Wise and knowledgeable expert advise for DWC at altitude.

[IamN2pot]

Man I don’t know how the clone found have ended up that way. Yes it is hygroscopic but you said it was sealed with no holes. Also even if there was a hole it shouldn’t attract enough water to make it puddle.

Personally there are too many unknowns for me to trust it.

If cloned is what you have for now use it until the replacement shows up would be what I would do.

Well, I guess I can offer up their explaination and responce to my inquiry. I will save you my responce to them, in short, it's hard to promote a company that won't support a customer UNLESS you purchase directly from them???? Seriously??? But to purchase a replacement through them, this cost $51+ shipped, Amazon is $33! Want to price match? They have not responded to my request for THEM to replace THEIR product., or price match it. Hmmmm? You decide if you think this is standing behind your product???

From Jack's: (name removed for his privacy)

The magnesium nitrate in our clone feed makes it easily soluble but also hygroscopic so it takes it moisture from the air. That batch was unfortunately made on a humid day in July of 2021 and did not have nearly the shelf life of our current batches. We have made an active effort to strategically blend these formulas when the conditions are more favorable and have already replaced Esbenshades stock of 15-6-17 at their physical location in Pennsylvania. They must not have replaced their stock for their online retailers. Incidents like this are exactly why we tell our customers to use caution when purchasing our products through third party retailers because we cannot guarantee the quality or age of the product.



We’re working with them to get this resolved so there shouldn’t be a need to reach out to them unless you would like a replacement.



Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions
B**** H*******

Technical Support Specialist

JR PETERS INC

6656 Grant Way | Allentown, PA 18106

866-522-5752 | [mailto:b********@]b***********@jrpeters.com

 

[Moe.Red]

Man that's frustrating. I've not seen this kind of problem with Jack's posted before, but I'll sure be on the lookout going forward.

I'm still amazed that that amount of water could come out of the atmosphere prior to being bagged and sealed. How did they not catch that?

 

[IamN2pot]

How did they not catch that?

Exactly! and then it's my fault for purchasing from one of their vendors. They even have a 'Store Locator" on the site! I re-ordered from another vendor on Amazon. This first bag/vendor, Amazon only offered a refund, no return. The new vendor, Amazon accepts returns, (I've learned how to check) so we'll see. Fingers crossed!

In the mean time, I'm just gonna go ahead with the CloneX for now and if/when I ever get usable Jack's Clone, I'll try it! My training tomato is growing like I want my cannabis to in a couple weeks! I've got to get it out of that tiny rooting cloner and into the RDWC. Roots are 6" and it's blooming. I'm just waiting for the Bluelab pH to finish re-hydrating. Come on noon!!!

 

[IamN2pot]

Yahoo, thing are s l o w l y moving along. The water chiller/heater I was supose to get today was delayed. A "railroad company breakdown" according to UPS. Oh well, now they say Monday. I've got frozen water bottles. I've been testing temps with the light on in the tent all day. THe water temp is running about 4-5* below canopy temp. I'm guessing that 75-76* water temp is on the high side when I have the canopy temp at 80*??? I've got the water cooled down to 72*, pH @ 5.8 and TDS on the 700 scale is 230ppm. The CloneX called for 10ml per gal for rooted cuttings. I added 50 for the 6 gal system to get the 230ppm reading. The light is running @ 50%, PPFD is 325-350 @ canopy and the DLI is just over 14. As I understand it from Dr. Bugbee, tomatoes reach saturation @ 20DLI
Soooo, my training tomato is happy in her new home, ..... and so am I
Oh, and I almost forgot to ask, should I add any epsom salt to those nutes?

THANKS again to everyone that has contributed to this thread and enhanced my understanding of DWC!!!
KEEP SHARING, PLEASE!!!

 

[Moe.Red]

Yahoo, thing are s l o w l y moving along. The water chiller/heater I was supose to get today was delayed. A "railroad company breakdown" according to UPS. Oh well, now they say Monday. I've got frozen water bottles. I've been testing temps with the light on in the tent all day. THe water temp is running about 4-5* below canopy temp. I'm guessing that 75-76* water temp is on the high side when I have the canopy temp at 80*??? I've got the water cooled down to 72*, pH @ 5.8 and TDS on the 700 scale is 230ppm. The CloneX called for 10ml per gal for rooted cuttings. I added 50 for the 6 gal system to get the 230ppm reading. The light is running @ 50%, PPFD is 325-350 @ canopy and the DLI is just over 14. As I understand it from Dr. Bugbee, tomatoes reach saturation @ 20DLI
Soooo, my training tomato is happy in her new home, ..... and so am I
Oh, and I almost forgot to ask, should I add any epsom salt to those nutes?

