First time growing, using DIY DWC but have questions about nutes, H2O, etc.

[mr_up]

Hello all,

First off thank you for such an awesome web site. I was totally inspired by this tutorial:


I made my first DWC and am growing my first plant ever, from a clone that came in rockwool. I made one major adjustment to the above tutorial, I'm using a 3.5 gallon bucket because it was cheap and completely opaque black so I didn't have to use any aluminum tape on it. Also I am using a black bucket lid with a built-in 6" netpot.

So I'm a little foggy on where the water level should be at on the netpot. I buried the rockwool about halfway down into the hydroton and had the h2o level one inch above the bottom of the netpot but it didn't seem to be getting water from the bucket to the plant so I freaked out and added water until about half of the netpot was submerged. Any advice on this?

Also, I don't understand the nutrients very well. I have a solid grasp of ratios so mixing the right ppm's is fine, but how often do I add nutrients? I change the water in the bucket once a week and refill fill with nutrient solution, but is this the only time I add nutrients to the DWC? I'm using General Hydroponics Keep It Simple Flora series. Here is their feeding chart:


Another thing I am doing differently from the tutorial is using "filler" in the bucket. Since it holds more water than the tutorial's 2 gal bucket, and I don't want to waste nutrient solution, I have 3 soda bottles filled with water and rocks to take up space so I only need about 2 gallons of solution to get the water level around the netpot. Is there any reason I shouldn't do this? The water bottle idea also helps me keep the solution in the bucket <70 F because I freeze one overnight and drop it back into the bucket in the morning.

All help is appreciated, thanks.

Mr_uP

 

[mr_up]

Day 4 pictured below. The plant is stretching toward the light which is good and bad: Good because it means it is growing [and pretty quickly it seems] and bad because it means I need to get off my a$$ and make a proper reflecting box with top-down lighting ;).

I decided to accent the 8 watt LED panel with a 23 watt 2700K temp CFL. I have the whole circuit, including the H2O pump, on a Kill-A-Watt and I'm only drawing 30 watts total. I'm thinking about adding another 2700K CFL when I make the top-down lighting reflecting box and leaving the LED panel right next to the plant. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Mr_uP

 

[StrikeitRich]

Looking good, id look to upgrade ur lights and def get it above the plant. I dont see anything wrong with ur filling up space inside the buckets and the chilling of the res is just a bonus too. I actually read that same article ur talking about and the one thing id recomend is putting reflective aluminum ducting tape on the outside of ur buckets (Helps with heat from light and reflects light back at the plant.), and remember u want alllot of air bubbles in them buckets it should look like its boiling like crazy.

So just a question, what is ur strain ur growing there? Looks sativaish... Definatly a cutting, right?

Also what Stage u at?...Seedling stage? And u using the Subcultures?? My reccomendation to add to any line up would be Pro-Tekt Potasium Silicate Concentrate.

As far as what u should understand about hydro is that lets say u have a starting solution of 100 PPMs.. K now ur plant then drinks up say half of the water in ur bucket with some solution.. so ur PPMs jump to 200.. what that meens is ur solution was about 2X to strong for the plant.. U want ur PPMs to stay the same as ur water level goes down. Thats when u have her "Dialed in".

And are u trying to go for a micro grow, or Cab grow. I'm curious as to what ur planning on doing with ur refletive enviroment.. Please elaborate and ill give u my input on what u got going on.

Another thing u should try if ur growing a single hydro plant is a SCRoG system or Screen of sort to help stretch her out over a larger square footage, yet not messing up the footprint of ur light. This style(SCRoG) is also intended to be used with Low Wattage Systems. perfect for the LED rout.

Also are u planning on sticking with the LEDs or u okay with a HiD system like a MH or HPS.. a 250 Watt HPS would work great for a single plant, and u can make em cheap too.. Gotta always luv a DIY project.

Just willing to lend some friendly advise if needed.

Peace,
S i R

 

[mr_up]

Looking good, id look to upgrade ur lights and def get it above the plant.

Done, sort of. Moved the CFL above the plant and added another CFL bulb. There are currently 2 CFLs in the dish, one 6,500K and the other 2,700K. I had 2 6,500's in there but one burned out today! Will probably replace it so they are both 6,500's tomorrow.

and remember u want alllot of air bubbles in them buckets it should look like its boiling like crazy.

