You don't see a contradiction in what you just wrote?

Root damage is a "violent transplant".

Any significant stress at the time of switching to 12/12 can cause hermies if the plants are at all susceptible, and root damage is definitely significant stress. I transplanted out of my dwc veg system into my aero flowering system, tearing roots badly, and every single one of the plants that had root damage hermied, nearly ruining my entire crop. So you can bet your ass it was because of root damage. If I had started them at 18/6 for 3 or 4 days in the aero system, they probably wouldn't have done that. Lesson learned. Transplant damage, delay 12/12 until healed, or throw those plants away and grab other clones that aren't damaged.

Yes, 1 min off 4 on is okay for 95% of the systems out there.

4 min on 20 off is Not, to the rookie grower trying to give advice instead of asking questions and learning like he should be..lol

on the whole root issue in aero, if one simply pulls the plants out of the system one at a time daily, they will never have root entanglement. As for the whole side issue on roots in soil, scratching head wondering what any of that has to do with hydro at all. as for your timer, there are as many combinations as there are growers. Personally when doing aero I go with 45 on 15 off 24/7 but it can be many other combinations successfully.

I let the pumps go 24/7 for veg and the first week of flower.. Then I go to a preset cycle timer and that's exactly what it runs, 1 on and 4 off..

This is a Hydro forum ain't it???

Kind of a pain to do if you have a bunch of plants, but most of us here aren't commercial growers, so all in all, good suggestion! I just built a system using pvc tubes inside the dwc tubs to hold the roots apart.




I'm scratching my head trying to figure out where soil was mentioned in this thread.. Lol

Little update

So far so good. I did my first full rez change in cloner and replenished with my first line of feeding and adjusted the ph to 6.0 give or take as I'm using the liquid drop ph reading. I did have to use a little ph down to correct, not much and I diluted it in water before adding.GH brand.

The girls themselves have really started to gain more color and softening up "looking live" since I started adding the Cal mag an Liquid Karma. Im also using Silica Blast and Aquashield right now and of course the grow. Some have roots already about foot long but still could thicken up a bit I think before transfer. Nice White for the most part. The temps were at around 78f - 80f which are still some what higher then Id like. I was going to cycle time the cloner pump 1on4off but I feel its important at that stage to maybe leave that on 24 /7 as others do. My veg is on the recycle timer. Which nothing is even in veg yet.

If they're rooted that good those temps would bother me.. That's just me though and I don't know shit.

It sounds like your pump is an in water pump, cycling it would help with the heat issue as if it is running all the time, it does add heat to the water.

Well its been few months of trial and error. I guess that is what its all about some times, at least for me in most things. As for hydroponics is all new to me, I didn't think it would come out a pro on first runs which was more like a failure. Anyways I opted out of large rubbermaid for simplicity of going straight from aero cloner into 5 gallon bucket DWC.

Screwed up few of the beginning buckets 1 particular nice one locking out N id imagine. Plant turned the more yellow then yellow can be.Nice and soft bright yellow then pale leaves .Looked like it should have when finished but it was from from finished. I wasn't paying attention and the water looked like soup. I just cut my loses at 4 weeks and got about a zip. I think problem is the air pump and the nute load. the more water it just gets stagnant when large root system. When there is not roots yea it bubbles but when you have massive root system it just sits and starts to get all bad with lots of water hardly bubbling if that matters. So i was keeping them at like 1 gallon filled and did much better as it used faster instead of getting stagnant.

Using pet store aquarium air pumps. For 120 gallon tanks like $30. Im wondering if commercial hydroponic grade pumps are that much better and make a difference.

Right now I got things finally looking sweet. 2 weeks in with 3 buckets Apollo Lemon and Sour Cream. I still don't measure nutes well or have a pen so that would probably help a ton.

I would like to get back into aero more but this is easier at the moment for my circumstance and situation like space ect. Figured Id make small update.

Have a good one Everyone J

The Commercial hydro pumps would do you a TON better my man. IT sounds like you got your stuff down but just need more air.

Those plastic cheap air pumps push anywhere from 1 liter to 10 liters per minute. Compared to the very smallest commercial air pump that pushes 30-38 liters per minute - Not to mention the fact that they don't burn out after a 5 month period.

PH means a lot in DWC. try to come up with a pen and keep it at 5.5-5.9.

Hope it helps out brother. Good luck, how bout some pics?!