THANKS again to everyone that has contributed to this thread and enhanced my understanding of DWC!!!
KEEP SHARING, PLEASE!!!
View attachment 1332141

I think it is hilariously awesome that you have a training tomato.

I'm gonna start saying stuff that is my opinion on how to grow hydroponically. I will not be even an iota upset if you follow someone else's advice. I would be even less upset if it was your advice you are following. Sometimes you have to go with your gut. You will not have perfect information. Sometimes instinct is the best way to grow.

Based on the pics which can be deceiving in terms of spectrum, that looks very warm / red to me. I forget what light you have do you have any control or just a volume knob for photons? Maybe a SF200 there?

I would lift that fan up to the top of the tent for now and point it at the wall and turn on low. You need proper roots before you can turn high respiration on.

What is your lungroom conditions?

Generally the reason folks choose hydro is for the biggest yield. Just about everything you are doing with RDWC is tuning the entire atmosphere and root zone to optimal conditions for the genetics. Thats it. Then get out of its way and watch it add a node a day.

Your water temp is primarily a concern if you do not inoculate properly. We need to go thru that process and get it right. Then we may need to slow the speed down by backing off the light if the conditions in the tent are outside what this genetic is willing to tolerate. We'll figure that out together.

The symptoms of a pathogen growing in the root zone are obvious. If this were to occur, it will do so more quickly in warmer water. If you plan to at least peek in on it once a day and post up any symptoms that occur, we can react by adding H2O2 (make sure you have at least a small amount available) and some other things. You might find yourself mid grow and wishing you had waited for the chiller. That happened to SLG on his first grow if I recall.

The other potential issue with warmer water is lower O2 sats. We will tune the grow with whatever condition you find yourself in, again most likely a lower powered light setting / distance to match the respiration up top to the VPD conditions and the amount of available O2. Your growth could easily outgrow your O2 supply so we can't let that happen.

Or you could do the easy thing and install the chiller when you take out the tomato and put in the weed lol.

What you have there for water parameters other than temp are good. You really only need to mention those if there is a change. If you see a change, for example PH, it's important to look at the trend and report that. "PH dropped from 5.8 to 4.6 overnight" kinda thing.

PH can be a finicky b**** to new hydro growers, especially those with tiny water supplies. Do not be surprised to see your PH shift thru the day. It might go up to 6.2 and down to 5.5. As long as it self corrects reasonably quickly, leave it alone. IF there is a hard trend down for example, go ahead and correct it and post up the details and a clear photo of the roots. One of the greatest parts of DWC is the direct access to your roots. We get so much more info than the dirt tossers.

We will need to have pre buffered res water ready to go at room temp for your first changeout. Get the buffer mixing thing down pat in a couple of 5 gallon pails and set them aside. Running the PH up to 9 then down to 4 by adding the buffers kills most single celled organisms, which helps. What would be a good idea would be to take some small thing like aquarium bio-media out of your res and drop it in the bucket. One of 2 things will happen:

1 - there is so little nutrition in your source water that nothing but diatoms form - which are harmless
2 - there is enough food, and your killer res bacteria snuffs the rest out with it's superior friggin army. Kill!!!

Either way you win. Just keep using biological warfare like that on your water and you won't get pythium at 76*

When in doubt post a pic of the roots. It's sorta a show off to the coocoo for coco crowd.

Most of all enjoy yourself. Let this whole experience be as zen as possible. You are your own shaman growing your own, very powerful medicine. Thats pretty friggin cool, I don't care who you are.

I think it is very interesting you are using a tomato plant. I've never seen anyone do that before. Quite clever really. But if you want to swtich to weed, you are ready.

 

[IamN2pot]

That ^^^^^ post was great!!! THank you Moe for the thoughtful encouragement! And as for my 'training tomato', that goes back to my OP, where I spoke about practicing on leafy green veggies. You have also been most accomidating with myself and others and as you said, "...I don't care who you are."! You help ALL of us, reguardless of who we are or where we are in growing knowledge, ...hahaha, or lack of!!!! (I'm speaking for myself)
OK, let me answer your questions and maybe post where I'm planning on going with all this.

any control or just a volume knob for photons? Maybe a SF200 there?

