Day 106, April 30th 2007

It's only the second day after I got my new seeds, and five out of seventeen have sunk to the bottom of the water. At first these seeds float, but after they soak up some water, and start to begin to grow, they will sink, then eventually split open, and become a small plant.

I can't think of a good guide to write up, I'm sure I will have an idea for a guide by tomarrow.

Day 105, April 29 2007

I just got in my order for more seeds. I got 20 seeds from Seedrack.com or Whatcom Seed Co. I have ordered seeds from them before, and recommend them, they ship quickly and ship first class, however If you don't know how to do something and email them, they will probably not respond, but they carry a lot of exotic seeds. I am going to germinate them right now, and Hopefully I will have more plants soon!

These seeds have a shell on them, and it's pretty thick, three of my seeds out of the 20 I bought, had broken shells, but they are pretty strong little guys, but if you step on one, squeeze one with pliers, or drop one on tile or something they can break.

The seeds inside the shells don’t taste good... I don’t recommend eating them. Possibly the worst thing you will ever taste in your life.

The way I germinate them is, soak them in warm water for a few days (change the warm water every 12 hours with more warm water). Then I soak them in room temperature water until they split open, and once they do, I will insert them into rockwool cubes and wait. While they are germinating they don't need much light, however they need heat, so If you can think of a warm place to put them, your chance of success when germinating will increase. You can also take some sandpaper and sand down the outside of the shell to make it easier for the little baby plant inside to break threw, But I wouldn't take the shell off.

I am thinking about getting another pump and reservoir for these new plants, because I don’t want to slow down the plant I am currently growing with weaker nutrients, but I don’t want to kill my baby plants with full strength nutrients.

Day 104, April 28

(That water is brown looking because of the nutrients I use)

I'm very happy with my plant, a new leaf has been coming in for the past couple of days, and the leaf will continue to mature for the next few days. I notice with this plant, leaves don't come in green, hey come in a kind of a purple color, and the purple kind of fades out to green in a week or so. Anyway this is the 5th leaf, and I can see that the 6th leaf is not far behind it.

Today I will talk about oxygen and the role it plays to the plants health, and vigor.

I in fact didn't know much of this until recently, I'm still learning every day about plants, and hydroponics. But here we go!

So you have yourself a hydroponics system, and you give your plants a balanced nutrition, a good light source, and maybe even supplements, but you think your plant(s) could be either sick with disease, or are not growing as they should be. Well, one thing you can look at is oxygen. See, a good nutrient solution is not just a blend of minerals and fertilizers, there are a bunch of factors we don't commonly take into consideration and one of them is Dissolved Oxygen (DO). Plants need to breathe, just like everything else, and we are used to thinking plants breathe cO2 and produce o2, which is true, however plants still consume oxygen, but the amount of oxygen used in the soil (or nutrient blend for us using hydroponics) is dwarfed by the amount of oxygen produced by photosynthesis. Oxygen is an essential nutrient, required for Aerobic Uptake; which is an essential process, which releases energy for root growth and nutrient uptake.

Dissolved oxygen requirements are greater during the flowering stage of life, because by then, the plants have matured, and are probably huge, haha, but you need dissolved oxygen in all stages of growth for good results, the more the better!

Most growers know they need aeration in there water, because of the high surface tension, or they already know this stuff, but most growers don't know how much they need. First of all, the lower the temperature of your water, the more dissolved oxygen is can hold, BUT, the colder the temperature of your water, the less DO your plants can uptake, and the hotter, the less DO your water can hold, but more your plants need, so its is a hard balance to maintain with a lot of mature plants, for one or two, you don't have to worry as much. A good way to keep a good balance is to keep your temperature even threw the day and the night, with only a difference of 10 degrees F if you can. Another way to keep good aeration is to have a large reservoir, about 5 gallons or more per mature plant or more, but don't go too crazy.

If you monitor your DO with a meter, great!
50 F (10 C) should be about 13 ppm
68 F (20 C) should be about 9-10 ppm
86 F (30 C) should be about 7 ppm

Whether you do or don’t measure ppm of DO, keep your reservoir well oxygenated with an air pump and air stone, there are lots of shapes and sizes to choose, get one to fit your needs, the bigger the reservoir, the bigger the pump needs to be, or the more pumps you need. Also, keep your water temperatures in between 70 degrees, and 80 degrees or lower if you can.

