First time growing anything hydroponically. I am starting with a single White Widow autoflower. I am new to auto flowering plants. This should be interesting… The setup is as follows:
2x4x6 foot Quictent
1500W KingLED
General Hydrponics Waterfarm
Tent is vented with HVAC conditioned air and exhausted out (carbon filter cut inline once purchased). I have a small fan inside the tent for circulation.
Right now, I have a Jiffy germination station with a hydro plug that was swelled in 6.5PH and 1/4 topped. I seeded the pod barely covering. I have the station in the tent and elevated off the floor.
It is under a 50 watt LED that is actually a half way decent Chinese unit.
The plan is to grow in the station till topping the station roof and root filled. I will then place in the hydro pot with 6.5 and no nutes till confirmed establishment as taken. I am not training or cutting. I want this plant to be a baseline so future grows using various methodologies, topologies, nutrients, etc. can be compared. Stay tuned …
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Hey @Poseidon if you’re putting it in a hydro system you should set your pH to 5.8 which is the sweet spot. Just trying to help you get a good start. I usually put 5.8 PhD water in a spray bottle to help them if they get to dry and are in a seed starting tray. I am growing a white widow auto as well, hope this helps!
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I’m following along mate have a look over your Ph range again @Poseidon I think you are thinking soil Ph. I have never grown in hydro but this should be great and you are not taking on to much first time 
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@Johnzy81 - I am just using the 6.5 for the plug while it germinates. Should I use a starter or something other than plain water? I have only used a Jiffy for vegetables grown in my garden.
I helped out on several large outdoor weed grows in California back in the late 80’s. Learned the wet paper towel wick method- not a fan. Sketchy results…
@Noctis420 - Thanks! I had about 5 gallons of Reverse Osmosis PH’d water from my last soil attempt so I used that to fill the channels in the propagater. I will toss it and make a new batch. Thanks for helping me out!
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You’re welcome @Poseidon do your best to keep the pH between 5.5 and 6.5.
5.8 is the sweet spot though so be sure to set it at that. Also get yourself some calmag, you will most likely need it using RO water. I’ll be watching you’re journal. Happy growing! 
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You should put the thermometer in the germinator to read humidity in there , they like it around 80%. 40% " what its reading now "would be bad for them
Good luck
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@Poseidon - First thank you for the tag , Im definitely following your grow. I know ABSOLUTELY nothing about hydroponics , its very interesting to me . how you can grow a plant with no soil , I can’t wait to see her grow . If you can do one thing , if you can tell how much your electricity goes up. I would love to grow indoors for the winter but my father in-law watched his bill , trying to come up with a way to not having to use electricity , maybe batteries on a trickle charger. We’re rednecks so Im sure he’ll figure it out.
Looking forward to watching ypur experience , I know I’m going to learn so much from your grow
MBgrower
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@MBgrower - This is new to me as well. I figured, why not. If it totally blows up on me, my investment is minimal. I think I paid $50 for the hydro kit with nutes after I applied some credits I had with Amazon. Knowing me, I will also do a fabric pot grow in a grow medium like FF as well. These first grows are learning grows. I am not going to throw a spring if I fail here and there. The largest investment was the grow tent/lights/hvac.
As far as electricity, I have everything going into a UPS/PDU. It is being fed from a single 20amp circuit off my breaker. My light draws 235 watts from the PDU. That is the largest consumer of electricity given it’s run cycle. Our electricity is reasonable in cost (TVA Hydro-electric and Nuclear) - it costs, ROUGHLY, 35 cents per day. National average for America is 7.9 cents per kilowatt hour so – roughly 6 kilowatt hours per day to run the lights 24 hours x the rate you pay per kilowatt hour. It adds up, enough to make someone watching a bill raise an eyebrow … You could deploy a bank of deep cycle marine batteries, install a couple of solar panels and DC/AC power inverter (with a good controller) and use that to power the lights. Would cost some $$ up front. The dang batteries … I designed a food truck using full electric this way. Doable to run anything on rechargeable electric. Cost is the issue …
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Now the journey begins, nice! Happy Growing!
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Thanks!! Expect to see desperate pleas for help on this thread. I have kept salt water coral tanks before. I would imagine the water maintenance to be similar… Similar but completely different!
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@Poseidon Thanks for the reply , wr live with our Father-inlaw who is like thr scrog about the electric bill. Last month the Bill wa $264.00 , they break the bill down snd it states that he pays the most than anyone in our area. So I was trying to explore a way to grow indoors for the winter without using electricity. The marine battery sounds interesting. Also my friend owns a Interstate Battery store , he sells me brand new batteries that are worth $200 for $20. Definitely going to talk to my husband about this .
Thank You
MBgrower
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You are welcome. The 100 amp hour AGM deep cycle batteries are good. If you can get them cheap, you can create a small power wall. If he can get Tesla battery packs cheap, you could power your house 
Any recommendations on a water test kit? Mine is lame…
Ordered this last week. Hope it is good. I only went on Amazon reviews. Thoughts??
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