You nailed it! An original SF2000, so no color control.

I would lift that fan up to the top of the tent for now and point it at the wall and turn on low. You need proper roots before you can turn high respiration on.

What is your lungroom conditions?

It was/is running on low and is now turned towards the tent wall, but still blowing upward from the floor. The clamp on it will only hold if suspended from from the hanging bar(s) in the top, blowing the warm air down and over the hot light towards the DWC. I'm here to learn! so correct me, but it seemed to me it was better to blow cool air up and out, rather than warm air down to recirculate???
The lung room for this little DWC is the spare bedroom/house. We have the the thermostat set to 74*, are running 2 humidifiers to keep humidity around 45%. Winter here in Pueblo is DRY!

If you plan to at least peek in on it once a day and post up any symptoms that occur, we can react by adding H2O2 (make sure you have at least a small amount available) and some other things.

LOL, at least daily. Right now it's more like every 2 hours. Like a new born baby. I'll get some H202. Will the 3% work or do I need the strong stuff?

You might find yourself mid grow and wishing you had waited for the chiller.

I have this on on it's way. Should be delivered tomorrow or Monday. https://www.ebay.com/itm/165910371215 It claims to be a chiller and heater. We'll see when it gets here. THey're new, but are all over ebay and Amazon. Hope they work.

If you see a change, for example PH, it's important to look at the trend and report that. "PH dropped from 5.8 to 4.6 overnight" kinda thing.

PH can be a finicky b**** to new hydro growers, especially those with tiny water supplies. Do not be surprised to see your PH shift thru the day. It might go up to 6.2 and down to 5.5. As long as it self corrects reasonably quickly, leave it alone.

Good to know! It certainly has been drifting, but nothing radical. Went to bed at 5.7, woke up to 5.9. I tried to lower and over shot to 5.6 so added a triffle of silica to bring it back to 5.8. Since, it's drifted back down to 5.7 during the day, so I'll let it ride for tonight and see tomorrow morning.

Your water temp is primarily a concern if you do not inoculate properly. We need to go thru that process and get it right.

I inoculated as you suggested in a previous post. I added the 5 ml in a 16oz cup of res water, soaked/dunked the roots (6" long) for about 2 minutes. planted the 'trainer' in the hydrocorals and poured the Orca solution into the res. Was that right??? Water temp has been kept between 70-74*.

We will need to have pre buffered res water ready to go at room temp for your first changeout. Get the buffer mixing thing down pat in a couple of 5 gallon pails and set them aside. Running the PH up to 9 then down to 4 by adding the buffers kills most single celled organisms, which helps. What would be a good idea would be to take some small thing like aquarium bio-media out of your res and drop it in the bucket. One of 2 things will happen:

1 - there is so little nutrition in your source water that nothing but diatoms form - which are harmless
2 - there is enough food, and your killer res bacteria snuffs the rest out with it's superior friggin army. Kill!!!

Either way you win. Just keep using biological warfare like that on your water and you won't get pythium at 76*

Not sure I have all this straight in my head.
"pH up to 9, then down to 4", to kill bad bacteria?? OK, then back to 5.8, but is time or temp important for this bad single cell massacre?
Do I need to keep my 'extra' storage reservoir aerated?
nutes to feed my "killer res bacteria" inoculation?
It's in the garage right now, aerated and @ 60ish*, but I have a 300w submerable heater on it's way for Monday or Tue delivery.
Future plans will require at least 15gal in reserve for water changes in the 4x5gal system, so I have a 17gal tote 3/4 full with RO in the garage. Should I be giving that the pH sterilzation treatment and inoculate it ASAP???
Oh, and thanks for the 76* redline for pythium. I'm thinking along the lines of SLG with error on the cold side of temps. Especially in this sharp learning curve! A little slower growth, heck slower everything on a first grow should be helpful?
Any special brand of "bio-media" to transfer the good bacteria from one res to another?

