NWElite89 6-plant DWC/UC Grow (Critcal Kush, Acapulco Gold, Liberty Haze, Sour Haze

[NWElite89]

WHATS UP THC FARMER COMMUNITY!I have been a long time fan of this site for the past few years and been digesting information from you guys non-stop. I actually started growing because of you guys, and started with soil that have since been upgraded to the hydro. This will be my 4th grow all-together, but my second plunge at the hydro. My last run was just the Sour Haze by itself in 8 individual buckets and now I am trying multuple strains. This thread is intended for all to view, to learn, and GROW MASSIVE BUDS! Any help is welcome along this grow

EQUIPMENT:
(2) Magnum XXL 8" Reflector
(2)1000W Ballast (1000,750,600)...super lumens which I dont use
(6) Lowes 5 Gallon Buckets
(3) Top Fin Air-pumps........(Soon to be upgraded when switching to UC)
(6) 6'' Air-stones PETsmart

NUTRIENT LINE
House and Garden-
Aqua Flakes A+B
Bud Booster
Multi-Zen
Drip Clean
Bud XL
Top Booster
Magic Green
General Hydroponics- Cal/Mag

***A little background Info-
These strains minus the sour haze came from seed. These were vegging in my tent while my Sour Haze was being finished up. I changed the water on them and got them all set for a few days while i was going to be out and about for a few day and come to find them wilted, and almost DEAD! Well looking into the issue, I had found out that that my air-stones had clogged and stop working. Luckily, I had a package of unopened stones, so I threw them in replacements while I changed the water and put in a low strength nutrient at 1/4 strength solution based upon H/G website. I am using tap water which usually comes in about 20-80ppm. This specific water in the pictures came about 80ppm, which I gave nutrients/additives to get to 230ppm. After day waking up in the morning, I came to find the ppm at 270ppm. I then added some more water to raise the level about half up the net basket with Cal/Mag 1/ml. Twenty four hours later, the ppm is at 350ppm, with a constant 5.7-5.8ph reading in all the buckets.
* Clones Age Total is about 2 weeks/14 days

Room- 72F
Humidity- 42%- working on raising this

My undercurrent system should be ready next week and I want a good healthy root system before I put these girls in there

Edit- I cleaned off the white panda lining on the buckets

 

[NWElite89]

Day 3 Update


Been watching the ppm slowly rise over the past 48 hours and doing some research, I decided to drain my buckets and re-fill with a less potent nutrient mix. My tap water came out at 001 ppm which is the lowest I have ever seen it. I mixed Aqua Flakes at 5ml of A/B in each bucket and also threw in 2ml of Cal/Mag. PPM's are sitting at 210ppm currently right now. Next weekend is when the under current should be up and running and switching these plants over there. Just working on some final measurements, and waiting for the Danner pump to arrive.


Room Conditions

Room Temp- 70F
Humidity- 40%
Water Temp- 64
Ph- 5.8- 6.0

 

[NWElite89]

Day 6 update

Plant seem to be responding much better. I added a quart of ph plain tap at 5.8, and the ppms have been holding steady at 240ppm, so I assume they are eating? Im even seeing a tap root coming out of the small Acapulco Gold. Here are the current temperatures of the room. Also put in an extra fan in the room to get this circulated and really breeze in there. Going to change there water out tomorrow bump up the food intake on them. Uploaded a few pictures of the current status, and some topping that I have done to the Critical Kush.

Room Temp- 70F
Humidity- 40%
Ph 5.7-6.0
PPM 210-240ppm

 

[A-Roe]

Whats up NWElite89 glad to have you here. First thing that I have noticed from your room is that your girls look a little mad at you. I see you wrapped your buckets in foil thats a plus, but did you wrap them in black tape before you put the foil over them (it acts as an insulation). And also I really dont think that you have enough air pumping into the water, this is my opinion by looking at your root growth over the past week. One more thing if I were you I would cover the top of my lid with some foil you dont want light leaking through down into your water cause if that happens you can be on the look out for brown sludge. If you have any other question let me know Ill be stopping through to keep up with your progress, BTW I got two plants that I'm throwing into the stand-alone buckets this next round which starts on Mar 3.

