Hydroponics For Black Thumbers

If  you're looking for the simplest way to feed your plants, look no further.   The Stealth Grow, Bloom and Micro nutrient pack makes it as easy as 1-2-3.  The nutrient pack consists of small baggies of grow, bloom fertilizers and micro nutrients.  Each small baggie is a two weeks dose.  You just dissolve in water and add to your 6 gallon reservoir.

No guesswork, no measuring, no multiple bottles of chemicals, no mess.  Just mix and add.  Best of all, the nutrients have built in pH buffers which do a really good job of keeping your pH in the optimal range of 6.5.  Designed for use with the Bubbleponics stealth hydro growing system, but will work with any hydroponics system.

The natural tendancy the first time you try to grow your own indoors is to get greedy.  By this I mean you are going to go with more plants than you have room for and your going to grow them as tall as you can.  Big mistakes.

By cramming six plants into an area meant for no more than two, you are stunting the growth of all six plants, guaranteeing you minimal yield from any one plant.

By growing your plants too tall, you run the risk of overgrowing your lights.  The fact is your plants will grow a foot-and-a-half to two feet AFTER you switch to flowering mode (12 hours light, 12 hours dark).  If  your plants are taller than your lights two thing will happen, neither of them good.  You'll burn your plants where the light come into contact with them and you'll minimize the yield from the top of the plant, which is where the biggest buds grow. 

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There are a number of considerations to be given when determining where to place your hydroponics system.  Obviously, there needs to be enough floor space to accommodate your growing needs.  Close proximity to electrical outlets is also very important.  Depending on your situation, you may desire to place your hydroponics someplace that is not readily visible.  These are all pretty basic concerns and can usually be solved during the setup process.

However, there is one other important consideration that often goes overlooked for about two to three weeks into your first hydroponics venture.   Successful hydroponic growing requires a complete change of water and nutrients every two weeks or so.  If you haven't considered drainage until now, you could be in for a big, and unpleasant surprise.

With the Bubbleponics Dual Spectrum Hydroponics Kit, a drain is an optional accessory.  Get it.  Also, make sure your resevoir (and the drain) are raised a good 4" or more above the area you are going to drain into.  I have it easy, I just run a garden hose from the drain (it fits on quite nicely) out my front door and into the gutter, which is a downhill run.

Raised reservoir (it sits on block of styrofoam) so drain goes downhill

If you don't have an easy way to drain your system outdoors, you'll need to drain into buckets or plastic gallon milk containers, and this means you'll need to raise your hydroponic reservoir high enough to allow the bucket or container to fit under the drain.

Otherwise, you will be faced with the painful chore of bailing out your reservoir cup by cup.  If this was just a one time thing, it would be ok.  Unfortunately, you'll be draining your system every two weeks.

If you use rock wool cubes for growing your plants in--and let's face it, almost anyone who starts from purchased clones will be using rock wool for the growing medium--then you should take steps for preventing algae build up.

Simply put, light plus moisture equals algae, and the rock wool cube gets both light (24 hours a day in veggie phase) and moisture making it a prime candidate for algae source of the year. I've seen algae come real close to killing a plant which is how I learned how dangerous it can be.

Note how black algae has made the rockwool on the plant on the left

The easy solution?  Get some black plastic (think garbage bag) and cut it into 3" x 3" squares then put a cut in from midway through one of the sides to the center of the square.  Place on top of rock wool cube and voila, no more algae.

Black plastic cut from garbage bag prevents light from causing algae