Most of all enjoy yourself. Let this whole experience be as zen as possible.

with teachers and helpers like yourself, SLG, Steamroller, AquaMan and all the others that have contibuted, if I'm not enjoying myself, well, that would only leave MYSELF to blame. THIS IS FUN!!!! and you guys are GREAT!!!!!
Stay tuned, believe me, it's gonna get REAL fun shortly. My 2, 4x4 tents, one with the 5gal x4 system is just waiting for temps to get a tiny bit warmer. I expect to be popping 12 of Todd's (Authentic Genetics) Original Haze (purple pheno) x NL#2 in about 10 days for a grow journal and will of course continue to ask for and use your experiance and advice!

​

One of the greatest parts of DWC is the direct access to your roots. We get so much more info than the dirt tossers.

and if you're still reading this, here is a funny story from my past about "dirt tossers" First off Moe, I resemble that remark . Back in the mid 90's, I was honing my farming skills in Amsterdam. It's where I met Todd (Authenic Genetics) and we've been friends since, but back to 'dirt'. I had been into Possitronics several times buying grow supplies. Lights, ventilation, but the first time I went into Possitronics to buy dirt, hillarious! I'm at the counter and say, "I need to get about 15 bags of your dirt for my new garden". Cool as a cucumber, dude behind the counter grabs a broom and begins sweeping the floor, mumbling about how long it was going to take to sweep up 15 bags of dirt. What is he doing, I'm thinking??? Then with a rye grin he says "if you want some "earth" for you garden, we have it pre-bagged and ready to go, but if you want 'dirt', we're gonna be here a while!!! I busted up along with him! american terminoligy. In the Netherlands you garden in "earth" and you sweep up "dirt" from the floor. So if you insist: we're "earth tossers". Hahahaha!!!!

 

[Moe.Red]

That ^^^^^ post was great!!! THank you Moe for the thoughtful encouragement! And as for my 'training tomato', that goes back to my OP, where I spoke about practicing on leafy green veggies. You have also been most accomidating with myself and others and as you said, "...I don't care who you are."! You help ALL of us, reguardless of who we are or where we are in growing knowledge, ...hahaha, or lack of!!!! (I'm speaking for myself)
OK, let me answer your questions and maybe post where I'm planning on going with all this.


You nailed it! An original SF2000, so no color control.


It was/is running on low and is now turned towards the tent wall, but still blowing upward from the floor. The clamp on it will only hold if suspended from from the hanging bar(s) in the top, blowing the warm air down and over the hot light towards the DWC. I'm here to learn! so correct me, but it seemed to me it was better to blow cool air up and out, rather than warm air down to recirculate???
The lung room for this little DWC is the spare bedroom/house. We have the the thermostat set to 74*, are running 2 humidifiers to keep humidity around 45%. Winter here in Pueblo is DRY!


LOL, at least daily. Right now it's more like every 2 hours. Like a new born baby. I'll get some H202. Will the 3% work or do I need the strong stuff?


I have this on on it's way. Should be delivered tomorrow or Monday. https://www.ebay.com/itm/165910371215 It claims to be a chiller and heater. We'll see when it gets here. THey're new, but are all over ebay and Amazon. Hope they work.


Good to know! It certainly has been drifting, but nothing radical. Went to bed at 5.7, woke up to 5.9. I tried to lower and over shot to 5.6 so added a triffle of silica to bring it back to 5.8. Since, it's drifted back down to 5.7 during the day, so I'll let it ride for tonight and see tomorrow morning.



I inoculated as you suggested in a previous post. I added the 5 ml in a 16oz cup of res water, soaked/dunked the roots (6" long) for about 2 minutes. planted the 'trainer' in the hydrocorals and poured the Orca solution into the res. Was that right??? Water temp has been kept between 70-74*.


Not sure I have all this straight in my head.
"pH up to 9, then down to 4", to kill bad bacteria?? OK, then back to 5.8, but is time or temp important for this bad single cell massacre?
Do I need to keep my 'extra' storage reservoir aerated?
nutes to feed my "killer res bacteria" inoculation?
It's in the garage right now, aerated and @ 60ish*, but I have a 300w submerable heater on it's way for Monday or Tue delivery.
Future plans will require at least 15gal in reserve for water changes in the 4x5gal system, so I have a 17gal tote 3/4 full with RO in the garage. Should I be giving that the pH sterilzation treatment and inoculate it ASAP???
Oh, and thanks for the 76* redline for pythium. I'm thinking along the lines of SLG with error on the cold side of temps. Especially in this sharp learning curve! A little slower growth, heck slower everything on a first grow should be helpful?
Any special brand of "bio-media" to transfer the good bacteria from one res to another?



with teachers and helpers like yourself, SLG, Steamroller, AquaMan and all the others that have contibuted, if I'm not enjoying myself, well, that would only leave MYSELF to blame. THIS IS FUN!!!! and you guys are GREAT!!!!!
Stay tuned, believe me, it's gonna get REAL fun shortly. My 2, 4x4 tents, one with the 5gal x4 system is just waiting for temps to get a tiny bit warmer. I expect to be popping 12 of Todd's (Authentic Genetics) Original Haze (purple pheno) x NL#2 in about 10 days for a grow journal and will of course continue to ask for and use your experiance and advice!

