QUICK RECAP
I had grown in coco coir my last indoor grow and everything actually went pretty smooth.
When you grow in coco, you get the advantages of both soil and hydro. While coco holds water and nutirients, it still has to be grown like hydro in the essence that coco does not have the nutrients nessessry for a healthy plant to thrive.
I did learn a great deal from my grow now though. And if you are growing too I would suggest you at least trying all of the growing methods at least once to get a feel for it. Not for production but rather to gain a more versatile growing knowledge.
Knowledge is the greatest resource you can grow and it can save you and make you money at the same time. Build your knowledge bank at all costs. Knowing what wrong has to be done immediately when growing in hydro... Not so much coco but definitely when growing in hydroton like I did .
Each growing medium has different pros and cons. And hydroponic grows, while so many pros are available, so many costly mistakes can lay just around the corner.
MISTAKE NUMBER ONE, (NOAH'S ARK FLOODING)
Not once, not twice, but three times I flooded this room in less than one month. Flooding wouldn't be a problem if my grow area had a floor drain installed, however my grow area does not have one. To build one would be counter productive seeing I should only be in this house for less than a year. And honestly good preparation can avoid any floods which would be of a better interest seeing that I personally have a little under 100 galloms flowing through my hydroponic system at all times. Well, at least till it messes up and goes outside the system.
This system is simple.
1st Flood
Improper drainage from flood table into the return reservoir.
I didn't anchor my return line down with anything more than a piece of twine and I paid royally for the short cut..
Ling story short make sure you anchor everything down to the point that God would have to rip it off himself for it to move. No matter how ugly it may look it does not matter. It's not for show it's for grow. Make sure it's secure and your grow room won't meet the same fate as mine and you may be able to save a few bucks avoiding having to renute your main water reservoir.
My fix was done by my wife #modernmom420 while I was out at work. She felt bad it was done with duct tape but again it doesn't matter what your grow looks like.. it's about the end product... It just has to work efficiently to be correct. You can make it better for the next time around.
I did follow behind her and add some twine to create an extra hold for those lines.
After this grow I will have those installed directly into the side of the main resivoir using rubber gaskets and PVC threaded ends to ensure proper placement and securability.
Mistake number 2 (poor pre-planning)
Roots can be a son of a bitch! And a bitch it was. I didn't think far enough ahead in my grow to contemplate weather or not my drain from my flood table would be compromised. Well it did get compromised because I installed the drain to my flood table incorrectly!
Honestly to avoid this problem in the future it's probably best to run an ebb and flow so I can keep the drain above the root zone. After all my problem was caused by huge heavy roots climbing down the drain spout and closing it off.
This happened even though I had a metal strainer blocking the drain with hopes that this would be enough to avoid a possible problem like this.
I was surly wrong and my grow room paid the price on that error too.
Mistake Number Three ( forgetting can be detrimental.)
Even though my hydroponic system is set up through a manifold with connected cone sprayers, I still flood my table, on purpose, 3 times a week to ensure all of the root zone is completely watered.
While cone sprayers are present, they do not get to the edges of the flood table and for that reason my roots will not utilize all the real estate within the table. And I just can't have that so I run a manual ebb and flow.
The problem with a manual ebb and flow is that there is a sweet spot to flood to. And if you leave the room while the flood table drain is closed off it is extremely easy to forget about while you are taking care of other things.
I learned to sit in the room rather than check it frequently. It is irritating, but without an automated system setup, this is what I do to make sure I'm not letting my grow piss on me again.
Well I hope some of these kind of brought you up to speed on my current grow. And the problems I have ran into.
I don't know if you ever heard the saying, "There is a million ways to skin a cat."
Well the same goes fo growing weed. You grow for what fits you and your schedule best. Know why your growing and build your grow to meet your life style.
For me this will be my last hydroponic grow done outside of coco. My life is to busy and I don't have the ability to keep up on a system that honestly does require more due diligence because of how fast things can go south.
I stay away from home days at a time and I don't have the ability to do daily checks like I should. So for me, this was a fun grow, but I will be going back to Coco for sure. It's just easier and I'm not really sure I'm going to tell a difference in the quality of the end product.
Till we meet again me steemit family I wish you all a great Sunday, and I left those pictures from a previous post just in case some new to my post did not see them before.
These are the photos from my current grow.