Hmmm, I thought it didn't look like enough bubbles... I bought the _exact_ airstone and air pump from the above referenced tutorial but it looks like a low boil at best... The pump says it can power 3 airstones at once, is that what I want to do? Or will that just be 3 poorly running airstones instead of 1 almost ok one?

So just a question, what is ur strain ur growing there? Looks sativaish... Definatly a cutting, right?

Supposedly it's Blue Dream, it is a clone I picked up from the local cannabis club [yes I am a med patient doing this legally, should add that to my sig].

Also what Stage u at?...Seedling stage? And u using the Subcultures?? My reccomendation to add to any line up would be Pro-Tekt Potasium Silicate Concentrate.

Think it was a little bit above seedling when I got it. There were roots all the way at the bottom of the rockwool.

I'm using General Hydroponics' Keep It simple 3 part system. Info here:

As far as what u should understand about hydro is that lets say u have a starting solution of 100 PPMs.. K now ur plant then drinks up say half of the water in ur bucket with some solution.. so ur PPMs jump to 200.. what that meens is ur solution was about 2X to strong for the plant.. U want ur PPMs to stay the same as ur water level goes down. Thats when u have her "Dialed in".

Hmmm, the guys at the hydro store didn't mention that lol. So, how do I measure PPMs? Is it with a digital device that cost $50+? Hope it's affordable, just doing this because I can pretty much. And because I always wanted to, but I don't want to break the bank.

And are u trying to go for a micro grow, or Cab grow. I'm curious as to what ur planning on doing with ur refletive enviroment.. Please elaborate and ill give u my input on what u got going on.

So far not a micro grow. As you can see in the new pic I've added a small cabinet space. Probably don't want to get too much bigger than that. I donno, maybe that is a micro grow.

Another thing u should try if ur growing a single hydro plant is a SCRoG system.

I'll look that up, never heard of it thanks.

Also are u planning on sticking with the LEDs or u okay with a HiD system like
a MH or HPS..

I started this to experiment with LEDs but I think I'm going to just use LEDs to accent CFLs and see how that goes. From what I hear a HiD system is WAY too hot for me to feel comfortable leaving on while I'm at work all day. Burning down the place is not ok. The LED and CFLs I'm using are cool enough they can't catch anything on fire even if they fell down onto some paper or something.

That LED panel is a custom thing that draws 8 Watts when turned up to full capacity. It is a bitch to position tho because it has no enclosure and the wall-wart power supply attached to it is unwieldy. I'll probably put it in something and suspend it midway up the plant when it grows bigger but for now Mr. Sprite will have to do ;).

It's actually quite bright. Even though I have 2 100Watt equivalent CFLs blasting down, you can see the red and blue from the panel on the right wall of the enclosure in the below pic. So I'm guessing it's probably close to ~250Watts of equivalent lighting.

I was planning on ordering about twenty 1 Watt LEDs of the correct red and blue wavelengths to rig a custom light, but after spending $100+ without blinking just on the basics, I'll have to wait a while before I can.

Thanks so much for the tips and advice so far!

Mr_uP

 

[StrikeitRich]

Yeah the PPM thing requires a meter, also u should be testing ur PH as well if working with hydroponics not having a decent Ph and PPM meter is like driving a Semi Truck Blindfolded... It might work out.. It probably wont though. U can get them on Ebay cheap enough, but with the PH meter u need to get ur Ph solution.. Or what is called ur "standards" in the industy. usually u need only one solution of 7.01 just to use to store the meter in and to check ur calibrations on ur meter itself. If u go to a hydroponic store they should have explained that to u. They, if u ask, should also test the meter right there with u and make sure its calabrated correctly, U also need to make sure that u store ur PH meter wet. the Node. Or Electrode. at the tip of the meter must stay wet at all time. or it wont work right. The PH of ur solution should Always be around 5.8 which is a little acidic. U never want it above 6.4 or below 5.2 otherwise ur plant will show signs of Nutrient Dificiancies. There are tons of articles about PH and Nutrient Uptake. google it. As far as PPM's well that meter is a little more pricey, but it's worth every penny. Normally a meter like this is used for testing hard water or plain tap water so it usually comes callibrated at or around 300PPMs now thats good for when ur plant is little, but when u start to mix solutions up around 1000PPMs ud need to recalibrate that meter to read those higher standards. Otherwise u may burn ur plant from mixing up a solution that reads at 1000 but really is like 1300 or something. I'll just be honest with u about one thing if u plan on using hydro go out and get urself a PPM meter and Ph meter ASAP!

