Are these ready to move to clay flood and drain?

Hi Guys,

Just wondering if these are ready to move to the clay ball flood and drain system and put them under some serious light? Or wait another week or so?

They'e only 7 days old and currently under 300W CFL 6400k at 24 hrs constant.




Cheers,
J.

Wait a week. maybe 2.

I've read that you should wait for the second true set of leaves, or for roots to poke out. I put mine into rDWC right after I got the second set of leaves, they all survived.

you can put them in flood and drain, set the floods far apart not to clog the cube. Light intensity is still soon to go high with it, i would start by putting it far away. bury the elongated stem to limit stretching

hmm, honestly now that i think about it, its probably not much different from any normal method of avoiding root rot. plus like zem said, not frying em with light. 'overwatering' (rot) and light are probably your only concerns. and not killing them with nutrients.

I forget who on here said it, but mentioned that you can just put germinated seeds with like, more than an inch tap root directly into a bubble/aero cloner directly in the neoprene collar. tried it with some bag seed and it worked totally fine. also have seen mentioned of people just putting seeds in rockwool directly into the system and just flooding/wetting it periodically (top-drip DWC, f+d, aero, bubble etc).

I've just started putting rockwool into those small 1.5" net cups into my garbage bubble cloner for various things. keeps em moist, but not soaking wet, and super oxygenated.

But ultimately, thats the worst case scenario right? Damps off (pyth), root rot (probably pyth), it dried out, or you killed it with lights or nutes.

i have a flood and drain cloner i put cubes in seed trays where i can beef up the light to 6 cfls and feed them to veg them for a while if i needed to buy some time. i use oasis floral foam, you can flood it indefinitely as long as it is draining perfectly

zem said:

you can put them in flood and drain, set the floods far apart not to clog the cube. Light intensity is still soon to go high with it, i would start by putting it far away. bury the elongated stem to limit stretching

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I put them in last night. I'm running a 6-pot alien system.

I found it very hard getting the cube to sit at the right height so the water when it's at the top level of the bucket didn't soak the cube. I managed to set the cub 1cm above the water max height, so hoping the roots will grow down to the damp/wet area over the next couple of days.

I set the flood and drain to run 4 times per 24 hour period. I'll keep an eye on the cubes.

I put them in as soon as they germinate and flood twice a day until roots are established then every 3 hrs or so. Overwatering a seedling was my biggest when starting out.

Justin Freidman said:

I put them in last night. I'm running a 6-pot alien system.

I found it very hard getting the cube to sit at the right height so the water when it's at the top level of the bucket didn't soak the cube. I managed to set the cub 1cm above the water max height, so hoping the roots will grow down to the damp/wet area over the next couple of days.

I set the flood and drain to run 4 times per 24 hour period. I'll keep an eye on the cubes.

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you must be overthinking this, the oasis cube can be soaked no problem as long as it is not floating and tipping over. you need an overflow to control the water height. I simply do that by piercing the tray vertically placing a small hose thats going straight down to the res below. I place the overflow for security, in case the timer is stuck in "ON" mode, there will be no flood.

I'm using rockwool and an alien xl 6-pot flood and drain system. I

have it perfect now. I managed to get the rockwool cubes about 2cm above the wet clay balls. I kept the rockwool slightly damp, making sure it didn't dry out and it only took a day for the roots of the plant to bridge the 2cm gap down in to the wet clay balls.

They're growing really well now.

With rockwool always put the cube above the flood level. Top water for the first week or so and then start to flood. I've always gotten explosive root growth this way.

Next time I start the seeds in growdan 3 or 4" cubes, then bury them in to the clay pebbles so the water when floods touches the first cm of the cube.

I personally try to avoid putting rockwool into clay whenever possible, as it leaves the area most saturated directly at the base of your primary stalk.

diveoregon said:

I personally try to avoid putting rockwool into clay whenever possible, as it leaves the area most saturated directly at the base of your primary stalk.

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Those were my thoughts, the plants are now in to week 3 of flowering and they're doing great.

I run a flood and drain system with a brain pot. If you set up the base of the rockwool just touching the nutrient solution when it's at the highest point, a week or two later, when the roots have grown in to the clay, you could simply put a 1" block under your pots, so the nutrient solution won't touch the rockwool any more.