​

and if you're still reading this, here is a funny story from my past about "dirt tossers" First off Moe, I resemble that remark . Back in the mid 90's, I was honing my farming skills in Amsterdam. It's where I met Todd (Authenic Genetics) and we've been friends since, but back to 'dirt'. I had been into Possitronics several times buying grow supplies. Lights, ventilation, but the first time I went into Possitronics to buy dirt, hillarious! I'm at the counter and say, "I need to get about 15 bags of your dirt for my new garden". Cool as a cucumber, dude behind the counter grabs a broom and begins sweeping the floor, mumbling about how long it was going to take to sweep up 15 bags of dirt. What is he doing, I'm thinking??? Then with a rye grin he says "if you want some "earth" for you garden, we have it pre-bagged and ready to go, but if you want 'dirt', we're gonna be here a while!!! I busted up along with him! american terminoligy. In the Netherlands you garden in "earth" and you sweep up "dirt" from the floor. So if you insist: we're "earth tossers". Hahahaha!!!!

The fan if directly on the plants in seedling/young stage can cause them issues especially with low rh. You want the air in the tent stirring but not aggressively on the plant. Later when it gets bigger that will change and you will drop the fan down under the canopy.

3% is perfect. Probably won’t use it but should alwsys have some on the shelf. Keep rotated fifo.

That chiller has the same wattage as the 1/4 hp ones I have so should be good.

On the ph - my advice is don’t chase little moves like 5.8 to 5.6. You will make yourself crazy and just dump more stuff in the res. Let it drift as long as the center of the range is around 5.8 leave it be. There are normal processes taking place it’s all good.

Sounds good on orca

Now I’m an engineer at heart and there is no system I don’t want to over control lol. So yes in a perfect world I would want my prep water aerated and temp and ph controlled and buffered and inoculated. If you want to put the time money and power into that go for it. If you don’t it’s ok too.

As far as the ph thing killing bugs, many can only grow in a certain ph range. For many single felled organism big ph change is as good at killing them as dumping in salt which causes cell ruptures due to osmotic pressure differences. None of this is stuff you need to focus on now, but 3 grows from now you will think back on this and use it to your benefit in your process. It’s a way to help sterilize without using caustics.

Bio balls in your res make a good way to transfer.

Just some cheap plastic that has lots of surface area.


I love me some northern lights that should be a good grow

And yeah I poke my fingers in the eyes of the earth tossers every chance I get but ots all in good fun. Now those idiots that grow in coco? There is no helping them.

 

[IamN2pot]

I was thinking it was about time for a Petco/Petsmart run. I need new tiny air stones for my tiny DWC cloner also. This morning I got to the trainer around 6:15. All measurements from this point forward, unless otherwise stated, are from my Bluelab pens and the ppm is set on the 700 scale. The readings were 73*, 5.6 pH and 240ppm. No, I hadn't read Moe's advice not to chase small changes, so.... you know it! But this time, no bouncy ball back and forth. I micro dosed silica until I was spot on 5.8. I added a 16oz frozen bottle into the res, and it lowered the temp to 71*. About 2 hours later, I put in the 2nd ice bottle and my temp should drop to about 69* and I'll let it rise back to 71-72* before adding another.So far, that should be around 11-noonish. This reminds me of checking a new born's diaper status every couple hours.

I've already got some of the 3% H202, so that's good. Now the objective is not to have to use it.

Interesting tidbit. My cheapo tan TDS meter is very close to my Bluelab. When I first added my nutes, 4:pm Fri, the Bluelab read 240 and the generic read 244. Next morning the Bluelab read 230 and the generic 228?? This morning, the Bluelab was back to 240 and the generic at 227. Those green and white chinese meters are reading 310-355 ppm, LOL!!! It's all good, they have the pH reading in 100th's and it's easy to see if it's drifting up or down, so I guess they're good for something, just not much!!!