Damage from low or no dissolved oxygen will usually start in the roots, but will differ in severity depending on your plant. A common first sign of low DO is wilting under warm temperatures and light. Without enough oxygen to supply your roots, your roots will not absorb enough nutrients or water to support vigorous growth, or any growth in some cases. This stresses the plant, and can cause diseases to form, or fungi to grow, a common fungi from low DO, is the Pythium pathogen, this pathogen is called a secondary infection, because, the spores from it are EVERYWHERE, but they will only attack the plant if it has been damaged. There are products out there to fight off this pathogen, so you can probably recover.

Day 102, April 26

Hmm, waiting for this plant to grow is taking forever, however I do check on it a lot during the day and every day it grows and moves a little bit. I ordered twenty more seeds from seedrack.com a few days ago, I hope they get here soon, I want to get at least five more plants out of them, but I think I can do better than that. If you need help on germinating seeds, don't be afraid to contact me, I will be happy to answer questions.

I think today I will write up another guide, but today it will be on light.

As most of you know household lamps are usually Incandesant, fluorescent, and halogen, however growing with these types of lamps will take forever, because they do not emit the correct spectrum of light.

The Sun emits every and all spectrums of light, so that’s why plants can grow just fine outside in any season, for indoor hydroponics or just indoor growing we have to try and find a light that mimics the sun as closely as possible to achieve maximum growing potential.

Fluorescent type lamps do put out some blue and red light, so you can grow with them, however they put out lumens (A Lumen is a measure of how much light a lamp produces) in a wide section and they don’t put out very many lumens per watt (I have two 80w 4' fluorescent lamps and I get about 8000 lumens, which sounds like a lot, but it isn't). Use fluorescent lights for cloning, young seedlings, and small plants, and you can keep these lamps about 4" from the tops of the plants, because they don't get very hot.

Grower's commonly use Metal halide and High Pressure Sodium lamps which are called High intensity discharge (H.I.D.) lamps. Their wattage can range from 150, 250, 400, 600, and 1000 watt. These lamps require a Ballast to be able to run, because house current doesn't supply the amount of amps to run one of these bulbs, so a ballast converts your household current and turns it into super duper H.I.D. current. Be careful when using ballasts and lights, a typical circuit breaker can distribute 15 amps, so if you plug in a 9 amp ballast, and a 3 amp fan, your still ok, but if you decide you want toast, and you plug in a 6 amp toaster, you are at 18 amps, and the fuse will blow or, the breaker will switch, shutting of the power to your lights. There are three parts to an H.I.D, the ballast, which plugs into the wall and allows you to use an H.I.D. The hood, which transfers the light going away from your plants, back to your plants, as well as a house your bulb, and of course, the bulb itself.

The Hood; no matter which way you place your bulb, vertical, or horizontal, half of the light is traveling in the opposite direction of your plants, the way you use all of that light, is with a hood. Hoods come in many sizes and shapes, choose one accordingly, if you are trying to serve many plants with one light, get a wider hood, if you are doing small plants in a compact area, get a hood that focuses light on a smaller area. Light increases coverage area, but diminishes in intensity the farther away it is, and increases with intensity but lowers in coverage area the closer it is. You will achieve maximum benefit of H.I.D.s if the lights are always 12 to 18 inches above the tops of the plants. So with that in mind, choose your amount of lights, types of hoods, and intensity of lights to fit your needs. The only other way of utilizing all of the light without a hood, is to place the bulbs lower than the tops of the plants, and in between plants, this is commonly used where many large are grown, and isn't really worth the trouble if your just growing at home, or growing small plants.

Metal Halide lamps are high in the blue spectrum of light, and are good for vegetative growth, because in vegetative growth, plants utilize more blue light than they do red/orange light. However metal halide lamps emit less lumens per watt than a high pressure sodium lamp. Preferably, you would want high pressure sodium and metal halide in all stages of growth, with an emphasis on metal halide for vegetative growth, and an emphasis on high pressure sodium during flowering.

