Hey everyone...

I have learned so much from these message boards over the past few weeks, thanks to everyone for posting their knowledge.

Attached are pictures of my aeroponic grow using an AeroGarden. I have been using the nute tablets that came with the system but I am going to change. These plants are exactly three weeks old. I have completed three outdoor grows, and this is my first indoor. These plants seem to be growing fast!

This week I am purchasing a 400W MH w/ HPS conversion lighting system to use in place of the crappy flourex lighting that the aerogarden comes with. I am going to finish veg with the MH and switch to the HPS for flowering. I assume this will substantially increase both quality and yield. The aerogarden system itself seems to be pretty good except for the lights.

Questions:

1. In the past week I have noticed some light brown spots on the leaves. (see pics) Anyone have any idea what these are? Also, can anyone recommend a commercially sold nute solution for the rest of veg and also flowering?

2. The hanging part of the roots are submersed in the reservoir, is that bad?

3. Should I be emptying the res every few weeks or so, or should I just add water/nute as needed?

Any other observations / comments would be greatly appreciated.

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Hello and welcome. Glad to see you.

I've always wondered how that system would do for growing weed. I hope you will continue to post your thoughts and results. And we all like pictures.

1. In the past week I have noticed some light brown spots on the leaves. (see pics) Anyone have any idea what these are? Also, can anyone recommend a commercially sold nute solution for the rest of veg and also flowering?
That is a problem that I've not personally had, nor am I'm not familiar with it. I have posted several problem charts that could probably answer that question though. Advanced search with my name and "problem charts", and choose to search titles only. You should get at least 3 this way. I highly recommend saving these to your computer in case, God forbid, this site goes away like overgrow did.
For the nutrients I firmly believe in SuperThrive and Fox Farm stuff. For vegging I use Fox Farms Grow Big, and Tiger Bloom for bud. For additives, it's ST and Liquid Karma for veg, and Fox Farms Open Sesame, Beastie Blooms and Cha Ching for budding. However, you don't need all this to make nice big nugs. For a while I used no additives, and got great results. I recommend not using many for your 1st grow.

2. The hanging part of the roots are submersed in the reservoir, is that bad?
Your roots need both oxygen and water/nutes to survive. It is great that at least some of your roots are in water. That way they wont die during a power outage. However it is also great that some are in air. It is best if they could all be in air, getting wet from popping bubbles, but it aint going to happen in your set-up. Once you switch to HID lighting that res will get completely filled with a tangled root mass. This is not a problem, just a fact.

3. Should I be emptying the res every few weeks or so, or should I just add water/nute as needed?
Yes, by all means you need to do a res flush. Depends a bunch on the system, but at least once per month. I would probably do at least twice per month on yours.

You absolutely made the right choice about the lighting. 400 is a lot for that little system, but that's probably what I would want. Just be sure to keep the light pretty far back (2 or 3 feet at first, while your plants adjust, then eventually you'll want it as close as possible, but change in stages maybe once per week. Also 400W HID makes a bunch of heat. Have you thought at all about what you are going to do with it? You almost need to vent this to the outside somehow, but you may be able to figure out how to cool without doing so.

Good luck, and please keep us posted.

OP

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Looking again at the picture of the roots, unfortunately it looks like you've got a case of root rot. See how they are brown and squishy looking. This is from too much water or too much time in the water. I would turn off your bubbles immediately and lower your res level as much as possible. Then I would search about it as much as possible and learn everything you can. Not sure if that would cause the spots on the leaves.

Not 100% sure though since I have never had it. Please someone else chime in here and disagree or agree, so his success doesn't depend solely on my advice.

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PS. It looks like you have a sponge or something against the roots right where the bad part is. I would get that out right away, since I'm sure it is helping to keep the roots wet.

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PPS. I would post another thing about your problems in the Plant Problem area. You might get more/better help on the subject.

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Noooo!!! Leave the sponge alone.

Opie, Dude, that's a rapid rooter - it can't be removed! All the roots start inside the rapid rooter, removing it will kill the plant.

PC

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Cool, nice save PC. I thought it was like capillary matting or a sponge, supplying water to the bad spot. Glad you looked in.

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Notice how that rapid rooter is completely soaked? I would try to get less moisture to it somehow. If I am right about the rot, I would want that rapid rooter to almost dry out completely. I'm thinking this is about the only way that plant will survive. Unless I'm wrong about the rot, then I'm wasting time for both of us.

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Good Lord, this Cranberry/Peach 100% juice drink is awesome!

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Thanks for the feedback..I will continue to post updates and pictures. I hope I do not have root rot! I am going to post in the problem plant area with some better close-ups on the roots.

As far as the lighting OP, that 400w HID is going to be in a closet that is roughly 7' x 2.5', and my plan was to just have an oscillating fan inside the closet. Do you think that a closet this size will require better ventilation? If so, any suggestions? I had not thought of this yet...

maybe I should go for a lower wattage HID?

It would be doable if the closet door were left open, and in addition to your oscillating fan you had a small fan blowing straight up at the light, and one blowing the heat from the light out the closet. Can't you vent into the attic or something? Otherwise I probably would go with 250 watt, then it wouldn't be such a big problem. That would be a nice size for that set-up, I think, but you still would need some good fans.

