S
smokestack23
- 438
- 18
YAY!! My FIRST post!
A little background. I'm 40 something. Been growing since people started using HIDs...so...like almost 30 years. I've done it in everything from peat, pearlite, rockwool ebb&flow, I even had a dwc (direct Water Culture) set-up about 20 years ago..before there was such an acronym.
That dwc system was pretty cool and it turns out..quite ahead of it's time. I built a 4'X7' poly lined res out of 2X6 lumber right on the floor. I made a cover for it out of that perforated peg board stuff (you know, the stuff you hang wrenches and tools upon out in the garage). I took a 2-1/4" holesaw and cut about a hundred holes in it. I then took styrofoam cups, poked a hole in the bottom of each, inserted a piece of lantern wick, pearlite and a clone. Had a little giant submersible pump recirculating nutes in the res. I put 5X400W sodiums over it.
I came up with the idea because years before I did a bucket in a bucket set-up. The top bucket was full of pearlite and a chunk of 3/4" diameter cotton wick which hung into the bottom bucket. Kinda a primitive dwc I guess. It worked incredibly well. My partner had bought an 8 module drip outfit with lava rock and my McGyver wick/dwc pails blew his system AWAY.
WELLL...the table full that I made, the one I described above, of course got slimed and full of pythium and whatever other stinky brown slimy nastyness. All those wee holes let WAY too much light in. Everything died. It's too bad that I cheaped-out on the cover. Had I bought something light-proof, it may have worked and may have been the first dwc system.
So ANYWAY...I've always been of the SOG school (again...even when it was "cool" to use vertically mounted 1K Halides with HUGE parabolic reflectors over a few 8' tall plants. As of December though, I got a permit!! WOOHOO. Problem is, it's only for 15 plants..not real conducive to SOG. I've been researching DWC for MONTHS...and, btw, most of my "DWC" google searches bring me here. GREAT site!!!
I've been "ramping-up" for quite a while now. Had a few strains growing already but ordered some more beans (Big BudXWhite Widow, HazeXCheeze, Ice Kush), a few more lights, a can, fan and ducting (back in the day the only thing for odour control was an ozone gen-new, or lighting a rocket everytime someone knocked on the door), air pumps, tubs, netpots, fittings...blah blah blah.
OK...I'll cut to the chase. I have 2-4 "pod" rdwc systems staggered a month apart. Just kicked the first 4 into flowering today. I have been using store bought RO water. Wellll...about 2 weeks ago I had a mishap. One of my feedlines decided to feed the floor dumping 35 gallons of expensive nute water onto the floor and...the whole town ran out of bottled water (snow storm) so I had to use tap water.
Our water is around 350ppm and almost 8ph. I had about 10 gals sitting in pails for a few days (de-chlorinating). Needless to say, I had to give the girls a batch of tap water and nutes (and SM90). Within about a day my ladies started showing some Mg def. Kinda...had rust spots and necrosis. No yellowing really and no purple stems so it kinda threw me for a bit of a loop but I foliar fed Mg and held back the necrosis. I figured that a Calcium toxicity was locking out the Mg.
The next day I checked the roots of one and they were turning tan coloured (yes I'm Canadian...it's coloured not colored lol). There was no stink or slime but there was some brown shit on the pails around the high water mark (white pails with ali tape). RESEARCH time...man...this internet thing sure makes life easier...it didn't USED to be like this boueee!
So, I figured maybe some brown algae starting. All I had was SM90 and could get H2O2..knowing that they would do nothing against algae. I also double wrapped the pails with black/white poly...in case there was light leaking. Checked the other plants and they too had the brown roots. It got progressively worse as the days passed.I ordered some Great White (still isnt here yet).
The nute solution's ph and ppm were staying stable but the level wasn't going down. They weren't really growing.
3 days ago I got some RO water finally. I dumped the system and cleaned everything with H2O2 and replaced the solution with RO solution. Immediately they started to grow like mofos again and all the new growth was nice and green.
Last night I nervously took a look at the roots and, while the brown ones are still there and brown, there is MASSIVE new healthy white root growth. Oh..I'm using Holland's Secret nutes with SM90 and nothing else.
So...it was ALL because of the tap water!! Phosphates maybe??
The MORAL is...brown roots don't ALWAYS mean brown algae or root rot or pythium or whatever other root problem you can list. They don't mean everything is fine but you don't necessarily have to freak out TOO badly. Now let's see what's NEXT! Ths DWC business really puts out but it can be pretty tricky if everything isnt going perfectly.
So...back to explosive growth. They're under2X1K hps and 2 600W hps. One 1K is on a light tracker. All verts hanging amongst the plants not over them. Each pail has 2X 3/4" outlets and is top fed (kinda like a drip but pouring) by 2X 1/4 lines. ALL the tubing has foam pipe insulation on it. Res hits a MAX of 71deg...room hits 80deg. Res is in adjacent room. No chiller. I have a 55W air pump feeding a sintered round stone in each bucket and res for each 4 unit systems. No CO2. Very simple and working very well so far.
I'll post some pics when I get a chance. Maybe I'll make a picture diary on here.
So yeah...how do you do, glad to be here, thanks for all the invaluable info and...WOOHOO!!!!!