 

[NWElite89]

Thanks for the Feedback A-Roe. Yeah, I am working some vital important equipment upgrades that need to be addressed ASAP. My air pump, along with air-stones will be changed out this weekend, because my under-current should be built by then. I usually have a least a cover over the buckets, and the garage floor acts as my chiller, which keeps my temps between at 65-68. I really thought I had lost these clones when all my air-stones had failed, but im glad to see this new growth over the past week. Yes it could be more, but its at least showing progress. Cant wait for the roots to hit the hit the water, gonna blow up !

 

[DYNAMIX]

hey good luck with your grow lad im sure you,l turn them around in no time plenty of good guys n gals on here to steer you in the rite direction! atb ill be lurkin!as alwayz nuff respect...

 

[NWElite89]

Took the Advice of A-Roe and wrapped the tops with the foil tape until I ran out. My danner pump arrived in the mail today, so I got started on building my Under-current and now got to the part where its testing for leaks and flow. Plants look well and keep thriving with more and more roots popping out. Going to hopefully have the Under-current done by this coming weekend and up and running, and hopefully at that time do a fresh res change.

Room Temp- 70F
Humidity- 42%
Water Temp- 65-67

 

[NWElite89]

Day 10 Update:

Finally built my DIY Undercurrent and put it in my room, and everything is looking really good. Did a 24 hour pump test to ensure that it was leak proof and also put some bleach in there for 24 hours as well, and let it the lamps sterilize in the morning. Put my plants in, with the water level at the net-pots and and put week 2 of nutrients in. Ran H&G Aqua Flakes Week 2 at 1/4 strength. My ppms are at 200 right now, even know its the same ppm food it was last week, I've heard that with the under-current "less is more" so I'd rather start small and from there I can add more nutrients If need be. Still need to finish up putting the reflective tape on the outside, but I'll try for that tomorrow. My smallest plant (Acapulco gold) has finally got some roots and is shown in the pic below.

Room Temp- 73.8F
Humidity- 40%
PPM- 200,
Tap Water- 40ppm

 

[NWElite89]

Day 14 update-

Under-current is going well and the plants have responded to it slowly, but still growing. I realized I needed more air with the larger buckets, so I ordered a Danner Ap-60 pump along with Hyrdofarms 4 inch round air-stone to solve this problem. I am hoping that items will come on this coming Tuesday, along with a water/nutrient change out. The PH has been sitting at 5.8 steady, and the PPM's have been sitting at 200-210ppm for about 3 days now. Another thing on the list, is to get a chiller. I have been running 5 gallon buckets and using the concrete floor to cool down the water. It worked throughout the whole entire grow cycle last time, and the water would have to be changed every 7 days or so, but needless to say, I was able to complete a grow without any root rot issues. Still trying to track down a chiller for a decent price, but until then the 1 gallon frozen jugs in the epi-center, along with alternating the 600 watt lights the temperature in the system has been sitting between 66-69F. Only problem is those jugs only cool down the water for about 4 hours and then you have to replace them. Its just a work in progress, but I believe just changing out the whole air delivery in the system, will make a huge difference, in moving the water., and provided a better nutrient uptake for the plants. Chiller will hopefully be here within a 1 week.

Room Temp- 71-75
Humidity 40%
PPM- 200-210ppm

 

[NWElite89]

Day 16 Update-

Since the last update, my water temperatures were spiking to almost 71F overnight in the last 48 hours. So I decided I needed to do a water change out/nutrient. Had a couple spills with connecting the hose and draining it, seemed like it would just always leak. About half they system pored onto my floor, which was fun moping up by the way:).....NOT! Anyway, I finally found a smaller length of hose and cut it to my specs, not to mention it didnt have any kinks in it, which was very nice. Drainage took about 12 minutes or so, which was a lot faster than I had anticipated. Gave them week 3 nutrients on the House and Garden Chart, or 6.5ML/G. Ran it on 1/4 strength again, but this time no Cal/Mag. Water from the outside tap, was about 80ppm or so, and mixed with the nutrients brought it up to 250ppm. Came back about 7 hours or later and the ppm were sitting at 270pmm, which I figured was probably the system finally settling down. Fast forward another 12 hours, and the PPM's haven't changed in and the ph is keeping stable. Plants look happy and the roots looked good after new water. Super excited for my air pump to arrive this week, along with the air-stones. Cant wait to give these girls some serious Oxygen.