Now as far as fire hazard and HID lamps.. Well u could always get a tent ment for growing, Normally these tents are Fire retardent or Fire Proof. But there is nothing at all wrong with LED grow systems. U ever look into T5 Florecents? I use the T5's for vegin out my plants and they work awsome and also they put out very little heat too.

K well i hope that helps some.

Peace,
S i R

 

[mr_up]

Yeah the PPM thing requires a meter, also u should be testing ur PH as well if working with hydroponics
...
The PH of ur solution should Always be around 5.8 which is a little acidic. U never want it above 6.4 or below 5.2 otherwise ur plant will show signs of Nutrient Dificiancies.

I got a liquid pH test kit and keep it right around the color 5 is but not below. Looking on eBay for PPM meter now.

Now as far as fire hazard and HID lamps.. Well u could always get a tent ment for growing, Normally these tents are Fire retardent or Fire Proof. But there is nothing at all wrong with LED grow systems. U ever look into T5 Florecents? I use the T5's for vegin out my plants and they work awsome and also they put out very little heat too.

I haven't looked much into T5's yet. Are they much better than CFLs? They are both the same basic kind of light I thought, but I can see how spreading the light around with a T5 could be beneficial.

Thanks for all the insight,

Mr_uP

 

[StrikeitRich]

I've honesstly never grown with CFL's so i'm not speaking from experienc, but i'd have to say compared to like a 4 X 2 foot T5 floro Bay compared to say 4 CFL's bulbs with a reflecter bay holding all 4 bulbs and directing the light similar to the T5 bay...Yeah they would be about similar, so if looked at that way the T5's are more efficient and cheaper, and would use very little electricity just like the CFL's, so Yeah T5's are better bang for ur buck. I'd say. If u cant tell i just got done medicating so im rambling some.

So u say its a Blue Dream... NICE, I bet ur stoked about being Legal and all too. What state u in?

Peace,
S i R

 

[StrikeitRich]

OHhh yeah. Haha.

Bubbles.

the air stones u speak of. They those small cylinder things bout big around as a penny and about and inch or two tall. Yeah... ?

Those r not going to work very well, but they are better than nothing.

I use an air stone disc thing that is i think 6 inches in diameter. The air pump I use is called AquaAir by Hydrofarm, My pump is a 110LPM pump which powers about 12 5 gallon buckets so u wouldnt need that big of a pump for only one bucket, but the AquaAir Pumps are ment for Hydroponic Growing. I tried to use the airstone and pump that i normally would use in a 75 gallon Fish Tank, but that wasnt strong enough to run two buckets, but it may have work alright for just one plant. How big u planning on getting this lady of urs?

Peace,
S i R

 

[mr_up]

OHhh yeah. Haha.

Bubbles.

the air stones u speak of. They those small cylinder things bout big around as a penny and about and inch or two tall. Yeah... ?

No, I'm using a 5" rectangle airstone for an aquarium I got from Walmart. Also, my pump is rated at 1,200cc/minute which is 1.2L/min, so I guess it's underpowered. I have a check-valve on the line, could that be it? I'll test it out later tonight.

I went out and got another air pump, this time from the hydro store and this one is rated at 4.5L/min so it should start kicking ass soon! I also picked up a couple of airstones at the hydro store, they are all stone except where you plug the tube in. My airstone I'm using now is mostly plastic with a strip of stone on the top, so maybe the airstone was the problem.

How big u planning on getting this lady of urs?

Hmmm, didn't realize I had a choice ;). Do I just keep growing her until I feel like flowering?

Thanks,

Mr_uP

 

[StrikeitRich]

Nice

Great choice on air supply and stone!:rock

I think the check valve is just to make sure u dont get water in ur pump if ur pump dies or cuts out. But another way to avoid that is to make sure ur pump is always abover ur rez. or bucket of water.

As far as when to start flowering, well yeah its up to u. I've heard of peps running a mother for as long as 10 years... But I would flip her when shes about half the size u want her. One thing u need to understand though is that when u flip ur lady she will focus on bud growth and not stem or ROOT growth, so once ur roots look good, any time after that is good. Judge when to flip on root mass and plant size. I've even heard of people flowering a plant as soon as its out of the clone or seedling stage. Usually pull about a quarter ounce if ur lucky doing that though.