...oh, and my 85% Phosphoric (SP?) acid arrived, so no more GH pH Down.

 

[Moe.Red]

The readings were 73*, 5.6 pH and 240ppm. No, I hadn't read Moe's advice not to chase small changes, so.... you know it! But this time, no bouncy ball back and forth. I micro dosed silica until I was spot on 5.8. I added a 16oz frozen bottle into the res, and it lowered the temp to 71*. About 2 hours later, I put in the 2nd ice bottle and my temp should drop to about 69* and I'll let it rise back to 71-72* before adding another.So far, that should be around 11-noonish. This reminds me of checking a new born's diaper status every couple hours.

That's all perfect. The way you are doing it by micro dosing, if you are not heavy handed with it is called titration, and is an excellent way to balance acid and base in an active system. Not that you have plants and microbes in the water, you don't want wild PH swings.

Based on the descriptions you are giving here, you got my full blessing to titrate away. Use water to pre-dilute the Up or Down, and just never cause a spike up or down. PH is like a patient's BP in the emergency room. An important metric. Establishing what it takes to keep it stable in your specific system is a great use of your time.

What are your environmental readings?

Do you have a phone app for measuring PPFD?

Do you have anything in your house that measures CO2? Like my Withings scale measures it in my house. Just curious where you are at being at elevation gasses matter more.

I've already got some of the 3% H202, so that's good. Now the objective is not to have to use it.

You will use it in between runs if you do not grow back to back.

If you are the kind of person that likes to know every setpoint or hates math, get some of these for the shelf

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

If you think your PH probe is out to lunch, litmus never fails

Amazon.com

None of those strips are necessary. Grower's choice.

Interesting tidbit. My cheapo tan TDS meter is very close to my Bluelab. When I first added my nutes, 4:pm Fri, the Bluelab read 240 and the generic read 244. Next morning the Bluelab read 230 and the generic 228?? This morning, the Bluelab was back to 240 and the generic at 227. Those green and white chinese meters are reading 310-355 ppm, LOL!!! It's all good, they have the pH reading in 100th's and it's easy to see if it's drifting up or down, so I guess they're good for something, just not much!!!

EC is a really well understood and measured setpoint through the entire manufacturing community. Because of this and mass production there is surprisingly little difference between the cheap EC probes and the good ones. There is a mass produced chip that costs pennies along with a very cheap sensor does everything an EC meter can do.

EC has to be calibrated for temp. Because the process of measuring and compensating for temp mathematically is imperfect, changes in temp (which you are inducing) will make the meters dance. If it is a cheaper meter without temp compensation, they dance a lot.

Also, there is a tolerance built in and the last number in the 22* or 35* are really meaningless.

If you want to see the trend more clearly, less dancing, switch to the 500 scale or better yet, report EC.

The PH meter accuracy is much more dependent on quality parts. More expensive meters provide better accuracy as a rule. I am fond of Bluelab for your purpose.

 

[IamN2pot]

Quick check-in this morning. Current 'trainer' conditions are: canopy temp 79*, water temp 71*. EC .4, ppm 240 (700), pH 5.8.
FYI, the water was at 5.7 again last night and dropped to 5.5 by 6 this morning. Any problem with that?
Time for a peek at the top and bottom. Lower leave are old and damaged from the Cal overdose. New growth is looking great! (IMHO)

 

[Cool_Beans]

That's cool w the tomato. My last grow I kept an extra clone on the shelf outside my tent and used it to poke w sticks so I didnt have to poke my other plants I cared about w sticks as much. Max nutes, heavy training, underwatering, heavy defoliation, etc. I'd try everything on the dummy a week before the others, or if I felt the need to tinker w a plant I would do it to that one. It fucking outgrew my plants in the tent.. I learned a lot about nutes and watering and how resilient these plants are though. Cheers.