*Keep in mind, I still don't have a chiller, and just cooling the epi-center by 1 gallon frozen jugs, every 6-8 hours, until i get a chiller.*

Room Temp- 72-75
Humidity- 37-45%
Water Temp- 65-68

 

[NWElite89]

Day 17 Update-

My new 4" round air-stones arrived, so I put them in each of the grow modules and within in seconds noticed some improvement from the old Top Fins. I realize that these are brand new, so they should put out a little more air, because of not being clogged or dirty. Hoping my air pump arrives tomorrow, even though Fed-Ex is terribly bad about updating there shipment info on their website. I wrapped the return line, with the reflective tape and temps seem to be holding more steady at 65.5-67 with two frozen 1 gallon jugs in the epi-center over an 8 hour period. Ill double check that reading with tomorrows reading and see if there was difference between the days. The lights only go off for 4 hours in the middle of the night, to help keep the temperature in check. Some new growth has been showing and the plants have been holding with there ppms at 250-260ppm with only PH only going to 6.00, so they must be eating. I also took the opportunity to start LST'ing the plant and being to open up that plant canopy, and lowered the lights (1200W) down 3 inches to make them at 15".

Re-cap

Room Temp 74
Water Temp 65.5- 67.7
Humidity- 40%
PPM 250-260
PH 5.8-6.0

 

[NWElite89]

Day 18 Update-

My Danner AP-60 came in the mail FINALLY! I had no idea that the pump would come with a plastic manifold for a 15 port application. I only needed 8 and there was no shut-off valve on the plastic manifold, so I decided to use a chrome 8 port I bought from pet-smart a while back. Had to make a few adapters from hoses to down-size properly, but it seems to work wonders. This thing has rolling boil, and is super quite. I kind of expected some noise being a commercial style pump, but it has so far working good. It seems to have some heat coming from it after a few hours of use, so I put some panda plastic around it to help block it from the HID lights, but still provide enough air flow from the fans to help keep it cool. I have a feeling my roots will bounce back even more, now that there is more D.O. (Dissolved Oxygen) in the water. Even the smaller AG, has seems some a good new growth in the last 6 hours. I'm sure these plants will be eating up these nutrients like no tomorrow. Water is staying between 67-68, so the ice water jugs must be working. PH rose to 5.9 while the ppm went down to 240-250ppm, so I think i might have found a good sweat spot.

Picture- Acapulco gold (topped, LST)
Picture 2- Liberty Haze Roots/New Airstone
Picture 3- Danner Ap-60/Chrome Manifold

 

[NWElite89]

Day 20 Update-

After doing some more research on the farm about water levels, I decided that my air pump in conjunction with my water level is (Water logging) my system and therefore not taking up the nutrients at a more efficient rate. Currently they were about a 1/4 up the net-pot so I decided to drain a little bit of water out of it, to make it closer to that 1" area. Plants are looking strong and have good green robust color and I am very happy to see that the air pump is making a difference. PPM's have been switching between 240-230, and the PH is sitting right at 5.7, so i bumped it up to 5.8. Water temperature is sitting comfortably at 67-68, and is being chilled by the water jugs. Hoping to get that soon, especially for summer coming around the corner. I have noticed since using the chrome manifold, there is some heat coming from the pump that is being transferred into the lines making the air (hot or warmer) than I would expect. I currently have shield over the pump as we speak to help keep the light off of it, along with a recirculating fan to help keep the air moving and not stagnant. Been thinking about getting some DM-Zone in the my system to help with the root development and help any bacteria that may contribute to my brown roots, along with getting a new manifold for my air pump, or possibly moving it (still up in there air). In the past 4 days the ppm have gone down about 30ppm or so, and I may be doing a flush/change out early and go with week 3 schedule of veg at 1/4 strength again.

