First Grow CFL, Bucketeer with a drip

After trolling for a good amount of time, I have finally gathered what I think to be enough information to get started with a 1 plant grow. I ordered the Bucketeer DWC kit from Stealth Hydro along with PH up and PH down. I don't have a PH meter or a TDS meter because I'm pretty much over budget already. I do have PH test strips from Stealth Hydro, and assuming my lovely wife can help me check the colors since I'm colorblind, I should be alright! lol. I also opted out from the Stealth Hydro dry nutes packets and grabbed the GH Flora series micro, grow, and bloom. From what I read this would be a small step up, hopefully in the right direction.

I had a small water pump laying around from an old pet waterfall drinking fountain that I figured I could dump into the bucket and have a 1 plant drip system like the Stealth Hydro bubbleponics multi drip tubs.

The PH of my water right from the tap seems to be in the ideal range so I have my stone and pump soaking for the past 12 hours or so.

My hydroton has been rinsed, strained, rinsed strained, rinsed strained, rinsed strained...... well about 30 times or so. The water now strains clear so I think I have ccovered my butt on that end!

My rockwool has been soaking in the same ideal ranged PH'd water for the same time the air stone and pump has been.

My seed, which was a freebie from my order from the good folks at attitude seed bank is a DNA feminized Hashplant Haze, has also been soaking in a cup of water for around 12hrs as well.

I plan on using multiple 6500k 65w CFL's for the veg stage. I currently have 2 but will be making a trip to the Home Depot this evening to binge on CFLs and maybe a couple reflectors if the budget allows.

I know the odds are against me with only starting one seed at a time, but due to my budget and restrictions on proper ventilation and choice of grow space I have no problem doing it until I get it right.

I have a Greenhouse Seed Co. feminized Indica mix pack that has A.M.S., The Church, Train Wreck, White Widow and White Rhino, but I wanted to try the freebie seed first to allow any mistakes on a first grow go to her, hopefully her!

I also know I could have saved money building my own bucket, but I really wanted to at least have a solid proven platform to start with. I'm pretty handy and now that I see how the kit works, I will be able to build my own in the future.

Here are some pics of everything in pieces and assembled, I hope to hear some feedback from the bubbleheads soon to make sure I'm on the right track. I have an open mind and am always up for constructive criticism!!! For now I'm off to listen to the bubbles of my empty bucket until my seed is ready to be popped into the rockwool.

Pic upload doesn't seem to be working, keeps failing. Will try again later.

Finally figured out the pics thing, I can only upload pics into my gallery and use BB code to post. Lets hope this grow goes smoother than the pic issue!

you have a water pump AND an air pump?

aram said:

you have a water pump AND an air pump?

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Yep water pump and air pump. Just like the multiplant bubbleponics tubs from stealth hydro. I don't think I'm doing anything weird?

lol no i was just wondering cs i've been thinking of using one myself but wasnt sure if i need both an air pump and a water pump. i guess i'll need the air pump once the roots get big enough to touch the water.

This morning, I woke up and took a peek at the rockwool. Taproot has formed, but nothing exciting up top yet. I have the rockwool under 24/7 lighting. I have read different things about keeping it dark vs keeping under lighting. I just don't want her to poke her head out and not have a warm welcoming. Is the 24/7 lighting ok or should i cut back?

Gonna switch to 18/6 tonight and hopefully start seeing some action on top of the rockwool...

aram said:

lol no i was just wondering cs i've been thinking of using one myself but wasnt sure if i need both an air pump and a water pump. i guess i'll need the air pump once the roots get big enough to touch the water.

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Hi Aram, You should have at least one bubble stone in your res. two are better! Leave the bubble stones in but as the roots reach the water you can take out the water pump and the little drip hoses but the air stones keep the water oxigenated !! Ant questions just ask !! Try checking out Rosemans tutorial - go to the forum page and click on his tut. its a load of great info...

Thanks for stoppin by ol hippy. Rosemans tutorials have sparked many ideas and helped clear up alot of info for me on my quest for knowledge. Good stuff indeed!

Hey steve, I'm here to follow along. It seems like you have everything you need, and you've done your research. I ran my lights 20 on 4 off during veg because I have read in a lot of places that plants need some dark time to prepare for the next day. Anywhere from 18-24 hours of light will work for veg. If you have any questions, just ask. GOOD LUCK!

Hey Lt shiny sides, I just read every page of your grow and man it was full of excitement and awesome pics! Woke up this morning and still no changes up top yet. She's prob just working on a mammoth taproot wishful thinking on my part lol. Only been in the rockwool 3 days so i guess I'm just being impatient.

Lights out last night at 11pm, no action up top. Lights on this morning at 5am... Who knows what was there I was sleeping! An hour later I woke up at 6 and found..........SPROUT!!!!!! I'm really excited that the germination portion of this is at least out of the way. Enough babbling, here are the pics!

I'm glad you enjoyed my thread. I just put up pics of my harvest of the little two girls. And what a cute wittle baby you have there! Good job!

One more pic of my first sprout recent as of 10 min ago. iPhone photography because my digi cams battery is dead. I'll try to only give morning and night pics even though I'm taking pics every hour on the hour. Lol

Morning 2 of happy sproutness. How is she lookin? Ready for some LST yet? lol...

The first thing I do after I wake up is put on some pants and head for the grow room. Mornings in the growroom with 70% humidity and 76 degrees remind me of my summer vacation mornings in Jamaica.

The turtles in the pic are hand carved bobbleheads I grabbed on one of my trips to Jamaica. I figure when I'm out they could handle the job of giving the sprout some company. But mainly they give me an idea of exactly how much airflow is shooting past the sprout. I have music playing in the room for a few hours a day, the turtles appreciate it as it gives them something to bob to lol.

The webcam shoots a live password protected feed straight to my iPhone so I can keep a close eye on Temps and Humidity and make a run for it if things get out of check. Enough chit chat time for pics!

Very nice Steve! I like the webcam setup and I'm thinking about doing something similar for my next grow. I honestly believe that plants enjoy the music and will grow faster because of it. When I started my first, and current grow, only 3 of the seeds germinated so I had to start a second batch. While the second batch was soaking in a bowl of water, I had music playing for the 3 sprouts. Throughout the whole grow they seemed to be way ahead of the others that were just 2 or 3 days behind. Great work so far. Keep it up!

I have read a few different grow journals and a done a bit of research on the actual effect music has on plant development not only on our babys but also on other crops and it shows mixed results. But hey it works for me, and it works for you, so Why Not!?? Plus it really can set the mood of the grow room with the right track slections

If I was a journalist I would be fired. I took a few days off from posting updates because so far it's going pretty smooth. I actually liked how this grow is going so well that I made a couple trips to the stores and setup a DIY bubble bucket for my soil potted jalapeno plant. That soil to hydro translplant is some messy business. Goodbye Dirt! But after half hr in her new jacuzzie and some nute juice she was looking more lively than ever.

Enough about the damn jalapeno right?

My Hashlplant Haze baby sprout is coming along pretty good as far as I can tell. Not many hashplant haze grows going on right now to follow along. Anywho, sprout is uhhhmmm 5 days old today? I think so lets go with that. 5 from sprout 8 from seed? Hell i'll have to figure that out. Here is the sprout.

I love the camera set up ! password protected OMG !! I was thinking about the bucket system too my first bout with the sh system was good till I has 3 out of 4 plants go male. It a mess seperating everything. One plant buckets seems much better but I think it would be better starting off with a female clone. It's really a bummer after 5 wks of taking care changing res. adding nutes etc and than having to start al over ..Good luck hope the little ones a girl !!