This is 10 things I do every day in my grow room.
I have a daily alert set up on my phone to visit my grow room about an hour after the lights come on.
If there are problems, this is the best time to discover them.
Change footwear: these are my grow room Crocks. Ooh-ah.
Now officially fashionable again. Nice. Shades on. #1: How does your grow room's air feel on your skin?
Hot and muggy? Not good. Regularly check your air extraction system is on, or your air conditioner and dehumidifier.
Check your min/max thermometer; verify current air temperature and relative humidity and
the minimum and maximum over the last 24 hours. Make a note and reset it.
It's also worth double-checking that all your grow lights are on—sounds obvious but with multiple lights it’s easy to miss.
If you’re running air-cooled hoods, feel the ducting to check air is passing through.
#2: Say "Hi" to your plants! Are the leaves looking healthy and turgid?
Lift some pots and feel their weight. Physically inspect soil, peat, coco coir and rockwool as these tend to dry out a little
between irrigations, but not bone dry as this causes salt build-up and undue stress for your plants.
Check leaf color and texture—topside and underside—new growth, middle and bottom.
Sometimes brand new growth can be a little pale in fast-growing species.
Nothing to worry about unless it persists.
As you can see I’ve got some Tokyo Hot cuttings propagating in nursery pots under my Dio-Watt 1440 set to a vegetative spectrum.
#3: Verify the pH and strength of your nutrient solution in all of your nutrient reservoirs.
This can be quite a chore but it’s made so much easier by having separate meters dedicated to each tank.
I’m using Bluelab’s Combo meter here, that measures nutrient solution strength in
milisiemens (that’s electrical conductivity) or PPMs—that’s TDS or total dissolved solids.
It also measures pH and temperature. Absolutely essential metrics to control in any healthy hydroponics system.
Yes, it might look a bit indulgent to have three meters like this, but it really does save me a lot of time.
I just press a few buttons like this--bingo, bango, bongo, and I instantly know where I’m at.
Rather than continually moving probes back and forth between reservoirs all the while.
I’m also using Bluelab’s pH Controller, which automatically monitors and controls
the pH in my main reservoir under the Duralastics 4 by 4 tray—dosing when required. Nice!
I shall keep an eye on the logs though—just to ensure that it isn’t dosing more than
normal, which would indicate potential problems in the root zone or that it’s time to change the reservoir.
#4! At this point, I've usually started to run out of caffeine so I go in and have another
four or five espressos, and I'm good to go.
Top up my reservoirs with pure water — courtesy of my Ideal H2O Reverse Osmosis system.
I use a powerful pump and a hose to convey the water from my drain room to my grow room.
Having the ability to control the output at the head of the hose is a must.
I’ve already timed how long it takes me to completely fill this reservoir with water.
Pretty much bang-on 8 1/2 minutes for this 42 gallon tank--that's 160 liters for you metric monsters.
This is important because I then just have to keep a note of how long I top up for each day.
Typically, around 15 to 20 seconds each time, but sometimes longer when my plants are mature and drinking lots.
Each day I time it and make a note—when I reach a total of 8 1/2 minutes of topping
up time over a given period, I know I’ve topped up a tank’s worth and it’s time
to change the reservoir and make up some fresh nutrient solution.
I check my nutrient concentration, adding Cal/Mag, and then base nutrients—stirring vigorously after each part.
If my pH is too low, I tend to add a little hard water from my faucet as this does the trick bringing the pH back up to around 6.
Failing that, some dilute pH up adjuster or dilute potassium silicate.
If it’s too high, a little dilute phosphoric acid is my go-to.
#5: Pumps and bubblers.
My two NFT hydroponic systems require constant pumping, so I visually check their flow rate every single day.
Sometimes the filters get clogged so I usually take these out.
Check your nutrient solution is being aerated. I bubble constantly.
In a large tank like this I’ll have four air stones, raising dissolved oxygen levels
and keeping the nutrient solution from being stagnant.
I use a circulating pump too, in any reservoir over 40 gallons.
#6: Check oscillating fans are all on. Yes, yes, yes they are! Okay—that was easy.
#7: If I think my irrigation cycles need a little dialing in, say I found the media a little dry.
I start a manual irrigation cycle.
Check flood and drain trays are actually flooding and overflow filters aren’t clogged. Similarly, deal with drippers.
Verify all drippers are dripping and the nutrient solution is actually reaching the plants.
Check the initial run-off for high salt content with your EC or TDS meter.
If it’s running high you need to irrigate more frequently.
Drippers can sometimes get clogged with particulates—always good to have a few spare—or give them a
soak in vinegar or bleach solution.
An inline filter can really help to maintain the health of your drippers, dripper rings, or whatever you’re working with.
Which brings us to...
#8: Empty dehumidifiers if needed—although it’s great if you have these plumbed directly into the drain.
Some growers purify and re-use their dehumidifier water too.
#9: Check distances.
It’s amazing how much some plants can grow in a single day!
If growth tips feel like they are venturing too close to your grow lights, try to tuck them down.
Soft mesh netting can help. Failing that, raising up your grow lightsa few clicks.
Alright, kiddies, we've reached the end! #10: Tidy up!
Check for bugs! This may be last but it’s certainly not least.
In fact, you should be doing this all the time—as a sort of parallel process while doing everything else.
After a while picking, up dead leaves or aborted flowers will be automatic lest they get immortalized
on YouTube forever.
No seriously, it’s better that they don’t foul your reservoir and don’t forget that
dead foliage can be a breeding ground for bugs, molds and disease.
That's what they do. Keep it clean people.
Check the underside of the leaves especially close, and look at your sticky yellow traps.
Sometimes I take snaps of them on my cellphone to keep track.
I like showing these off at parties when people ask me what I do.
Okay—that’s it—let me know about your grow room routine in the comments below.
I’m happy to run through my weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks in upcoming videos if you’re interested.
Take care amigos—this is Everest, all boxes ticked, saying goodbye.