2 Quick Pure-Water Questions

I moved my oldest plant (a week old or so, its stunted because its been through some hardships and as far as I can tell, is slowly slowly slowly recovering from what looks like some sort of chemical burn) to a purely hydroponic bubbler.

Because its so tiny, and its roots so clustered, i put it in a styrofoam cup above a bubbling watre resevoir of pure distilled spring water of neutral pH.

Concerns:
a) Now that my plant has only pure water, and no soil (I am using a slab of styrofoam to hold the plant above water, but let its roots get hit with water, its stem and leaves just being held up), do I need to ASAP add some nitro/root-booster stuff?

b) I hear pure-water plants require more acidic water. Should I start adding small amounts of vinegar or HCl or PhDown as soon as possible? (The resevoir is only like 2 quarts, tiny for the tiny plant)

Do you know the ph of the water in your system is if not dont lower it. Test it and then take the proper actions. And you should get some nutrients.

NO GROW said:

Do you know the ph of the water in your system is if not dont lower it. Test it and then take the proper actions. And you should get some nutrients.

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I do not have the exact read- i only have pH paper and litmus to refer to at the moment. But neither base nor acid detection comes up with anything- so I only assumed its 7.0 or slightly 6.9 (as its always been in the past). But I heard hydroponics needs like 5.0-6.0 acidity- in which case Id probably have to add some sort of acidic substance- so should I immediately add in tiny bits of vinegar or something?

I would wait and check in tom. to see what everyone else says I have only dabbled with hydroponics. I just know you should get a correct reading before you start adjusting the ph. Sorry I can't help with all of your questions I just don't want you to make any major mistakes that you might regret later.

Sorry again

ideally your ph should be 5.5 for a bubbler although between 5.2 and 5.8 is suffice. dont adjust till you get an accurate reading. have you anyway of measuring your nutes strength as well. if not i wouldn't add any just now. unless you know your measurements. water to nutes. with a plant so small get it wrong you'll kill it. good luck

I don't know what you've been reading, and I can't understand why you would want to grow a plant hydroponically using only water, but since you said you can detect a chemical burn in a plant that is 1 week old, I guess you must know your shit.

When you are suspending roots in water, the DO - dissolved oxygen - gets used and if the water isn't roiled up then the roots will suffocate. You should put a submersible pump, or an air hose into the water, and run it 24/7.

Eventually, you'll need to give your plants some kind of nourishment.

HTH

potroast said:

I don't know what you've been reading, and I can't understand why you would want to grow a plant hydroponically using only water, but since you said you can detect a chemical burn in a plant that is 1 week old, I guess you must know your shit.

When you are suspending roots in water, the DO - dissolved oxygen - gets used and if the water isn't roiled up then the roots will suffocate. You should put a submersible pump, or an air hose into the water, and run it 24/7.

Eventually, you'll need to give your plants some kind of nourishment.

HTH

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Oh i have an air pump, it runs with an airstone fiercely- water is rushing around in there. Im just wondering when water and O2 wont be enough and ill need to add some nutes. I have the ntues here- nitrogen emphasis of course- and I just need to know about when to add them.

The roots are pretty well founded- they're thin, but they're healthy and kept wet at all times. The plant itself however is just recovering from a burn- it hasnt burned anymore- it looks like the burning stopped and now its just gotta recover, so im wary on when to put in nutes to this pure water.

When do I add nutes to the water? its been running without nutes for 2 days.

Start now with some very dilute solution. Whatever the label says to use for hydro, use one quarter of that and see how the plants look in 10 days. A couple of drops of SuperThrive would be good too.

HTH

for week 1, go with 25% diluted base nutes (e.g., 1ml/gallon)
for week 2, go with 50% diluted base nutes (e.g., 2ml/gallon)
for week 3, go with 75% diluted base nutes (e.g., 3ml/gallon)
for week 4 and every week thereafter, go with 100% diluted base nutes (e.g., 4ml/gallon)

use 50% dilution for all additives

that's what ive been told by one company

you can also avoid having to purchase calmag+ if you use COCO products.

You don't need to adjust pH until you have nutrients in it. The adjusting is so that all nutrients will be available. Pure distilled water wouldn't need adjusting. Tap water would probably need adjusting prior to adding the nutrients and then rechecked and adjusted again if needed. I think around 5.5 is what you should aim for. Someone else may know more about the ideal pH. Probably depends on what brand of nutes you're using too.

I think you may be heading down the wrong road bro. It doesn't sound like you have a clear plan. At this point you are better off putting the plant in a high quality soil and figuring out the correct path to take.

You really need all the correct tools before you can start a hydro grow. You need a ph and PPM meter. You need to know what nutes to use and how to use them. You need some sort of tested hydro system that you know will work.