Comment

Comment by Jeff S on October 5, 2014 at 7:42pm

I sow my seeds in my grow media. I even built a small bed over a 45gallon aquarium just to germinate seedlings. If you are trying to produce as fast as possible it saves a few weeks of growing time in your GB if you have a separate germinating system or soil bed.

I covered my Grow Stones with hydroton for appearance and easier planting.

Comment by Leo White Bear on October 5, 2014 at 4:06pm

Butch-

  There are pros and cons in every media.  As with the scoria - the pros are, it is relatively light, it has a MASSIVE surface area (someone said on a 1" piece of scoria there is something like 4-miles of surface area) for the bacteria to grow on.

Cons are it is volcanic glass and will cut your hands if you don't use HD rubber gloves (that's right, voice of experience) and it is very difficult to get clean because of the surface area.  I don't want the bacteria to enter any cuts, don't know if it will do me any harm but I won't take the chance.

  I direct seed my plants in the quartzite and have not encountered any problem with germination.  Just pull back the media and plant the seeds in the wet zone, cover over with the dry media and "Bobs your uncle"

  Unless there is a definite perk in covering your gravel with expensive river rock that MAY contain limestone and give you fits with trying to keep the pH in control, I wouldn't bother.  People that view my system can't believe that I grow my plants in the quartzite.  They can see what I use and I'm not that picky about my systems.  These are for my personal use so I don't care what it looks like.  At your price of river rock $65 that's too expensive, my purple quartzite cost me $36 a yard and I think it looks very nice.

  If you want to reflect light to the underside of the leaves place aluminum foil, shiny side up on the media.  This will reflect light very well but compare soil gardening, there is no reflective light bouncing off the soil and the plants do well.  That's your choice.

Comment by Butch Pornebo on October 5, 2014 at 1:05pm

@ Leo "Another media you can use/with drawbacks is scoria or lava rock.  It is very dirty and WILL cut your hands if you don't use HD rubber gloves but it is light and relatively inexpensive"

I'll be using red lava rock because as you said it is cheap @ $50 per yard. is that the only drawback in using those, dirty and cut hands ?

How about germinating seeds directly on a GB that is lava rock ? Will it hurt the roots of the seedlings as it starts since since it has some sharp edges ?

Also, I was going to use decorative river gravel (@$65 per yard) on top 2" of the GB. The idea being that the deco rock is kinda white reflective and it will reflect back light under the leaves.

Is there any validity on this idea ?

Comment by Jeff S on October 5, 2014 at 12:14pm

I'm going to be moving my fish to a new tank soon and was wondering if I should transfer the water I already use or condition new water in the new tank by adding plant nutients and de-chlorinating. The water I'm using now looks clean but is brownish so I thought this would be a good time to start fresh. Any suggestions as to how to prepare the new water would be appreciated.

Comment by Jeff S on September 24, 2014 at 1:56pm

Yeah I'll probably go with the granite or similar and cover it with a thin layer of Hydroton for aesthetics. I put a few red wigglers (a 100 or so)in my bed early spring but as I've pulled plants I haven't noticed any around the roots. You think they could've died off or am I expecting too much from the short period of time?

 

Comment by Leo White Bear on September 24, 2014 at 11:17am

Jeff-

  You can go with other medias but most (for me) are cost prohibitive.  I,like Jim, use a quartzite media called purple quartzite.  Here it's a bit more expensive even with UPU at $32 a sq yard but it is more than needed to fill 2-1/2 IBC grow beds.  Another media you can use/with drawbacks is scoria or lava rock.  It is very dirty and WILL cut your hands if you don't use HD rubber gloves but it is light and relatively inexpensive

Comment by Jim Fisk on September 24, 2014 at 10:02am

Well I use granite from a local quarry. I know it can be a bit controversial but granite dust is a highly acclaimed mineral supplement and it is 18.00 a ton pu at the Q so that comes to 9.00 per 12" deep IBC GB. That comes to .60 per cubic foot. I don't even want to know what that would be in Hydroton terms. I challenge anyone to beat that price and it is well graded and cleaned so it requires an absolute minimum of washing which I do right in the GB by redirecting the wash water outside the GH and not into the sump. Been using it going on 3 years and I see no real difference from the river gravel I used in the first 2 GBs at three times the cost. It also stays much cleaner looking than the river stone that is always creating more sediment.

Comment by Jeff S on September 24, 2014 at 8:52am

Thanks guys. Good tip Jim about positioning of the media. Any suggestions on media? I have a grow stone covered by hydroton setup now but would like to go cheaper and/or lighter.

Comment by Jim Fisk on September 24, 2014 at 8:21am

Hi Jeff, what Leo said. Just grab some gravel from your established bed, say a coffee can's worth and place that right near where the FT water enters the new beds. That will kickstart the new bed fast. Try to take a deep sample so you get a good strata from the various layers of gravel (or media).

Comment by Leo White Bear on September 24, 2014 at 5:56am

It is always best to "Seed" with established media, that said, when I built my grow beds for my NFT system, I didn't have the media to seed with.  My grow beds did very well with the water flowing through them and the plants took off right away.  It is said that the bacteria need a foundation to grow upon to flourish but they are suspended in the water and deposit on the walls of the FT so...they will find their way to the media sooner than if you just started out with a new system.  As stated, it is better and quicker to seed with established media.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• …
• 36
• Next ›
• Page