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ok, I stopped by Hydro-Earth last night.. I bought the "Recipe For Success" starter kit and the Ph set.. all set me back $55

so anyways, I have my 5 gal 1 pot dwc going... set the ph to around 5.8 (hard to tell with the test color block)... and the air stone and pump. the system is running so as not to have the water just sitting there while I wait for the baby romaine to sprout.

I took a rockwool cube and some of the set water from the system, let the cube soak for 15 min. set the seed in it and now it's in a tray with a dome cover awaiting to sprout. I think that's all I can do at the moment.

but my question is this.. when do I add the BC boost and grow? now or wait until I am ready to put the sprouted cube into the system?

getting excited.. I hope I can do this right as it is my very first system. I know the system is on a small scale, but as mentioned before it's a test system before I continue with the 45 gal system.

[img]https://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4494/photo0095m.jpg[/img]

[img]https://img16.imageshack.us/img16/9517/photo0096cu.jpg[/img]

Congrats Ruffsta!! That set of "Recipe for Success" is what got me started on Technaflora several years ago and I've been running it every since, good stuff.

I wait to add nutrients until my plants are sprouted and just beginning to show the first true leaves. All ways add Boost first then the other nutrients. For the lettuce I ran with a 15 gl resv. I used 60cc Boost and 120cc Grow for a finished PPM of around 450 when starting with 150ppm tap water. Just a guide for you to use when starting your system off. Your lettuce is gonna germinate quickly so I'd probably add it now to let the PH stablize.

Best of luck!

hydroguy

how often do I add nutrients/change the water? etc.. once the plant goes in the dwc I honestly have no idea what to do 9other than watch it grow and harvest it lol)

????

Ruffsta wrote:????

Well, first thing I would recommend is a PPM and Ph meter so you kow where you are and where to go but since you don't have those and with the system your running your gonna want to check the Ph with those strips every 3 - 4 days and really do nothing but harvest.

You will need to keep the nutrient level fairly close to the bottom of your net pot. Add enough tap water until youve replaced 1/2 of the total volumne then do a complete change out and start over.

hydroguy

I thought you could harvest over and over as shown in this video..

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG5oF6W0pKI[/url]

that's why I was asking how often about maintaining the nutrients.. I don't want to harvest only once per plant. the guy in the video mentions every 2 weeks..

yea that's our buddy Halfway here at HG! He's put together some cool vidoes. If your growing a leaf lettuce your harvests will be more frequent than every 2 weeks. I take a cutting from my RDWC system every 3 - 4 days. What I posted is true, you really will not have to do much but check your ph and top off with tap water. When you've replaced 1/2 the original volumne then do a complete change and add fresh nutrients. If you are gonna grow a more demanding plant other than lettuce you'd need to be able to check your PPM's. The above mentioned method will work just fine doing multiple harvests from a leaf lettuce or a single harvests from a head lettuce.

hydroguy