 

[BadFish_Genetics]

Couple years ago I was toying around with DWC and Kratky, and as I knew nothing about them I started out with leafy green veggies and GH nutes. Yep, kale, spinich, lettus, basil and cilantro. The DWC easily won out. I didn't want to make major mistakes starting off with $25.ea cuttings of cannabis, so I did regular veggies. Talk about weird looks in the grow store when I started asking about nutes for basil. I'm in Colorado, LOL!!! Anyway, after some real success with the veggie DWC garden, I started my cannabis cutting in DWC. You can see both the veggies and the cutting in the picture below. So for the cutting I started using a line of nutes that I won't name, but are local from here in Colorado, and in one of the bottles were solid pieces. The phone # was listed, so I called. The advise I got stopped me in my tracts. I was first ask what kind of hydro system, so I told him DWC. He told me that I could/should strain out the solids and it would/should work fine. Then he ask where I had purchased my DWC and named a manufacturer, "X" in Cal. I said nope, I made it myself. He said that "X" had done a commercial trial of DWC in Denver and it didn't work. Reason was "because of the altitude", the water couldn't hold enough oxygen. I was in the early stages and it was easy to transplant them into soil and that's exactly what I did. No need to beat my head against a wall, I knew dirt works, LOL!!!

Now it's 2 years later and I've been given some conflicting advise. At 4700' I am slightly lower, than Denver, but only 500'? Is that enough to really make a differance? I understand a tiny bit about how a chiller/cooler can help as well as adding Hydrogen Peroxide I'm told can raise the oxygen saturation level, but is that enough??? Help! Is it a general waste of time to do a DWC at altitudes over 2500'-3000' as was suggested to my by the nute manufacturer?

Thanks for your input.
View attachment 1315786 View attachment 1315787

Hmm, imo ypu don't have to worry what the water holds at altitude because in dwc your using an airstone in each bucket so there should be plenty of oxygen at all times. Unless the pores on the roots themselves close up at different altitudes this I'm unsure of, I know an un balanced ph can cause a closing of the root pores. Do some more reading but I think you would be fine, I have a friend who lives in Steamboat springs Colorado and that's at 7,000 feet and he does Hydro in 1 of his rooms, flood and drain in another, soil in another, and drip feed in another part. He's never mentioned anything about oxygen problems to me ever. I say go for it growmie!

 

[IamN2pot]

I started getting the 4 plant system ready for final testing. I got most everything connected and ready to be connected. Time to add water, but first, I think I'll do the 9.xpH silica and down to 4.x with the new 85% Phos...Acid pH down I just got. 15 gal res = 3gr silica and 9ml pH down, right? Well, almost. That formula worked well for the orange GH pH down, but 9ml of the 85% stuff put me in the 2.6ph range. Geeezzzz!!!!
OK, let's see what an additional scoop, around 3gr of silica will do. Hahahaha, nothing! OK so now I curious, so 1 more scoop for grins and giggles, about 4gr and I did make it all the way up to 2.8pH, WooHoo!!!
Another day, another lesson learned. It's all good! practice makes perfect. Now to refill the res. I'm sure my bluberry bushes loved that acidic water!!!

 

[Aqua Man]

I started getting the 4 plant system ready for final testing. I got most everything connected and ready to be connected. Time to add water, but first, I think I'll do the 9.xpH silica and down to 4.x with the new 85% Phos...Acid pH down I just got. 15 gal res = 3gr silica and 9ml pH down, right? Well, almost. That formula worked well for the orange GH pH down, but 9ml of the 85% stuff put me in the 2.6ph range. Geeezzzz!!!!
OK, let's see what an additional scoop, around 3gr of silica will do. Hahahaha, nothing! OK so now I curious, so 1 more scoop for grins and giggles, about 4gr and I did make it all the way up to 2.8pH, WooHoo!!!
Another day, another lesson learned. It's all good! practice makes perfect. Now to refill the res. I'm sure my bluberry bushes loved that acidic water!!!

lol remember me saying to dilute the acid in water first then add. I would dilute it 10/1 ALWAYS add acid to water NEVER add water to acid.

if you have an old empty ph down bottle you can use that to make a diluted mix so its much easier to add and slowly lower ph to hit your target

 

[SweetLeafGrow]

I'm curious, what is considered a big pH swing? I know the plants don't like a big abrupt change in pH, but is it say from 5.0 to 6.0 a large swing? Or say 5.5 to 5.9, is that large? When you say "slowly lower", how slow is slow? Over the whole day, a couple of hours? I have had occasion where the pH had fallen to around 5.3 overnight. Would it be a big swing to take that back to 5.8 in one fell swoop? or do it in two or three small additions of pH adjuster?

