My New Dwc Grow. First Timer

[mikeb437]

So I bought a tent, a carbon filter, I have 150W high-pressure sodium lamp and I’m doing the veg with 8- 2ft T5 florescent. Started giving my plant nutes about four days ago and the roots started popping out of the bottom of the 4” cube so I decided to stick it in the bucket and see what happens. Somebody gave me the seed so I don’t know if it’s a male or female but regardless, this is good experience for me.

 

[mikeb437]

More pics

 

[DGP]

I love hydro, it's been good to me. I found I wasn't a very good soil grower bUT still do soil for my annual outdoor run.

Make sure to keep your water Temps under 70F and consider using a little H2o2 if you have trouble with the roots or bad bacteria build up. Some people like using various reservoir treatments like "Res UC" or "hydroguard" but for me H2o2 has been very reliable.

Good luck on your hydro adventure,

D

 

[mikeb437]

Ok! I’ll make an amazon purchase. Is there anything else i should or could buy to help things along? Im aldo freezing a couple water bottles and im going to switch them out in the resevoir every morning and night to keep the temps down. ALSO
took ppm reading and ph yesterday when i put the plant in the bucket.
Ppm=350
Ph=5.5
Today the ppm’s were 410 and the ph was 6.2.
Does that tell me i gave it too many nutes? Im trying to figure out that aspect of the grow as well

 

[DGP]

The cold water bottles will help if you just need to pull the temp down 5-10 degrees (which is about where you are at). Youll be surprised at the massive root bundles you will see if the water and roots remain healthy. The first time I saw it I was astonished.....3 foot long bundle coming out of the buckets:)

What exactly are you buying? I wish someone else would offer up some opinions as well and not just me. In order for your ppms to drop that much the plant would have had to use a lot of water and not as much nutes as you fed leading the concentration to be higher the next day. I have only seen this in periods where the plants were growing super fast and drinking a half gallon or more per day. Measure your water level and ppm/ph daily and see what the trends are then try to make a conclusion about nutrient levels. 1 day is not enough unless your grow is quite stable and you see a real trend....need more data:)

May want to source some more seed cause if it fails or is male youll be starting over. Would be nice to pop a few more so you have some options. Do you have the ability to get seed easily from your location? I am in Oregon and it is truly a pain in the ass to get em. Last grow cycle I made some F2 seed (cheese quake) and now I have a big supply to get me by for a long while as well as the option to share with my friends. Love to see the genetic diversity spread out to more folks. Also, this F2 came out very consistent, very strong and almost exclusively female (don't know what kinda lucky draw that came from!)

Best wishes,

Dee

 

[DGP]

If I get this right:

Water down but PPM up = overfeeding, Lower PPM
Water down but PPM down= not enough food, raise PPM
Water down PPM same = just right PPM

Dee

 

[PhatNuggz]

One of many issues with DWC is cooling the nutes once plants and roots get big. How do you lift it up and hold it to replace frozen bottles? Also, how do you check pH and EC/PPMs daily? Add to this doing so disturbs the plant

After fighting that for a grow, I switched to F & D

See my sig for ideas

 

[DGP]

One of many issues with DWC is cooling the nutes once plants and roots get big. How do you lift it up and hold it to replace frozen bottles? Also, how do you check pH and EC/PPMs daily? Add to this doing so disturbs the plant

After fighting that for a grow, I switched to F & D

See my sig for ideas

In my case I had an outside res but for classic single bucket DWC it would be quite awkward. I really hate the way people market tents saying they are a hydro setup when we all know proper growing and typical growing temperatures are 75 - 80F and the average tent temperature will very soon be your water temperature (physics tells us this is innevitable). The sellers of the equipment dont tell you that in their ads. They dont tell you that DWC will be almost impossible at water temps over 70F. I had a room that had AC so I could run the cycle at 68-70F but that doesn't seem like an ideal growth temperature for the plants. They will do it but I am pretty sure it is one of the factors in my past yields.

