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Old 01-02-2017, 01:37 AM
GpsFrontier GpsFrontier is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Lake Havasu AZ.
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Hello newhydro16,

Quote:
Hope I didn't goof up, as my lettuce that are started in the tank are not seedlings but 2- 3 inches tall, and Ive started then in 100% solution.
Do you think they will be ok?
I probably wouldn't want it to be more than 50% strength at that point, but if you don't see any negative effects like the leaves yellowing, burning tips, or burning roots etc. they should be OK.

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Its 10 gal. tank, with 8 plants.
That's a good water volume for 8 lettuce plants, even 1 gallon per plant would be good.
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They look ok so far, but its only day four.
I would start seedlings in a prorogation system before transplanting them into the main system. It's a waste of nutrients, water, and space to start them in the main system. As an example, eight 2-3 inch seedlings don't need 10 gallons of water/nutrient solution. 1/2 gallon is more than enough for 8 seedlings that size. A prorogation system doesn't have to be complicated or expensive. It can be very simple. In fact I made one out of nothing but a used margarine container. I attached pictures of it. I just cut holes in the lid to stick the rockwool cubes in, put a little nutrient solution in it. Then just shook it a couple times a day to slosh the water around to wet the cubes. I also often just use a similar container but with holes in the bottom and using coco fiber as the growing media and just hand water it once or twice a day.

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Also, after I test ph, Ive been pouring the little vial with test solution back in tank, is that ok, or should I toss it?
I would toss it. It doesn't serve any benefit to put it back in. That tiny amount of water volume won't make a bit of difference. I have never put it back in, and I haven't heard of anyone else doing that either. Honestly I don't know if doing so would eventually cause problems or not. I know it won't affect pH, but don't know if it would have any effect on the nutrients or not. But even if not, those few drops of water won't affect your water volume one bit to toss it out.

Quote:
Also, Should there be a lot of bubbles from air pump under each plant, or does a few suffice? Have Eco Air2 pump (126) minute, and three small air stones. About half the plants seem to be getting more bubbles then the others. I started with two stones and it seemed like there were more bubbles all around. Should I go back to just two?
The general rule of thumb is the more air bubbles the better. It should look like boiling water at a heavy roiling boil. It's best if the air bubbles rise up right underneath the plants so the air bubbles make contact with the plants submerged roots. With that said, I have been able to grow good plants with far less air bubbles when my air pump wasn't working well and only put out half the that that it should. While the lettuce plants did well they would have done much better with more air bubbles. Here is a link to the system I was talking about Forth System. Here's a link to some pictures of how the air bubbles should look.

Water Culture system air bubbles
Water Culture system air bubbles
Water Culture system air bubbles


Quote:
I didn't reailize I was supposed to rinse clay balls that are in pots. Wii it be ok, only the bottom few are wet.
Rinsing the clay balls gets the clay dust off of them. The clay dust won't hurt anything, but may result in residue at the bottom of the reservoir. You can still rinse them if you want to. Just take the baskets out and dunk them in a bucket of plain water a few times. That should be enough to get the dust off. Just make sure you cover the top of the baskets with your hand to keep the clay balls from floating as you dunk the baskets.
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