Keep up the learning and remember as a grower we are never done upgrading our systems... lol.

Peace,
S i R

 

[mr_up]

Week 2 updates:
Oh man I'm so stoked! Was changing out the reservoir today and saw a root about 3 inches long coming out of the bottom of the netpot.

As far as when to start flowering, well yeah its up to u. I've heard of peps running a mother for as long as 10 years... But I would flip her when shes about half the size u want her. One thing u need to understand though is that when u flip ur lady she will focus on bud growth and not stem or ROOT growth, so once ur roots look good, any time after that is good. Judge when to flip on root mass and plant size.

I'll probably flip her the next time I change the reservoir, 1 week from today. She seems to be growing at a very healthy rate. I can literally see new growth every evening. I added a little more growth and micro mid-week and she seems to be utilizing the extra nutrients. However, her leaves seem a bit droopy and just a tad off-color at the tips today. See pics below. I ordered a cheap PPM meter on eBay yesterday and it should arrive in 2 weeks. That should help with feeding lol. Also, how do I know what PPM to keep it at and with which nutes?

Keep up the learning and remember as a grower we are never done upgrading our systems... lol.

Ha I totally agree. Just bought another reflector and CFL today, so now I have the equiv. of 300W, 2 6500Ks and 1 2700K. I'll stop at the hardware store tomorrow and get a socket splitter so I can have 2 bulbs in each reflector and 400W equiv. I'll try and rig up a case for that LED panel and place it in there for accent lighting. Can't hurt, right? I love that all the electricity that I'm using [lights, pump, etc.] is less than 2 medium-bright incandescent bulbs ;).

Here are pics of the new dual reflector set-up and plant at the start of week 2.

 

[StrikeitRich]

Looking good mate.

Just wondering what r ur temps like in the rez also humidity at that age should be a little higher then 35%. Average temps should stay above 74 and below 83 but as long as ur rez temps stay below 75 ull be allright. One trick, As long as the temp in the rez is below 67 or 68 u wont be able to get fungus or algee growth in the rez. they hate cold temps and luv the warm temps. The drooping of the leaves could be multiple things,Even can happen after u water her, so just keep en eye on her, The yellowing of the leaf tips is usually a sign of nutrient burn starting. But ur on the right path i have a feeling this is going to be a great learning experience for u. How high u keeping the water level in ur bucket now that she has roots down into the rez u should keep water level about 2 inches below bottom of the net holding ur hydroton.


The PPM thing....
When u mix up ur nutes after each time u add a dif nute just check the PPM (when u get meter.) Some nutes add very little to ur PPMs but some like ur base nutes will spike it. For a plant that small id say about 200PPMs with a starting point of 0PPM (RO or DI water not tap) so ur solution would have 200 parts of nutrients per 1 million parts of water. For small plant, then u just watch it and as ur water goes down ur PPM's should stay the same. If it goes UP then its to strong, If it goes down then its too weak.

Hope im helping some.

Peace,
S i R

Looking good though, just keep up ur hard work.

Peace,
S i R

 

[mr_up]

Well, here she is now towards the end of week 2. I think I burnt the leaves by pouring nute solution over it. The new leaves near the top look ok though, and root growth seems to be going well.

I'm probably going to flower her Monday, the beginning of week 3. Pictures are from last night, I like her progress. Should I trim off the burnt leaves?

 

[StrikeitRich]

Unless the dead or diein plant material is blocking lots of light then leave it be otherwise just remove the dead parts. the plant needs all the leaf that it can keep at this point. I'd say give her atleast another week of veg before u flip her. The roots that u show on ur pick are just the tap roots which are sent out first to find water then she will star to grow little roots out of the big thick white main vains. Once that is has been happenin a week or two ud be okay in my book to try and flip her.

Looking good.

Keep it up!

Peace,
S i R

 

[smokestack23]

What "stage" of the schedule are you mixing? Either you're way too strong, too weak, or the pH is way low.
The purple stalk is saying it wants magnesium. If your pH is too low or high it will lock nutrients out. If your solution is too strong you'll lock some nutrients out. If it's too weak..well it'll be hungry for nutes.

