Transfering plants from soil to hydro/aquaponics

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

Does anyone have opinions/experience on this?

I have an outdoor hydro and an aquaponics set up. When transfering plants from soil to hydro/aquaponics a lot tend to suffer stress and die.

Is this more to do with the environment, e.g. Light, Temperature etc. or is it more to do with the change between soil to hydro?

Some plants do fine however, most do not.

Would it be better to make clones in a hydro/aeroponic set up and transfer?

[Pasito]

From my experience, the plants that don't survive are the ones that aren't best suited to hydro/aquaponics.

Watering schedules and the quantity of water is very important and varies between plants.

I've heard people say anything can be grown hydro/aqua/areo, and I've seen cacti, carrots, pineapple and all sorts of crazy things successfully grown hydro. So I really think it just comes down to adjusting the nutrients, water, grow medium and lighting (you said outdoor, so don't worry about lighting) for the plant you want to grow. Water temperature can be hard to regulate if you're working outdoors, that can cause stress to the plants.

[Gimli]

Shock is the biggest killer when transferring from soil to hydro.

Nute burn is a big one also.

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

Hmmm. I have noticed it more so with my aquaponic setup. Even some plants that are suppose to be good in hydro die. I put a large chilli plant in a couple of weeks ago and it dropped all of its leaves and started wilting. Compare that to the basil that is growing like a weed, there is also a papaya and a passionfruit that is doing really well. It's weird, some plants just don't like the shock of going from soil to hydro.

I wonder if, like I said before, it would be better to clone plants and transfer them. So they are going from one medium into the same medium and aren't experiencing the same level of shock.

I have been reading up about the TurboKlone. Any one have one or heard anything about them? Seems like a foolproof way to clone plants.

[Gimli]

I use Rockwool cubes and Clonex purple - works a treat, simple and cheap.

Rockwool cubes are good for hydro systems.

Are you monitoring PH levels, nute ppm and EC of the water ?

[waterboy 2.0]

with the chillis you are better off transplanting seedlings and growing them out, rather than large transplant which will get a fair degree of transplant shock.

some things transplant better as they can handle the root disturbance.

[Idon'tstudydinosaurs]

I do in my hydro, but not in my aquaponics. Hard to monitor EC levels in aquaponics since the measurement would take into account the floating particles and such. PPM levels are pretty stndard, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate is at 20 and pH is around 7.5.