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hey now,

so that blotchy yellowing on my leaves has gotten worse, in three days it has progressed from random yellow spots to lots of brown spots (see new pics) it's only happening on one of the plants (the largest one) and from my research i am pretty sure it's due to a calcium deficiency. That other plant (with minor yellowing around the edges of the leaves) seems to have a slight magnesium deficiency. So far the only nutes i've added are the pellets that came with the aerogrow unit, and i've added them as directed (i know---dumbass move) Is it possible that I have over-nuted? Any feedback on this would would be greatly appreciated.

Today I turned off the bubbles, emptied the res and tried to wash out all of those crappy pellet nutes as best i could, then refilled about 1/4 way with spring water only (about 1/4 gallon) and left the bubbles / lights off for the night. Today I am going to try to pick up some Fox Farms Grow Big to resume nute...here's my questions:

how long should I flush for?

when should I turn on the bubbles & lights?

how much water should I leave in the res while flushing?

Also, I have ordered a 250w HPS light w/ MH conversion bulb from inside sun, it should be here on friday, and I was planning on switching the lights immediately. Should I wait until the plants show improvement before switching the lights?

any and all feedback is greatly appreciated...thanks!

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i have one of those, if your using the nutes it came with you got some ph problems, its too high, thats why your leaves are fucked up

thanks for the info on the PH

anyone have a thought on how long should I flush for and when it is ok to resume nutes?


thanks..

I was going to suggest a calcium deficiency is causing your spots, but reading ALL of the posts, I see you already came up with that ... sorry 'bout that

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Hey word, you don't really have to flush unless you are trying to fix a problem with a plant (as you are). But when things are running right, you don't so much flush as you do change. I would at least do it 2 or 3 times per month, unless you have some problems. If so it might be caused by your salt content being too high from lack of flushing often enough. When your res level gets lower, and you add to it, and you keep doing it, pretty soon the part that's left is full of salts and bad stuff, and your total PPM gets way too high. That's why we "flush" on a regular basis; to get that stuff out of our systems and get a proper nutrient solution in.

Now we also flush to get bad stuff out of our plants. When you are doing this you flush more at one time. It might be good if you fed with nothing but PHd water for a couple three days, changing the res once per day or so. That way hopefully the plant will at least get somewhat cleansed of the bad stuff. Then you can start feeding at about 1/3 strength. Start with 1 thing, probably your main grow nutrients. Watch for a couple days for signs of stress, then you could bump up the PPM or try adding an additive (perhaps two drops of superthrive), but don't do both at the same time. If you do any two changes at once you won't be certain which is the trouble maker. If your pretty sure you have a calcium deficiency, then you might want your second ingredient to be whatever fixes that, perhaps CalMag. That's pretty much what I take the other "flushing" to mean. But I wouldn't be surprised it's just because they gave you suckie nutrients, and once you start giving them some real food they will most likely start really taking off, and being healthy at the same time.

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Oh yeah, I imagine that your PH is all messed up if you haven't been checking it. That is way more important than any recipe of nutrients. For your grow to be successfully you must buy a PH pen for like $25. They should have them wherever your getting the Grow Big. Also consider a PPM pen, as that's the fastest and most accurate way to determine how much to feed. Directions on the bottle are often a little confusing, but there is no confusion with a PPM meter. Perhaps you could save a little money and get something that does both.

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Well?

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I ended up having to wait a week for my nutes to arrive in the mail. I had them shipped and the shipper took their sweet ass time....anyway today I got some fox farm grow big (hydro formula 3-2-6) and also tiger bloom (for flowering). I emptied the res today and added about a gallon of spring water with grow big at about 1/3 strength. The spots on the leaves have gotten worse (see pics) and one of the plants has very curled leaves which I think is a phosphorus deficiency (again see pics) but needless to say none of my plants are in great shape. I should have my 250 HID in the mail any day now, it's an HPS ballast with a MH conversion bulb. so here are my questions:

1) Is it possible for these plants to bounce back? or should I scrap this grow and start over once I get my HID lamp?

2) what steps would you recommend I take from here? including nute schedule and when to start using the 250w HID. I am thinking I probably want the plants to show significant improvement before I jam them under an HID..

any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated...thanks

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nah, there deff fixable, you filling the water past that circle thing? + i would go full strenth on the nutes, you know wat the ph is? and some nutes have a ph buffer so i would use tap water

im feeling like you ph is a lil high, should be around 5.7

oh, yo cover up those 2 open holes wit somthing, or you can develope a algee/mold problem, and it is a fucking bitch to fix that problem

btw you got any pix of the roots? jq

quote=wordsandwich

1) Is it possible for these plants to bounce back? or should I scrap this grow and start over once I get my HID lamp?

Absolutely these plants can snap back. I know because they already have started to. Those top nodes are looking comparatively nice and healthy at this point. Well mostly anyway. I can't tell if I see some beginnings of the yellow spots.

2) what steps would you recommend I take from here? including nute schedule and when to start using the 250w HID. I am thinking I probably want the plants to show significant improvement before I jam them under an HID..

