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[New Wisdom]

Are you going to grow them indoors?

I would use either plastic wrap over the top of the pot or the clear ziplock bags. 

6500k works great with seedlings. I use 6500k T5 bulbs.

You don't absolutely need a heat pad unless it gets really cold in your house, but I use one.  I have it on 16 hours a day. Same times that the lights are on. 

If you're growing inside then winter is the perfect time to start them. 

And that substrate works fine.  I've started using 1/1/1 pumice/sand/coir with some added worm castings and slow release ferts recently.  But the sand/castings substrate is a great one as well.

Good luck!

[Blackvine]

Yeah, will grow them indoors - but it does get freezing in my house. Probably gets to about -4 Celcius outside at the very most over winter. I will get a heatpad, as a fail-safe.

Thanks for the advice on the the lighting, I've never done any indoor grows before, so it's all new to me.

I went to buy some stuff today for my setup, had some difficulty getting distilled water - my supermarket was selling 'deionised water', which is not quite the same thing and may still contain bacteria that might cause problems down the track.

I also went to the pharmacy to get 3% Hydrogen Peroxide, but they only had 6% 9% and 12% - I guess this only means that I need to dilute it further before I use it. But I checked the ingredients and as well as hydrogen peroxide, it also contained: deionized water, cetaryl alcohol, sodium lauryl sulphate, phophoric acid, ethanol and methylparaben. Should I look for a different brand, or are these common additives in pharmacy bought hydrogen peroxide.

Also, what's a good rule for watering?

Sorry for being such a noob, I've read so many different approaches to germinating Trichs, and this one seems like the most straight forward - I'm sure I too will develop my own style and method that works for me.

I cannot wait to get started! 

[New Wisdom]

Deionized water works perfectly.  The thing you want to avoid is not necessarily bacteria (unless you're trying a completely sterile grow, which is difficult and not necessary), but the salts and chlorine found in tap water. Also the hydrogen pyroxide probably shouldn't have all that extra stuff. The kind I use is just water and H2O2.  For watering I just water from the bottom up and I keep them moist constantly for the first couple months.

[Blackvine]

Thankyou New Wisdom, your help has been invaluable

[happyconcacti]

Hi All,

With everyone learning and practicing, do you have any new methods? Soil mixes? ect?

Many Thanks,
Hcc

[New Wisdom]

HCC,

My new soil mix that I use is 1/1/1 Happy Frog soil (screened for bark with 1/8th inch wire mesh)/pumice/washed coarse sand. I've seen very nice growth with this mix, but sometimes have issues with algae. No mold issues though which I was having a lot of with the sand/worm castings mix.  Mold is way worse than algae ime.

New Wisdom

[BigHeart]

HCC,

My new soil mix that I use is 1/1/1 Happy Frog soil (screened for bark with 1/8th inch wire mesh)/pumice/washed coarse sand. I've seen very nice growth with this mix, but sometimes have issues with algae. No mold issues though which I was having a lot of with the sand/worm castings mix.  Mold is way worse than algae ime.

New Wisdom

I've had algae on regular garden edible seed trays and on my cacti trays and it doesn't seem to hurt anything, but like you said I have had mold kill a couple small garden seedlings. 

The mix that I'm using my cacti seedlings is equal parts vermiculite, perlite, sand, and miracle grow cactus soil.  Seems to work pretty well, some of my high quality hybrid seeds had 100% germination rate, and the other types range between 50% - 80% germ rate.  I never bothered with any of the sterilization steps, just use a standard seedling tray with the black bottom and clear lid, air it out every day or other day and spray it with distilled water.  It's been a little over a month and mine are doing great.  I think the key lesson is to not over think it or mess with them too much with all the chemical/hormone soaking stuff.  They just need a good substrate, heat, light, and water (in moderate amounts). 

[Radium]

@New Wisdom:
Did you repeat the TEK again? how was the results?
I have only 10 seeds left, and all my attempts using other TEKs seems to have failed.
I want to give this TEK a shot, using 5 seeds first.
The seeds are 4 years old though (at least, since I don't know for how long they were stored when I bought them)