Now that I am chilling the water it isn't a worry but they are expensive. Currently I have my veg tent setup with a top feed bottom return system that goes to an outside res (in a cooler environment) and for really cold weather (like now with snow on the ground) I have an aquarium heater in the master res that keeps it from dropping below 62F Veg tent in garage). My flower room has all the goodies....AC ...water chiller etc.

Picture are of my top feed in the veg tent.

Dee

Return lines (sorry for the blurry image)

Outside res, just a 13 gallon plastic thing with a flip up lid

 

[mikeb437]

The cold water bottles will help if you just need to pull the temp down 5-10 degrees (which is about where you are at). Youll be surprised at the massive root bundles you will see if the water and roots remain healthy. The first time I saw it I was astonished.....3 foot long bundle coming out of the buckets:)

What exactly are you buying? I wish someone else would offer up some opinions as well and not just me. In order for your ppms to drop that much the plant would have had to use a lot of water and not as much nutes as you fed leading the concentration to be higher the next day. I have only seen this in periods where the plants were growing super fast and drinking a half gallon or more per day. Measure your water level and ppm/ph daily and see what the trends are then try to make a conclusion about nutrient levels. 1 day is not enough unless your grow is quite stable and you see a real trend....need more data:)

May want to source some more seed cause if it fails or is male youll be starting over. Would be nice to pop a few more so you have some options. Do you have the ability to get seed easily from your location? I am in Oregon and it is truly a pain in the ass to get em. Last grow cycle I made some F2 seed (cheese quake) and now I have a big supply to get me by for a long while as well as the option to share with my friends. Love to see the genetic diversity spread out to more folks. Also, this F2 came out very consistent, very strong and almost exclusively female (don't know what kinda lucky draw that came from!)

Best wishes,

Dee

Im going to buy the h2o2 as directed. I’ve already noticed that the water in my bucket is fairly warm so I need every advantage I can get if I don’t have a chiller. I was just curious if there was anything else I should buy as long as I making a purchase. And my PPM’s went up after a day and not down so maybe I gave it to many nutes. I will start checking ppm and pH every day

 

[mikeb437]

And I appreciate you giving me the advice. I wish more people would chime in

 

[DGP]

I am not the most experienced grower out there but I try to answer when I can cause I notice so many post get little response even mine.

I guess I have always just gone simple, 3 part hydro nutes, some ph down/up, some quality cal-mag, some ml graduated cylinders, some pipettes, an H&M ph meter and an H&M ppm meter. I did just buy a brix meter but that to me is an extra.

If you really love growing after a while you might want to invest in a chiller (~$275 on amazon). It is easier to use the ice method if you eventually build a simple recirculating system.

Dee

 

[mikeb437]

One of many issues with DWC is cooling the nutes once plants and roots get big. How do you lift it up and hold it to replace frozen bottles? Also, how do you check pH and EC/PPMs daily? Add to this doing so disturbs the plant

After fighting that for a grow, I switched to F & D

See my sig for ideas

The roots we’re not big till today but I have been just lifting up the lid and pulling out the bottle by hand which was very easy. It might start getting a bit tough for once these roots start getting bigger which they already are

 

[mikeb437]

2 week since the first plant sprouted. Its in the bucket. Doing good. I topped it in friday and the new sprouts are also doing good. (First time trying that). I also received a few more seeds from a friend so now those are starting to sprout. I also noticed that the water level has dropped alot. Check out pics

 

[Shawnery]

Not sure what it's a sign of but the curling up of the edges of your leaves is a sign of a problem. I'm super new and have many more questions than answers but I thought I should say something. Don't take it as gospel though by any means.
EDIT - Just did a quick search here and found that it is most likely due to heat stress. You can try raising your lights and if you don't have a fan moving air over your plants yet that will help out

I'm also thinking your roots appear a little less then happy. When my plants have had issues the roots looked a lot like yours. When my plants have done well they are much thicker and many more longer hairs. The thing I notice most is the condition of the very tips of your roots. They appear to be shriveling and a little discolored.

