Yeah, I looked it up:
The name Hydroton is a substitute for all brands of expanded clay , even though it is trademarked; as it was perhaps the original name for this media. Expanded clay is a popular medium for both aquaponic and hydroponic gardening around the world.
<== Is absorbing all of this like a sponge
You have anything growing yet, Keith, or still gathering info to get started?
Day 6 since germination.
Looks like I might get all 12 on the full trayā¦ doesnāt look like Iāll get more than 3 on the half full tray. Of 10 seeds I dropped a day and a half ago, three have germinated and are in rooters. I am going to give the other 7 another day or two.
Love how detailed and informative your journal is glad you decided to put on this side as well. And the new tittle is awesome as well 
I am now really wishing I wouldāve just left the plywood at 4x4 instead of cutting it down to 3x3ish. It would be nice to have a little room at canopy level to put my small cool mister humidifier, I think. Something to consider for the next grow.
I just did a reconfigure before setting up this hydro nonsense: I built a shelf across the back to hold all of my mechanicalsāthree tower fans and a dehumidifier. That way itās independent of my growing tables. I prefer it.
You knowā¦ a little shifting around and I could make room for maybe a 10" wide shelfā¦ I am going to smoke a bowl and go plan a course of action.
Mine was 12" and my tables nest under it.
Iāve got 5 germinating under 2000 wat ledās in 73 degree room (6 x 5) at 30-33 % humidity. I am just seeing the first one peek out. (Northern Lights Auto). Plan on mixing up the soil this weekend and getting the pots ready. Plan to pop sliced potatoes on the medium for a week (to make sure there are no fungus knats) then when transplanted, follow through with Ceylon cinnamon around the stems to prevent damping off. Because this soil is nutrient righ, I plan on cal-mag and feed to 300 ppm during veg. Not sure about flowering yet. Using cloth pots and the soil mixture I posted earlier. I can help but going out every couple hours to check the babies. What do you think, any glaring problems? (so excited I already ordered blueberry auto).
I assume you will keep the seedlings covered for the first week or so? 30-33% humidity is low for plants in vegā¦ ideally youād like to see closer to 65%. When they are emerging seedlings, just keeping a dome over them will facilitate thisā¦ but once they outgrow their starting plugs/rooters they usually outgrow my domes/covers, and I want to add a breeze to them to help strengthen their stemsā¦ so at that point I have to break out humidifiers for inside and outside the tent to get humidity in a range that wonāt cause VPD issues (which in turn cause issues with the plantās nutrient uptake, resulting in potential toxicities or lockouts).
Using an old 2 liter soda bottle with the top cut off can provide a big enough dome for a larger plant if needed to keep RH up as wellā¦ but Iād rather suffer through RH in the 40s and 50s with air movement around the plant than have no air movement and higher RH by covering the plant up, personally.
Thanks. I really am learning as I go. So, I guess I need a humidifier 
. Will the humidity get reduced from 65% during flower? Also, can you recommend an Amazon dehumidifier for my 5 x 6 room?
Good question. Let me present to you how I figure it out, and how I handle it. Not sure it will work for you or anyone else, nor am I sure that this is the best advice on environmental conditions for your indoor grow - itās just my advice, so take it for what itās worthā¦ which is the cost to join this forum. 
First, I start by using a VPD chart to determine the ranges I would like to hit during the plantās life:
For the plantās life from seed to the flip to 12/12, I pretty much try to keep temperature and humidity in ranges that correspond to the āyellowā squares on the chart. So for seedlings I usually shoot for 75-80F, which generally means 70% RH for proper vapor pressure deficit (VPD). VPD is important - if itās out of whack your plants canāt transpire (breathe) properly, and so how they take up and use water is affected, which in turn affects how they take up nutrients.
Once I hit flower, I start ignoring the VPD chart. For the first month of flower (when I say āflowerā in this case, I mean from when I flip the lights to 12/12 schedule) I generally just try to stay around 50% RH. Until their are real buds stacking up, I generally try to keep VPD close to in line, but RH on the low end of acceptable.