I'd mix at like maybe a little under half the recommended "growth" stage recipe. I think you said that your pH is around 5? I'd adjust it to "around" 5.9. Then your "around" should be between 5.6 and 6.2ish. That's a much safer range to stay in until your pH pen arrives and you can be more accurate.

With RDWC (DWC, same thing) I NEVER get near full strength on the nutes. Even when they're seriously putting out like in week 5 or so.

And, I too recommend waiting before inducing flowering. At least until you get her healthy.

PEACE and good luck.

 

[StrikeitRich]

Good point about ph.

 

[mr_up]

What "stage" of the schedule are you mixing? Either you're way too strong, too weak, or the pH is way low.
The purple stalk is saying it wants magnesium. If your pH is too low or high it will lock nutrients out. If your solution is too strong you'll lock some nutrients out. If it's too weak..well it'll be hungry for nutes.

Ya I really f%^%ed up the first week. Fed it too little [did the 'seedling' feeding on the General Hydroponics feeding schedule], water needed CalMag, bleh. BUT, I did always have a good pH range.

Once I got stuff more sorted week 2 went really well. Tons of roots, very strong stalk, lots of outward growth. Also, see the main stalk in the pics below. Newer parts of the stalk do not have the purple streak so its going good, no?

I'd mix at like maybe a little under half the recommended "growth" stage recipe. I think you said that your pH is around 5? I'd adjust it to "around" 5.9. Then your "around" should be between 5.6 and 6.2ish. That's a much safer range to stay in until your pH pen arrives and you can be more accurate.

I paid $10 for my pH pen on eBay. Can I trust it? lol. Well, it reads a 4.01 reference solution as 4.2 so that's pretty good considering it is +-2. I'm also using the indicator drops in a small vial every day just to be sure.

With RDWC (DWC, same thing) I NEVER get near full strength on the nutes. Even when they're seriously putting out like in week 5 or so.

Really? Why not?

Thanks guys for the continued support.

Mr_uP

 

[smokestack23]

Do you have the yellow pH pen? Those are what I use..like $10 shipped from China. The first one I bought packed it in after about a month. They sent a free replacement and the old one started working again. I just ordered a third one yesterday.

Yes you can trust them especially if you're calibrating them once in a while. I'd just get a backup. Even the expensive ones need their probes replaced periodically and the probes alone cost WAY more than one of these yellow Chinese pens..so...even IF one only lasted a month or two you're still ahead.

ALWAYS keep a chemical test kit (bottle or strips) handy in case your pens quit...or if you don't believe them all of a sudden. It's always good to doublecheck with the passive testkits if something isnt making sense. The passive kits don't lie.

Instructions on nute bottles are usually high for hydro applications. They list mixing rates to apply to most gardeners and gardens...and..they like to sell lots of the stuff.
My strains in RDWC all seem to like it at about 825ppm. Full strength would be almost double that.
If you have an EC or TDS meter, start at like half strength and monitor what happens to the solution. So for example..say you mix half strength and get 650ppm. You measure the next day and it's down to 500ppm. That's telling you that the plants are using more butes than water so you can UP the ppms a bit. You keep doing that until you notice that the PPM stays pretty stable..meaning they're "drinking" the whole solution..not more water or more nutes.
If your PPM goes up you know that it's mixed too strong..they're drinking more water than nutes. Hope that makes sense.

If you dont have a means to measure...start at like half strength and keep upping the strength until you begin to see toxicity (leaf tip burn etc) then back off a bit.

Either way, you'll soon find that the recommended mixing rates are much much too high.
I've found it pretty hard to have deficiencies when using a good base nute product. Sure I get calmag deficiencies with RO water if I dont add calmag but..if everything is balanced, it's kinda hard to underdo it with nutes..well at least compared to how easy it is to OVERfert.

PEACE

 

[PaperStreet]

Skribed up in here great grow thread and sound advice. I have a lot to learn that's fosho. I also grow DWC. If I can help I will for now ill be staying tuned. PH is the key. Keep it dialed in around 5.8 it makes things real forgiveing when tryna dial in the ppms and figureing feed schedules. Dead and damaged growth resulting from clones I usually remove all that first week when I see my. Plants are takeing of with new growth u don't want anything holding them back. Ill be watching. Hope I get a chance to show my grow in the near future. Respects

 

[StrikeitRich]

Updates?

Whats up?