you guys all know i use the paper towel method in germing my beans for soil growing, but whats the best way to start the seeds the way i have always or is it best to start them in wool..i no i have seen others struggle with seeds when started in wool and would hate to have a melt down before i even get started ..

with seed plants is it ok to fill up all 18 holes or is it better to skip a hole or 2 in between them ..

any diffrents in size when flipping to 12/12 with seed plants then you would with clones ..

also do you have to run your chillers in the winter month ..i no my room dips pretty low in the winter at nite ..but stays around 72 or so durring lites on ..

oh yeah whats the best ph to run at also ..this is my first run with the aero and want to make sure i have all my ducks in a row to start ..



thanks for any help

weedmen

I'm short on time atm weedmen, but I'll try to tell ya what little I know Later today or tomorrow.

thanks nuto..i'll be watching for it ...

I will leave this initial question way alone considering my horrid record of germination. lol





If your room temps are only hitting 72 as a high and you are aerating, all will be well, you are probably dropping into low 60's at night so it is all good.

Best ph in any hydro is 5.7-5.9, I like it at 5.7 myself.

Good to see you expanding your horizons bro.

Germinate With whatever your good a weedmen.

I agree with Dawg on the rest just will add my 2 pennies. If your pump is external I think you will be good as well at those temps. Like Dawg said lotsa bubbles. BUT if your pump is internal(in the tank} those temps will get iffy. internal pump will raise the nute temps 5 extra degrees.

Personally I don't mind my ph movin around a lil bit. Not under 5.3 and 6.0 at the most. My silly thinkin is they eat different nutes at different ph's. And I also think some strains like different ph levels.. I think the Purple Kush I grow refers a higher ph. Once again I may just dream this shit up.. LOL I get a buzz on and shit kinda pops up in there and don't always go away.. Are you gonna mom up and clone??

Ok on filling all the holes once again strain, and veg time and technique needs to be considered. Bushy strain and say 3-4 weeks veg in sog you can do every other hole. Not bushy every hole. I'll try to help with any questions... Just remember I don't know shit!!!

With my old aero/nft thing I'd initially target about 5.2pH, and it would come up to about 6 in a few days, whie the level would drop and the tds would stay about the same.
Letting the pH swing in a controlled way is a good way to reduce your chance of deficiencies.

Dwc is completely different, I'll target like 5.7 when I fill the tubs, and it'll rise, then settle, then drop over the first maybe 4 days, then continuously drop the rest of flowering. I always have to add pH up, I haven't used pH down for anything but my cloners in like 2 years. Also the tds always creeps up, and it is about 3-4x as high as I had it in aero/nft.

Germinating seeds for swapping into aero or dwc, I am curious to find a better method myself. For some dumb ass reason, way I've done it the last several times is in little plastic cups with soil. I don't like having the little clumps of soil crap stuck to the roots in hydro, although this never caused me any type of problem, I just don't like it.

<--- Mom's up first. Since I swithced to AN nutes my aero is doing the same as your DWC Harvey. Up the first day or so then drifts down always down.

thanks for letting me pick your minds apart a little bit ..
i used to grow dwc but went back to soil after finding i was working to hard to maintain a hand full of plants ..
i was sold this aero 18 for a hundred bucks ..i have seen a few of you guys scored these kinds of units when the old owners desided it was to much hassle cleaning them and thats how i got this one..but if you have a few jars set up i cant see why its such a pain in the ass to spend a few hrs every few months cleaning the unit out real well .i still havnt gotten up the courage to take the hoses out to clean them but have been reading slot you guys who use these units i think it was your thread nuto on how to clean these ...

just wondering how often i need to change out my rez with this set up ..i no with the dwc i was changing them out about every 7 to 10 days ..really hoping its a little less with this aero set up ..i have no water to my up stairs and it will be a bitch to hual all that water back and forth in the winter month ..but in the summer i can run my garden hose up there ..

i remember the big thing with hydro is to watch how fast the ph swing is or it can really mess shit up ..i have been reading my old journels from back then and i see i always ran my ph between 5.5 and 6.2 on the high end .
i am hoping to get a run in with some seed plants and plan on starting some mom plants at the sametime in soil..i am redoing my room after this run i am in now to a smaller area to bud in ..i will be building a large box for this and seal it in panda poly ...

thanks everyone ..hope you guys dont mind me coming and asking everyonce in awhile ..it may get repetitive ..after all i do smoke pot ..haha..and if it does just say so ..

Ask away bro. But so will I. How big is your rez? The pump is prolly internal correct??. What are you using for water?? If tap do you know how it tests out?? What nutes are you planning on using??? Do you have a ph meter and a ppm meter???

Don't be scared to yank out them lines. They go back easy. Oh wait it is a General Hydroponics right??? If so give a lil twist and they will loosen from the grommet and just pull em out. There is a plug on the other end. Use a pliers and pull that plug. Then I hook it up to the end of a garden hose hooked up to hot water and flush it good. Then I repace the plug and turn down the hot water and let it flush the laser drilled sprayers real good.. Let the feeder lines cool and they have a tendancy to curl a lil bit and become more rigid. They are easier to feed back into the tube. After a little bit of practice you be able to feed em back through those hoops in a snap.

I been doing something different for some time now. I don't dump my nutes and make new. I just keep adding nutes. I run my ph between 5.3-6.0...

Hey Weedmen, you're no rookie at this stuff, so just dive in and go for it bro.

The biggest challenge I had with aeroponics was keeping the water below 68f as typically the internal pumps heat everything up. Therefore I do not reccomend using an aero system unless one has a chiller too! Of course you can dump jugs filled with ice all day long every day too.

As for how often to change out rez? Well this really depends on a lot of issues and I know that there are many that would disagree with me, but don't give a rat's ass, so will tell you what I have found to work best.
When doing aero or dwc I change my rez out every 10 days, that's empty, clean, refill with new r/o water and a fresh nute mix designed for the unique plant.