N4M said:

I will remake all the nutes when I get off work and run about 400-450 ppm.

My rdwc is pretty much set up I just need a 3/4 hose for the pump. Sealed everything, still have to do the leak test and clean the buckets before use.

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Sweet... so much easier.

Purple Haze brown roots / slime - - water is new, just made that batch about 25 hours ago.

I just remade Purple Haze and Banana Sativa
1/2 nutes, 6ml hydroguard, 10ml cal mag, ~520 ppm

Sounds good. They not looking to bad.

Aqua Man said:

Sounds good. They not looking to bad.

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They look very healthy and happy, I'm thinking maybe it's stain from the mix. I'm not certain if that shown in the picture is slime. The roots are twisting though, is that normal or sign of root rot? I have also seen browning tips of roots but like not real real bad but occasionally I'd notice.

If it's root rot it could have been a lot of things.. Too much light on roots when I'd be changing out the water bottles, plus I put them in an empty white bucket when I do that. Too high of water maybe? Needs more oxygen? I drained 1/2 gallon of water just to experiment. I'd say the water level is 1.5 - 2in below the net pot.. Too much nutes (the water wasn't stabilizing with the nutes, I'd have to stir it), or nute lockout? , but again they look healthy and happy from above. Found this image and it similar. I can't tell. But I have been putting 2ml/gal of hydroguard ever since the beginning.

My roots are always stained from nutrients, I never have white roots. <shrug>

Its dark patches and roots that break off easy or slime on roots that you need to worry about. It will usually smell too. Otherwise its just staining.

N4M said:

They look very healthy and happy, I'm thinking maybe it's stain from the mix. I'm not certain if that shown in the picture is slime. The roots are twisting though, is that normal or sign of root rot? I have also seen browning tips of roots but like not real real bad but occasionally I'd notice.

If it's root rot it could have been a lot of things.. Too much light on roots when I'd be changing out the water bottles, plus I put them in an empty white bucket when I do that. Too high of water maybe? Needs more oxygen? I drained 1/2 gallon of water just to experiment. I'd say the water level is 1.5 - 2in below the net pot.. Too much nutes (the water wasn't stabilizing with the nutes, I'd have to stir it), or nute lockout? , but again they look healthy and happy from above. Found this image and it similar. I can't tell. But I have been putting 2ml/gal of hydroguard ever since the beginning.

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If I remember correctly from a different post, that’s from the ff big bloom. Does the same to my plant but not that brown but I also use sledgehammer in my nutes and refill water.

Badchoice said:

If I remember correctly from a different post, that’s from the ff big bloom. Does the same to my plant but not that brown but I also use sledgehammer in my nutes and refill water.

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Yea I am thinking I don't have root rot, they very healthy.. I think the last 1000 ppm mix made it browner since the nutes were floating around and when I lifted the net pot out it was like dark nutes flowing off into the bucket.

See the bubbles on the roots and top of the water? And the brown root tip at the bottom? This is the Banana Sativa. Should I bleach my buckets or? I wash them out with hot water, use a rag all on the inside and wash it out good bud I don't sanitize it.

The last picture is of the roots of the Purple Haze.

The plants

Nope looks like the infection is clearing up. How do they smell? Staining is not an issue. Slime and dark spots with slime is.

But take that tinfoil off that covering the hydroton. Its going to create humidity issues at the base of the stem and could cause stem rot. Leave the hydroton exposed so the humid aot is not all forced right up by the stem. Thats a big no no in my books.

Aqua Man said:

Nope looks like the infection is clearing up. How do they smell? Staining is not an issue. Slime and dark spots with slime is.

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Actually I checked to see if I smelt anything before I left when I swapped out the bottles and I didn't smell anything but I might have lost my scent of smell at that time as well. Do the bubbles like that mean infection dying? I will remove the tin foil when I get off work. I was trying to reduce light from getting in the buckets through the hydroton if any.

35k -40k lux at the tip of the plants, LED is already raised 100%. If I put them around 20-30k you think the plants would grow taller?

Am I suppose be lowering the water in the buckets regularly until I reach a certain height? 5gal bucket, 3gal water. Except for the Purple Haze which I took out 1/2 gallon so that is at 2.5.

I hadn't had the time to finish the rdwc but my plan is 2.5 to 2.75 gallons.

N4M said:

35k -40k lux at the tip of the plants, LED is already raised 100%. If I put them around 20-30k you think the plants would grow taller?

Am I suppose be lowering the water in the buckets regularly until I reach a certain height? 5gal bucket, 3gal water. Except for the Purple Haze which I took out 1/2 gallon so that is at 2.5.

I hadn't had the time to finish the rdwc but my plan is 2.5 to 2.75 gallons.