A little background. I'm 40 something. Been growing since people started using HIDs...so...like almost 30 years. I've done it in everything from peat, pearlite, rockwool ebb&flow, I even had a dwc (direct Water Culture) set-up about 20 years ago..before there was such an acronym.
That dwc system was pretty cool and it turns out..quite ahead of it's time. I built a 4'X7' poly lined res out of 2X6 lumber right on the floor. I made a cover for it out of that perforated peg board stuff (you know, the stuff you hang wrenches and tools upon out in the garage). I took a 2-1/4" holesaw and cut about a hundred holes in it. I then took styrofoam cups, poked a hole in the bottom of each, inserted a piece of lantern wick, pearlite and a clone. Had a little giant submersible pump recirculating nutes in the res. I put 5X400W sodiums over it.
I came up with the idea because years before I did a bucket in a bucket set-up. The top bucket was full of pearlite and a chunk of 3/4" diameter cotton wick which hung into the bottom bucket. Kinda a primitive dwc I guess. It worked incredibly well. My partner had bought an 8 module drip outfit with lava rock and my McGyver wick/dwc pails blew his system AWAY.
WELLL...the table full that I made, the one I described above, of course got slimed and full of pythium and whatever other stinky brown slimy nastyness. All those wee holes let WAY too much light in. Everything died. It's too bad that I cheaped-out on the cover. Had I bought something light-proof, it may have worked and may have been the first dwc system.
So ANYWAY...I've always been of the SOG school (again...even when it was "cool" to use vertically mounted 1K Halides with HUGE parabolic reflectors over a few 8' tall plants. As of December though, I got a permit!! WOOHOO. Problem is, it's only for 15 plants..not real conducive to SOG. I've been researching DWC for MONTHS...and, btw, most of my "DWC" google searches bring me here. GREAT site!!!
I've been "ramping-up" for quite a while now. Had a few strains growing already but ordered some more beans (Big BudXWhite Widow, HazeXCheeze, Ice Kush), a few more lights, a can, fan and ducting (back in the day the only thing for odour control was an ozone gen-new, or lighting a rocket everytime someone knocked on the door), air pumps, tubs, netpots, fittings...blah blah blah.
OK...I'll cut to the chase. I have 2-4 "pod" rdwc systems staggered a month apart. Just kicked the first 4 into flowering today. I have been using store bought RO water. Wellll...about 2 weeks ago I had a mishap. One of my feedlines decided to feed the floor dumping 35 gallons of expensive nute water onto the floor and...the whole town ran out of bottled water (snow storm) so I had to use tap water.
Our water is around 350ppm and almost 8ph. I had about 10 gals sitting in pails for a few days (de-chlorinating). Needless to say, I had to give the girls a batch of tap water and nutes (and SM90). Within about a day my ladies started showing some Mg def. Kinda...had rust spots and necrosis. No yellowing really and no purple stems so it kinda threw me for a bit of a loop but I foliar fed Mg and held back the necrosis. I figured that a Calcium toxicity was locking out the Mg.
The next day I checked the roots of one and they were turning tan coloured (yes I'm Canadian...it's coloured not colored lol). There was no stink or slime but there was some brown shit on the pails around the high water mark (white pails with ali tape). RESEARCH time...man...this internet thing sure makes life easier...it didn't USED to be like this boueee!
So, I figured maybe some brown algae starting. All I had was SM90 and could get H2O2..knowing that they would do nothing against algae. I also double wrapped the pails with black/white poly...in case there was light leaking. Checked the other plants and they too had the brown roots. It got progressively worse as the days passed.I ordered some Great White (still isnt here yet).
The nute solution's ph and ppm were staying stable but the level wasn't going down. They weren't really growing.
3 days ago I got some RO water finally. I dumped the system and cleaned everything with H2O2 and replaced the solution with RO solution. Immediately they started to grow like mofos again and all the new growth was nice and green.
Last night I nervously took a look at the roots and, while the brown ones are still there and brown, there is MASSIVE new healthy white root growth. Oh..I'm using Holland's Secret nutes with SM90 and nothing else.
So...it was ALL because of the tap water!! Phosphates maybe??
The MORAL is...brown roots don't ALWAYS mean brown algae or root rot or pythium or whatever other root problem you can list. They don't mean everything is fine but you don't necessarily have to freak out TOO badly. Now let's see what's NEXT! Ths DWC business really puts out but it can be pretty tricky if everything isnt going perfectly.
So...back to explosive growth. They're under2X1K hps and 2 600W hps. One 1K is on a light tracker. All verts hanging amongst the plants not over them. Each pail has 2X 3/4" outlets and is top fed (kinda like a drip but pouring) by 2X 1/4 lines. ALL the tubing has foam pipe insulation on it. Res hits a MAX of 71deg...room hits 80deg. Res is in adjacent room. No chiller. I have a 55W air pump feeding a sintered round stone in each bucket and res for each 4 unit systems. No CO2. Very simple and working very well so far.
I'll post some pics when I get a chance. Maybe I'll make a picture diary on here.
So yeah...how do you do, glad to be here, thanks for all the invaluable info and...WOOHOO!!!!!