Once I get buds stacking, usually a round a month after the flip, I drop RH to 40-45% if I can, and generally keep it there for the rest of the grow. Lower RH near the end of flower seems to improve trichome production. But more importantly, lower RH can help mitigate issues like bud rot (which I got over the summer on an indoor grow when I let humidity in my tent get too high for a couple of days during late flower).
Typical humidity levels for a cannabis plant (along with other good info) can be found in this ILGM article:
Now, getting RH up in your grow environment can be very challenging, especially in winter. If you are growing in a tent or other enclosed space, then itās generally most efficient (in fact the only way Iāve gotten it to work), to raise humidity in the room where the tent lives, so you are pumping more moist air into the tent to start with. Then, in conjunction with that (in my case I run a whole house console style humidifier outside of my tent, right next to the intake fan), I run a cool mist style humidifier inside the tent. The cool mist humidifier is needed to combat the lights and heater (also in the tent), which evaporate moisture out of the air pretty quickly.
Updating the stages in my grow log with this information. I really appreciate it. Iām just not sure what size humidifier will work for the space 6 x 5. I am not growing in a tent although I do have reflective sides and base. Heater and fan are in the room. By the way, this room is just off the garage and vents into the garage.
Itās a physical room, right? How tall is it? 8ā?
So 6x5x8? Thatās 240 square feet. Probably need some other people to chime in that have a similar set upā¦ Iād think a 1000 square foot humidifier would work? @Countryboyjvd1971 can probably provide better guidance than I can. I arrived at my current set up through trial and error (and money).
Thatās about right 6x5x8. I am starting to look for one now. I really appreciate getting this information before I crack the dome on the babies.
https://www.amazon.com/Vornado-Evaporative-Humidifier-SimpleTank-Capacity/dp/B01J79RAXO
This is good for 300sq and will be enough for you
Best to run them outside room or tent and allow intake fan or passive vents to pull moist air in
With exhaust running putting it inside the space exhaust will pull humidity out faster then you can put it back it
The cool mist type humidifiers tend to clog carbon filters FYI
Happy growing
I have remoted my carbon filter and exhaust fan to the outside of my tent (in fact I run everything outside the tent I canā¦ air pumps, etcā¦ to keep heat down. The 930gph air pump kicks out a lot of heat).
One of these days I was planning on remoting the light drivers outside the tent as well. I should maybe do that before I get these seedlings in there.
Speaking of whichā¦ time for an update.
Day 6 since germination
I will have to change my counter from āgerminationā to something else, as I will have multiple iterations of germination during this grow.
Looks like I have a tray of six seeds/seedlings that arenāt going to make muster. Something is wrong with that trayā¦ kind of looks like a PH issue but I think the seedlings are having problems because they say in the the cup of water a day longer than the dozen in the full tray, and most of them had shed their casings by the time I put them in the rapid rooters.
Soā¦ I think I am going to toss that entire tray and drop another bunch of seeds. How I expect this will play out:
Round 1:
Dropped 18 seedsā¦ looks like Iāll get 12 viable ones (maybe). While those are transitioning to veg, drop another 12 seedsā¦ hope to get at least 6 from them that are viable.
Round 2:
Of those 18 seeds I know a bunch will be boys, so I will remove them from the flower tent and either keep one or two to veg out as a donor male. In any case, at this point Iāll need to replace those plants with new ones, so Iāll have a second batch of seeds dropped, rooted and ready to go around that time.
Iāll repeat this process until I get all 16 slots full on the table, so I expect to have plants at roughly four different ages going through the processā¦ as those go through said process, Iāll take clones to hold genetics for the ones that donāt have any issues and are growing fine in spite of meā¦ Iāll hold on to those as mothers until I can test smoke for potency, taste, etcā¦ and then if I find one I like, Iāll take clones to fill the tray out and to breed herā¦ if not, weāll just start all over.
This is why I run my fans on timers.