Don't get me wrong because my last crop died so what the F**k do I know. My plants that just bit the bullet though had roots a lot like yours.

I've also used h202 in the past with great results but this time I've decided to go with hydroguard. The hydroguard will allow your plants to stay healthy at a higher water temp. I've heard that it can keep them healthy up to 90 degrees but i wouldn't try that high.

 

[Shawnery]

Shouldn't the rockwool be completely covered by the medium to keep algea from growing on the part in the light?

 

[mikeb437]

Shouldn't the rockwool be completely covered by the medium to keep algea from growing on the part in the light?

Idk! Im new to this. I have more lava rocks so i will cover up tomorrow. Ty for the input

 

[mikeb437]

Not sure what it's a sign of but the curling up of the edges of your leaves is a sign of a problem. I'm super new and have many more questions than answers but I thought I should say something. Don't take it as gospel though by any means.
EDIT - Just did a quick search here and found that it is most likely due to heat stress. You can try raising your lights and if you don't have a fan moving air over your plants yet that will help out

I'm also thinking your roots appear a little less then happy. When my plants have had issues the roots looked a lot like yours. When my plants have done well they are much thicker and many more longer hairs. The thing I notice most is the condition of the very tips of your roots. They appear to be shriveling and a little discolored.

Don't get me wrong because my last crop died so what the F**k do I know. My plants that just bit the bullet though had roots a lot like yours.

I've also used h202 in the past with great results but this time I've decided to go with hydroguard. The hydroguard will allow your plants to stay healthy at a higher water temp. I've heard that it can keep them healthy up to 90 degrees but i wouldn't try that high.

Thank you for the suggestion!! I just received my h2o2 in the mail today and that will be added into the bucket tomorrow AFTER i change out the water and nutes. Do you suggest that i purchase the hydroguard or stick with the h202 for now? I appreciate any and all help you guys give. I was concerned about the slight curling on the leaves as well but things are growing fast so i wasnt too concerned. The water in the bucket is very warm but a cooler is too much for me right now. The other two plants will stay in the rockwool and i wont be doing the dwc with those..

 

[Shawnery]

So h202 and hydroguard together won't work because the h202 eat all your microbes. It doesn't care if they're good for your plants or bad. I think you should try it out the h202 as was suggested and see if that's enough. The only thing is h202 only works for around 24hrs and then dissipates into plain old water. If your solution is constantly above an acceptable level you'll have to continue adding it over time. It will work but there are differing opinions on the subject. Do some searches on here and do some reading and see what you think.

The advantage of using hydroguard is that it works for an extended period of time unlike h202. The hydroguard will help defend against the problems associated with high water temps but h202 will help after the fact.

What you could do and theoretically should work is use the h202 to destroy any bad bacteria throughout the entire system and then 3 days later add the hydroguard to introduce good bacteria in to the system.

5ml - 10ml of h202 per gallon of water in your reservoir and make sure you mix it with a good amount of water, from your res I find is best, so you don't burn them on accident.

As for temps, frozen water bottles are your best friend. You can also get the reflective air bubble refrigeration wrap for the bucket.

But remember, I'm just as new as you!

 

[mikeb437]

Yea, the frozen bottles are only a temporary solution. Im sure they melt quickly and to keep a constant flow of frozen bottles is a chore. But thats all i can do for now. I put in the h202 today. Its only a half a teaspoon so it will last a long time. I will buy some hydroguard as well. So the h202 kills bacteria and the hydroguard gives back good bacteria. GOT IT! Thanks

 

[Shawnery]

Anyone ever tried heatshield tape they use in car engines or on motorcycles? It's supposed to reduce up to 90% or radiant heat.