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Keep water 1-2" below the net pot. At this point you can submerge em but let not try that here.

The bubbles are from organics or compounds in the enzymes. Not uncommon and not a problem.

Now here is the next step you need to learn. Water changes and when to do them.

The simplest way is say once a week but this is NOT good practice IMO.

Here is a method that will save you nutrients, additives etc, keep nutrient ratios in balance and ensure you are doing them adequate enough for the plants needs. The absolute main goal is NUTRIENT RATIOS. #1 PRIORITY!!!.

We will go over addbacks with nutrient additions after.

So you get yourself a little book and you do this daily.

Measure all add backs (by add backs i mean all water wadded to the res that is not done during a rea change) this should be done daily once they start drinking more. The goal is keep the water 1-2" below the net pot as much as possible. So each day you measure and add back water to bring it within 1-2 inches. Write it down in the book for each plant. These are your add backs.

Now you have 3.5gal of water in each 5 gal pail. So once you reach 3.5 gal of add backs you do a rea change. This will ensure you keep nutrient ratios in acceptable ranges. The more the plant drinks the more ratios can change as we have no idea if its taking up more nitrogen than phosphorus etc.You will find you can go 2 weeks in the beginning without a rea change. But likewise late flower you may being doing res changes as often as 2-3days.

I cant stress how important these calculations are. Its simple and great method of eliminating a lot of issues through the grow.

Always check ph and ppm after add backs.

Always adjust ph as needed, don't wait for res change days. I like to PH down to 5.6 then let it drift up to 6.0 before phong back down.

Now add backs with nutrients. This is used to steer ppm if you are seeing the plant is eating alot. I dont like going over 700ppm and while you can I find plants will grow, faster drink and eat more if the ppm is kept lower. Personally I find 600 ppm to be the sweat spot from late veg through flower.

So how do we steer ppm. You take 1 gal and mix double strength nutrients say 1200ppm. Thats your addback to increase ppm.

So let say you ppm was 600 and dropped to like 500 the next day. After drinking 0.5 gallon of water. You add backas much of the double strength to bring the ppm back up. Then finish topping up. You get the hang of it after a while. I'm to high to go through the calculations. But use a combo of the double strength and water to top up and bring ppm back up.

Thank you for your time and support @Aqua Man. That add back sounds like it'dbe way more efficient than the 3 or so times I actually upped my ppm, take 4 separate 10ml droppers and add to each bucket separately doing 3x the work. As of right now, if anythin, I've been redoing the water more than I should and probably wasting a ton of nutes. My fertilizer is almost empty. I used to log PH/PPM changes and all that but I stopped doing that as the log did not help much. I'll do a feeding log. I'm also going to buy a 12 port air pump. 2 for each of the 5gal and 4 for the control bucket.

N4M said:

Thank you for your time and support @Aqua Man. That add back sounds like it'dbe way more efficient than the 3 or so times I actually upped my ppm, take 4 separate 10ml droppers and add to each bucket separately doing 3x the work. As of right now, if anythin, I've been redoing the water more than I should and probably wasting a ton of nutes. My fertilizer is almost empty. I used to log PH/PPM changes and all that but I stopped doing that as the log did not help much. I'll do a feeding log. I'm also going to buy a 12 port air pump. 2 for each of the 5gal and 4 for the control bucket.

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Buy a pump to match the stones. This will ensure the stones work properly. A lot off ppl dont realize this. Hell many still think the amount of air you put though and the bubbles are where the oxygen is delivered to the water, not true. Its the surface agitation that is where the gas exchange happens. I won't get into the why and science of it but the more surface agitation and surface area agitated the better the gas exchange.

How to match them.

If you get the standard 4x2" cylinder stones the work best between 6-8 lpm they say 2.5 but you also need to take the depth into account so 6-8 lpm per stone and your golden. Then add up the number of stones. 1 per 5 gal is plenty, you don't wanna beat up the roots.

I think you will find a diy RDWC system to save you a ton of work and easy to make in future grows. Especially once you get to mid flower and they are drink a gal plus a day each.

I currently have this
https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-Active-Aqua-Pump-Outlets/dp/B002JPEVMC

With the little maybe inch squared air stone

I was looking at the 12 port
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06X...bmVfZGV0YWlsJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0&th=1

You think I don't need 2 stones in each, or 4 in the 27gal rez container? Should I just get an 8 or 6?

N4M said:

I currently have this
https://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-Active-Aqua-Pump-Outlets/dp/B002JPEVMC

With the little maybe inch squared air stone

I was looking at the 12 port
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06X...bmVfZGV0YWlsJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0&th=1

You think I don't need 2 stones in each, or 4 in the 27gal rez container? Should I just get an 8 or 6?

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How many sites?