 

[Aqua Man]

I'm curious, what is considered a big pH swing? I know the plants don't like a big abrupt change in pH, but is it say from 5.0 to 6.0 a large swing? Or say 5.5 to 5.9, is that large? When you say "slowly lower", how slow is slow? Over the whole day, a couple of hours? I have had occasion where the pH had fallen to around 5.3 overnight. Would it be a big swing to take that back to 5.8 in one fell swoop? or do it in two or three small additions of pH adjuster?

So a large swing once isnt going to cause issues… but repeatedly it will. Ideally you want to see about a 0.2 or lower swing in 24 hrs. a little more than that is ok the but more the swing in 24hrs the more likely it is to cause issues.

5.3 to 5.8 as an adjustment is fine but you dont want to be doing that every 24 hrs. or It may or may not cause you issues but if that haplening you want to correct it.

just like environment plants are happier with a reasonable stability. Some small PH changes can be beneficial

 

[IamN2pot]

THanks for the advise Aqua. I'm on it, I was just wondering what ratio. 10 to 1 is easy enough!!!
Can you gave me a guestimate as to how much diluted 85% down to use to lower it quickly from 9 to 4? That's what Moe suggested in a previous post. I just overshot it, hahahaha!!! ALOT! Lesson learned!

We will need to have pre buffered res water ready to go at room temp for your first changeout. Get the buffer mixing thing down pat in a couple of 5 gallon pails and set them aside. Running the PH up to 9 then down to 4 by adding the buffers kills most single celled organisms, which helps. What would be a good idea would be to take some small thing like aquarium bio-media out of your res and drop it in the bucket. One of 2 things will happen:

1 - there is so little nutrition in your source water that nothing but diatoms form - which are harmless
2 - there is enough food, and your killer res bacteria snuffs the rest out with it's superior friggin army. Kill!!!

 

[Aqua Man]

THanks for the advise Aqua. I'm on it, I was just wondering what ratio. 10 to 1 is easy enough!!!
Can you gave me a guestimate as to how much diluted 85% down to use to lower it quickly from 9 to 4? That's what Moe suggested in a previous post. I just overshot it, hahahaha!!! ALOT! Lesson learned!

Im not sure his process does he add the acid and then the silicate? It can be done bith ways.The amount all depends on the alkalinity of the water and concentration of the acid.

We do this slightly different so here is how i digure it out

To figure this out cave man style take 1 gal and add the silicate at the dose you intend to run (the amount of silicate will change the amount of acid needed) then add the acid a ml at a time until you reach 6.5 write it down. Then add nutrients and other additives. Then add acid by the ml to reach your desired PH. Add up how many total ml of ph down you add.

Next time you can add all the acid forst and then silicate and nutrients etc and you should be very close.

if you change the silicate dose or acid concentration the numbers will change so I usually just add the acid of your first total then silicate then adjust as needed

 

[Cool_Beans]

lol remember me saying to dilute the acid in water first then add. I would dilute it 10/1 ALWAYS add acid to water NEVER add water to acid.

if you have an old empty ph down bottle you can use that to make a diluted mix so its much easier to add and slowly lower ph to hit your target

This is solid advice. I did this when working with concentrated acids even before this hydro stuff. Mix dilutions w gear on then I didnt have to fret quite as much when mixing for end use. Imo it's very easy to overshoot a number or even a range w strong acids out of the bottle(or barrel) so I never like using them that way.

 

[Moe.Red]

THanks for the advise Aqua. I'm on it, I was just wondering what ratio. 10 to 1 is easy enough!!!
Can you gave me a guestimate as to how much diluted 85% down to use to lower it quickly from 9 to 4? That's what Moe suggested in a previous post. I just overshot it, hahahaha!!! ALOT! Lesson learned!

I'm sorry I was not more clear in my meaning.

In 5 gallons of RO water, you add 1 drop of 85% acid, that ph will swing wildly. Same for base.

Doing so in a water system other than your RDWC can actually be helpful to kill off some microbes, and is a feature of using small amounts of water without a buffer and concentrated acid or base. For example, you kill e-coli at PH of 3.5, no heat or UV or caustics needed.

Add Acid - PH pegs to one end. Then bring it back down with a base, locally, right around the drop you added, you will peg it the other way. As they mix, PH will become in the right range and form a buffer.

This see saw needs to be avoided in the RDWC. Thus the comment to pre-dilute and carefully titrate.

It was not my intention that you TRY to do this in your res lol. But I can see in my clumsy wording how that could have come across.