Howdy! First time grower and new member.

Hey everyone.

I've been an occasional reader (of the forums) for a few years and finally decided to take the plunge into Hydroponics (in general). I'm starting off small, on a tight budget and wet behind the ears.

My motivation:

I recently became unemployed and decided that I may want to get into hydro-farming as a small business owner. This is part of my experiment and experience as well.

My setup:

36 site seedling tray w/ Coco Coir medium ( Home Depot )
Generic 150w HPS lamp/ballast/cheap hood ( Craigslist )
(2) 47w CFLs (Rated for 100w) 6500k bulbs ( Walmart ) - haven't used these too much

(1) Flora Nova Grow


(1) GH Water Farm Drip setup bucket thing
(2) 5 Gallon tub DWC setups w/ (2) 5'' net pots



Alright, so I sowed my seeds back on Feb 20th. Each row has 6 sites, so I just filled each row with one type of seed.

-Tomatos
-Habaneros
-Bell Peppers
-Leeks ( my girlfriend's choice )
-Rosemary ( as of now, there are no survivors )
-Schwag

So far, I started out just watering the seeds once a day for about a week. Everything appeared to be going well. I got my hands on some Flora Nova Grow and whipped up a 1 Gal. batch for my seedlings and my girlfriend's plants on the patio (house plants). I gave about half the seed sites "a cap full" from the Arizona Green Tea w/ Ginseng & Honey (shameless plug) gallon jug I'm using to store my grow nutes in. Well, some of the plants developed a slight yellowish color on the leaves. (Notice it most under HPS light). I've been plucking seedlings every few days to check on the growth of the plants ( it's just my choice because I'm curious and like to look ). I have not used the grow solution since on the plants and have watered them a little extra to try and flush them.

But yeah, that's what I've done so far. I'd love to hear people's feedback on any tips or ideas I may have over looked.

well good to have you here.
im betting its nutrient burn you dont need to feed plants untill about 2-3 weeks. and when you do start around 1/2 strength
and also if your tight on money those cfls work just fin for vegging.

and when you say your growing schwag you mean bagseed right?
theres no such thing as a schwag plant its simple a plant that has been pollenated by a male produced seeds rather than good weed.
so you may very well get some decent weed from it. and hey sell a zip or 2 to a friend and pay the bills.

and looking now it seems you have a setup for 3? healthy plants.
are you gonna pick the best 3 or somthing?

Yeah, that's the plan. Pick the healthiest ones and discard the rest. I'm hoping to use my little Hydro Farm for my personal plants and use my DIY DWC for the peppers, tomatoes and leeks.

The next thing I need to figure out is how I'm going to transfer the seedlings. I got some small inch by inch rockwool cubes after I started and am thinking about restarting the personal plants in those.

good idea it would be hard to transfer from a soil to a cube.
rockwool is pretty easy to use as well.

and usually you dont want to put more than 1 plant per bucket.

I was thinking about using a coco coir cup with hydroton in the coco coir to support the plant and allow drainage.