MelonFarmer
- 68
- 8
Hi guys and girls. After a succesful outdoor grow, my first grow, and winter moving in I thought I'd check out hydro. RDWC more specifically.
Being totally fresh to the hydro scene I bought kits to make life easier. It included a Secret Jardin HS100 tent( 100cm by 100cm, 4 inch inline fan/filter kit, two 130watt CLF lights (6400k and 2700k), a Lushpro 45 watt red/blue LED panel, Advanced Nutrients Ph perfect 3 part nutes, timer ratchets ducting etc. The DWC kit came with a black 25-30 liter res with 4 net pots, hydroton, a submerged pump with 4 drippers, black pipes and a 6(ish)cm airstone.
I've been buying toys to add to the setup including: PH and PPM meters, both HM-Digital, with storage solution and PH up and down, Liquid Orca, a 30.5cm airstone and three thermometer/hygrometers.
I failed at ordering seeds online and haven't tried again yet. My outdoor grow was bagseeds and I really like the smoke so bagseeds it is until I can work out online ordering.
I know nothing but I read a lot and I want to learn more.
I'm going to post pics and leave notes as I go, more for my own record than anything, but I invite anyone and everyone to tell me what I'm doing wrong!
Thanks for taking the time :)
Peace
What was your issue ordering online? Just curious...
Make sure you buy a chiller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1/13 hp chillers are about 250-280 bucks and absolutely required for RDWC :) especially with summer here. make sure you keep your organics out of dwc , proper aeration and change your res weekly and you will be goooooood
and for 4 stones and an aerated reservoir you need a commercial eco air 5 minimum.
Sounds like you have it locked down. I'm doing an indoor bag seed grow, in week 6 flower. Having height issues. 6 ladies, 6 different strains in a 3x4ft. nook. Tried to keep them growing even for lighting issues. But in the end of stretch the sativa's jumped 12in. above the indies. So the indies are at a disadvantage. Doing supplemental lighting to help them out a little. I planted six in hope for two ladies. The grow gods blessed me with six. It's a jungle of buds in my room. Doing four clones next grow taking the mystery out of the outcome.
Yeah right. Peace
They wouldn't accept my card so I tried to do a money gram and they money was never recieved. The teller who filled out the form assumed I had misspelled the address and took it upon themselves to correct it for me. I assume that's why it got lost, now I'm to paranoid to follow it up.
I think I'll send cash in the mail next time.
I haven't bought a chiller yet as winters can be brutal here. The water has been sitting between 18-21C, under 70f but I am getting some brown build up in the drippers, on top of the rockwool and on my roots. It started in the first week in plain tap water and I have changed the res twice since then and added 1/4 strength nutes, reccommended Orca amount and PH down. I snipped brown roots off when I changed the res but its come back on the new growth. I've read about using h2o2 but I hoped the bennies would take over and clear it up.
The drippers are for top feeding, I was hoping to be able to turn them off by now but I keep having to snip roots so they arejt all in the water. It may be best to start fresh :s
I'm also having problems with PH. Where I live water is quite soft at only 24ppm (not sure if I'm using the meter properly, it has several features I don't understand but I'm reading 0.5 scale reading) and ph is around 8. I ph it down to about 5.5 but it always climbs back up to at least 7 sometimes 8 by the next day.
One seedling has 3 leaves at each node and is growing slowly, I'll dump it soon but my friend has a soft spot for runts and wants to adopt it from me lol. The other 3 all have brown spots that look like cal/mag issues to my untrained eye, possibly caused by ph?
I will post photos when I have some time, hopefully tonight.
Can you elaborate please? I don't quite understand.
I think you are saying I need more airstones, I only plan on taking 1 or 2 plants all the way, do you think I'll be ok with one stone?
I think he was saying you need a bigger more capable air pump. They aren't real expensive on Amazon, a commercial 950 GPH pump is something like 35-40 bucks if I remember correctly.
Remember the colder the water is (to a certain point) the more oxygen it can hold and the more effective the pump is. You can also add some diluted 33% food grade H202 (hydrogen Peroxide) to the water and it will help kill of the bacteria and adds lots of oxygen. However, if your using live reservoir conditioners (good bacteria) you can't use H202 because it will kill off the good bacteria as well. Personally I have had better luck with H202 than all the reservoir concoctions but that is just me, others have had very good luck with them. I think the water conditions people have (if they use tap water) vary widely and may impact the way these reservoir conditioners work. I have water that comes out of the tap at 15 ppm so it for all intents and purposes is equivalent to RO water.
Dee
Yeah, I would still go bigger on the pump and have 2 large air stones in the reservoir. Also, it looks like you left the wrappers on the rockwool. Those should have been removed so roots can poke through the sides and water can get in. It looks like your over-saturating the rockwool. This should be corrected. I use drip rings that go around the perimeter of the rockwool cube so they aren't drowning and it encourages the roots to expand to get more water. I am afraid your seedlings might stem rot. Did you leave the wrappers on the rockwool like I think I am seeing?
Oh yeah, and the H202 effects only last about 3 days but don't use more than you need. Crack the reservoir open and take a big sniff. Smell OK or like a healthy aquarium? that is how I do my day to day check on water quality as weird as that sounds. Your nose will smell some problems pretty early and there is always a little algae in the water over time that if it doesn't get out of control is somewhat normal and there will always be some bacteria but use you nose to detect it. If I smell something in the reservoir and I think it is going sideways I just drain and refill and redo the nutes. I change my reservoir about every week to week and a half and there are some guys who don't change it ever during the flower cycle. My water quality suffers if I try no water changes and I worry about salt build up. Once I did it and the water I drained at the end of the cycle looked like, well pretty disgusting like sludgey bilge water.
Dee
Wow;. I just jumped from soil to coco. Bought some meter too. Is this my future:? , yeah of coarse it is. Peace and all good fortune in your grow.
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