IMHO you are correct about the light. When they are struggling like this I would either not use the HID just yet, or keep it about 3 feet back at first. They're getting stressed 6 ways from Sunday. They don't need light stress or heat stress to add to it. You would have to get the light real close to light stress the plants, or maybe add it over night even at an otherwise acceptable distance, but heat stress is definitely something to worry about.

I'm pretty sure the good nutrients can only be helping. However I'm going to have to disagree about upping the amount of food at this point. They will be just fine at 1/3 strength, but they just might not be if you raise the amount at this point. To be as safe as possible during this recovery I would wait 3 or 4 days, then start upping it slowly if everything else looks good.

I cannot stress this enough: You need to do something about the PH. It is way more important than getting the proper nutrients to the plants. If you expect your plants to thrive or at least survive, there is no way around checking PH. Improper PH, or PH fluctuations could have very easily caused those wrinkled leaves. Be extremely thankful if that's all that lack of attention to PH has brought you. PH in hydro is 5.5 (5.2 - 5.9). I try to keep mine at 5.5, and that seems to work out nicely. You could test your water by using some PH down to 5 or so, then seeing if it creeps back up over night or two nights. If so, you might want to consider starting out aiming for PH 5.2, knowing that it will creep up over time. If you use city water be sure to get something to neutralize the chlorine. You can get drops for this, but I don't know if you need some way to measure chlorine, or just ask your water company what percentage it is, then perhaps use a certain amount per directions on the bottle. Not my deal ya know? If you have well water you will start with 100-300 PPM right off the bat, but no chlorine unless you have something that injects it.

I couldn't help noticing something a little disheartening; you didn't mention anything to do with PH coming with your nutrients. At the very least you gotta get a strip-type test kit with the drops, for about $8, or as I mentioned before, a PH pen for about $25. If you plan on doing much growing in the future just go ahead and shell out the $25. Eventually you will decide that people are correct and you will need something to measure PPM. But I'm thinking these are 50 or $60. If I had it to do over again I would figure one meter that tests both, into my start-up budget. $100? Who knows if the directions on the bottle are really correct. And if they are correct, sometimes they're confusing. It's kinda hard to tell if your 1/3 strength is the same 1/3 strength that it really should be. If we could get a PPM meter in there somehow, we would know if it's under the 900 PPM limit that I recommend for a few days. After that I would raise the amount weekly, or a little less or more often, about 100 PPM at a time while watching very carefully for signs of nute stress, which is yellowing and browning on leaf tips and edges. Without a meter, adjust your changes accordingly. I'll let you get out the calculator if you want it precise.

Also the more air you can get into your solution the better. I would chuck that small air stone that I'm assuming came with the system, and put in not an air stone, but an air wand. These will last sooo much longer than the stones, which fall apart after the first harvest. You can clean the wands after each harvest and they continue putting out the bubbles about as good as new. Plus you can cut the wands to any size, and some types you can bend into irregular shapes. I would have one running the entire length of the res, and get a bigger air pump if the small one (again I'm assuming) doesn't produce a nice boiling effect. Keep the level pretty low so that most of the roots are in air, and getting spritzed when the bubbles pop.

and on, and on, and on...

Hmmm, what else...?

Oh yeah, what about the alleged root rot? Your plants seem to be doing too good for that perhaps. If you do have it, I would not have bubbles splashing on the rotten spot. Try to get as much moisture as possible away from that spot, but don't completely dry it out. Please let me know either way so we can rule it out as a problem or not. Pictures would be wonderful.

And oh yeah, I want to see this work. Taking out the fluoro kinda defeats the idea of the experiment I wanted to see, but that's fine. I think I have a pretty good idea of what the end result would look like. I highly recommend going ahead with the HID as planned. That is unless you don't want to quadruple the yield. Just please add it slowly and gently at first.

Well getting late and hard to think. Lemme know.

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Thanks for the heads up on covering the holes oldjimmybones, i put some cardboard over them and i don't think any light is getting thru.

You guys are right on the PH, but I have a test kit coming and it should be here today. I got it from stealth hydro, it is the strips and it includes powdered PH up and PH down. I looked for a PH pen everywhere, and all I could find was $90 and above, and well over $100 for a combo meter. The old lady has drawn the line with the spending on this project so i'm gonna have to wait to get digital equipment. nect time I will have it. I am concerned though, how do those test strips work? anyone have any experience with them? or better yet, does anyone know where I can get a digital meter for under $40 or so?

opie, let me know what you think about the root rot (see pics)...i personally think the leaves are yellow because of those crappy nutes I used, and that the roots are fine. they look completely white when I look in there, but somehow when i take a picture the flash bulb makes them look slightly brown. The brown has not gotten worse as the plants and roots have matured, so I am thinking my roots are fine. what do you think?

thanks again guys...

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heses one for like $25 DIGITAL pH METER LAB SOIL WATER TESTER + CAL FLUID INCL - (eBay item 320192610828 end time Dec-12-07 21:00:42 PST)

+ on the nutes, guess better safe than sorry so go wit opie