High Pressure Sodium lamps are higher in the red spectrum of light, and are good for flowering, because in flowering, plants use more of the red spectrum of light than the blue spectrum. If you use a lamp with a higher red spectrum of light during the vegetative growth period, they will want to grow taller, meaning less places for flowers/fruits/seeds to grow when its time for flowering. These types of lamps tend to get extremely hot, keep the tips of plants at least 12"to 18" inches away from the bulb, and be careful not to get even one tiny drop of water on a hot bulb, or it may explode, and that goes for metal halide bulbs as well.

If you’re going to an H.I.D. use the proper cooling and ventilation, as they get very hot. Choose a reflective hood that will hold either ducting or a fan, to blow away hot air. In your grow room, have the intake of the ventilation system as low as possible, and the exhaust from the ventilation system as high as possible (heat rises, cold sinks). Keep your grow room at the correct temperature for your plants. More on ventilation later!

Do's:

Use the correct light for the correct phase of life of the plant.
Keep bulbs at least 12 to 18 inches from the plant tips.
Use proper cooling for these bulbs, as they get hot.
Use a nice hood, with a lot of reflective capability.
Use the proper hood, amount of lights, and type of lights for your space.

Don'ts:

Don't get any water on a hot bulb.
Don't overload circuits.
Don't keep lights too close, or they may burn your plants.

Day 95, April 19th 2007

On February 13^th that little seed cracked open and a little sprout started to form, well I guess it got confused because the root came out of the top of the seed, and back around the side and under the seed. So that probably stunted the poor little guy’s growth, however he is growing, and is about 1.6 inches tall. There were no major changes to the grow room or anything really, I painted the reservoir black so algae will not grow in there, and I’m going to change the clear tubing I originally got for black tubing, because algae is becoming an issue. Sorry I haven't kept you up to date within the past 30 days, but you didn't miss much.

Day 37, February 20th 2007

Back to the home and garden center to get another light, I need to raise my lumen per sq. ft. ratio to at least 1000 per sq. ft., but this time I got a different light, it is a Sylvania GRO-LUX plant and aquarium bulb, along with a sunshine bulb, but the new light puts out a pink color of light, and the other growing light puts out a white/yellow kind of light, so I think I'm going to get another GRO-LUX type so they match.

Day 30, February 13th 2007

The seed that cracked has split open and has started growing its really tiny, but I hope in a few more weeks it will be a growing young plant.

Day 22, February 5th 2007

Another seed cracked, the old ones were growing mold because they didn’t have light for so long, so I ended up throwing them out, maybe they will grow into gigantic tea plants at the dump. I have high hopes for this new seed.

Day 20, February 3rd 2007

Today I went back to the home and garden center and got a 4’ fluorescent light fixture, one sunshine, and one plant and an animal bulb. Then I took a trip to a hydroponics store and got 10 foot of a Mylar like product, i got this type because it holds up better over time, and resists tearing, and puncturing. Then I began to clean out my closet which only took me about an hour, and assembled a small metal shelf and got my “Grow Closet” all set-up.

Day 13, January 27th 2007

Today I changed the water in the hydroponics system with pure water, and ¼ strength nutrients, I can’t wait for my plants to start growing!

Day 12, January 26

Okay, finally some of my seeds cracked open and are ready to start growing! I soaked some rockwool cubes with regular water, and put the seeds in them, and place the cubes into the hydroponics system, once I see some sprouts, I’ll put them into bigger cubes, and apply more nutrients.

Day 6, January 20th

THE SEEDS ARE HERE!! I got 2 paper towels wet, and folded 5 seeds into them. Then I finished building my hydroponics system, now I just have to wait until some of my seeds are ready, and put them into the system.

Day 5, January 19th

Today I looked over everything and made sure I had everything. I applied silicone to the drainage nozzle so I didn’t have any leaks, and will let it set-up over night.

Day 4, January 18th

I went to a hydroponics store in town, and picked up a special nozzle for my planter to let it drain out, a small pump, a timer, expanded clay pellets, nutrients, 2 sizes of rockwool cubes, and a couple square buckets to plant in.

Day 2, January 16th

Everything is starting to come together in my head now. Today I went to the local home and garden center, and picked up my planter, some silicone sealant, an 8 head dripper manifold, ½ inch tubing, and ¼ inch tubing.

Day 1, January 15th

I just started my blog page, but have been recording data sence January But here it is, my first post!

I’ve found camellia sinensis seeds on eBay, and I’ve been interested in hydroponics for awhile now, so I decided to go for it, and I purchased the seeds.