all live.

 

[Kelpie-dog]

It seems really tough to figure out these kind of systems. So many things you have to do. Power to you though. The learning curve must be intense!