1st picture- Acapulco Gold- 10 inches or so
2nd picture- Current Readings
3rd picture- Front Row- Critical Kush ML- Sour Haze MR- Liberty Haze, Back Row- Acapulco Gold

 

[A-Roe]

Okay bro you looking good, but the brown roots is something we need to fix. Hygrozyme is the best thing out there imo to help eat some of that bad shit out of there and also I'm really thinking that you do not have enough air flow going into those buckets. They look to be a min. of 10 gal maybe 15 so that AP60 is not going to cut it you should've went with the 100 and I still dont think that would cut it. I have the EcoAir 3 and I only run 3 buckets off of it (2 air stones per bucket).

 

[A-Roe]

by the way if that little girl in the back ground roots are brown she might not recover.

 

[NWElite89]

She actually has a lot of clear roots. I was noticing on some of the older plants, they had some brownish roots, but on further inspection, all the new roots have a nice white color to them, ill see if I cant get some pictures of some before and afters on here. She was always the runt of the group, I wanted to kill it off, but i decided to keep it and use it for learning purposes. I will definitely will be taking clones off the larger AG, and some off the larger Critical Kush. Really excited to see how the yield turns out on those

 

[NWElite89]

Day 21 Update

Went to the hydro store this morning and got some Hygrozyme, like you had suggested A-Roe. Drained my system, and had put in Weeks 3 of Aqua Flakes at roughly 8ml (7.5 on chart) with 56 gallons of water in the system, compared to the last two being at 70 gallons. I wanted to get that water line at 1" below the netpot, so I re-measured everything and found a suitable line that matched perfect. This will also help me when I put my float valve/reservoir later this week. I put Hygrozyme at 1/4 strength~roughly 110ml or so in the system. Overall, this be a change of about 40-50 ppm change from last weeks nutes in the system. My hope is to see improvement in my roots and I don't get any foam in the system that I have heard some people using Hygrozyme in water culture. Ill post some more pictures on here of the root system.As of right now my here is what my system is currently sitting at within of about 4 hours since I put nutes in.

Room Temp 73.2
Humidity- 40
Water Temp- 65
PPM-320
Tap Water- 80ppm

Picture 2- Critical Kush
Picture 3- Liberty Haze

 

[UCMENOW]

Hygrozyme with only make the situation worse in my opinion.


Drain the system and replace with dilute base nutes and something like worm casting tea to get some recovery.

 

[NWElite89]

@UCMENOW-
Ive been reading into the EWC, just in the last few hours, if this hygrozyme doesnt work out in the next week or so, I will definetly be going this option. I have heard both positive and negative with hygro, but ill give it a shot. I just did a full change on everything and im curious to know how my levels will fluctuate.

 

[NWElite89]

Day 22 Update-

24 hours after the nutrient change out, nothing has changed on the readings, PH sat at 5.7-5.8, PPMS were 320ppm and the water never reached above 67.8. It seems as though the CK's had some vibrant growth, or at least they look they do.:) Even both the hazes are liking it as well, but I have noticed that both the AG's looked kinda gloomy, still all green plants, but just looked kinda "glum" Roots look about the same, if not better on most of the plants. I'll wait a few more days and re-check the progress and evaluate from there. Plants are about 13-15 inches from the canopy, which I'm really hoping I see the "explosive growth" here in the next week or two, assuming that my roots get healthier. I have noticed lowering the water level has definitely made a difference in cooling it with the frozen water jugs. Almost tempted to turn up the ballast to 750Watts, but I might save that flowering. Until, then here are some pictures. 1st R- Kushes, 2nd R- Hazes, 3rd R-Golds.