Ambient temps in your room will be pretty low with this cold snap Coming so id reccomend trying to keep reservoir temps around 75-80.

Using perilite with low ambient temps you will more than likely only be running your drip twice a day if not once. Use that moisture meter you showed me for a few days to figure out when your perilite is getting dryish.

Cleaning the system using any antibacterial solution is a good idea. I prefer washing everything You can separate with dish soap and rinse well. Anything that you cant either bleach or a high concentration of hydrohen peroxide. Make sure to rinse your perilite good with water then soak in a ph balanced water for 24 hrs.

If you are using very cold water on changes in reservoir wait till the system is done dripping for the time, and dump solution, refill with cold water and put heater in immediately so by the time it starts dripping again it should be fairly warm.

Mhp gardener uses 12g MB, 12G calg nit, 6g of epsom on his dutch buckets and lots have done the same with good results. It might be a little strong for seedlings but within a few weeks should be good to go full strength.

Excellent points thanks! I need to do a test to see how fast my 300 watt Heater will warm the reservoir. I added a 275 gallon fresh water tank near my grow room since getting water to the barn is difficult currently. Water from the tap is about 55 degrees, my other tank will likely be colder.

I saw you hijacking morblee's thread so i will post over here. Lol

You want to use a fertilizer that has a nutrient balance of roughly 3-2-4 for vegitation. Masterblend with cal nit and epsoms when rounded down Comes close to that ratio. Your NFT lettuce should be diluted to a ppm of roughly 600 . Your bato buckets will start out around 600 but increase as plants mature. On average i up my ppm once a week by 100ppm till i hit the cap of the plants needs. Tomatoes roughly 1200 peppers roughly 900. Since you plan on doing both in the same system you would stop at 900.

Once you start to see blossoms and start to develop fruit your nutrient needs will change. General balance on fruiting plants is 2-2-4. In your case a reduction of cal nit, and addition of Calcium phosphate would bring your nutrient balance to the reccomended level for fruiting.

Example. 12g of MB, 9g of cal nit, 3g of cal phos, 6g epsoms.

Chuck, here are the numbers on my NFT and Bato buckets. I flushed, cleaned, and filled everything yesterday. What do you think?

My room temp stays between 60-70 degrees and tank temp is approx 72-75 degrees.

My Nutrient Blends

• NFT 12-12-6
• Bato: 10-10-5

My Targets:

• NFT (Lettuce and Boc Choi, 24 each) - PH 5.8 - 6.0 EC: 600
• BATO (tomatoes, peppers) - PH 6.1 - 6.6 EC: 900
• My Tap water has an EC of 120

Actual Measures:

• NFT: PH: 5.8 Yesterday, 6.0 Today EC: 645 Yesterday, 680 Today
• Bato: PH: 6.1 Yesterday, 6.6 Today EC 655 Yesterday, 670 Today

I know that I need to reduce the PH in the BATO.

What do you think? Am I on track? Would you adjust anything?

Plants all look healthy, Lights on the buckets are weak right now. 2 CFL 1600 Lumen per bucket.

Sounds good. the fact your ppm is going up means that the plants are drinking more than eating so add water to keep topped off and not nutrient solution. 3200 lumens per bucket is prime for Small plants and will be sufficient till they reach over a foot.

Don't worry too much about PH as plants dont mind a fluctuation of a point. Between 5 and 7 is fine. I adjust mine every 4-5 days and mostly stay pretty spot on but even at 5 or 7.5 they dont show signs of stress or problems. What are you using to measure your PH?

EC is measured in mostly single digits and has a few conversions from different meters. Your ppm is likely 600ppm but your EC conversion would be 1.1 EC at a 500 conversion rate (pretty sure your meter measures at 500 conversion). Im only saying this so you do not confuse the two or anyone else.

quick update... 2 of the tomato varieties are growing great and I will need to thin them soon the peppers are going slow but picking up speed except for the ghost peppers which look fine but are not growing much.

I would love to know how to use the thinned plants in a cloner to make even more plants.

Nice looking plants soo far!

You'll either need more lightning to promote branch growth or you can use the top 5" of each plant to cut off and use as the clone. Make sure its the taller varietys i have gave to you if you want to clone as determinate varietys dont produce well off clones usually.

If you want to set up your cloner and would like me to come out i can bring about 20 heads out of my room for cloning testing....i have more than enough as is so just pick a few plants im growing.

We can do a write up on how to clone/setup a cloner!

Chuck my apologies for not responding! This would have been great. I may be able to do it next Sunday. Or perhaps one afternoon next week. I just hate to see these beautiful plants go to waste.