First grow need some good advice DWC

[Vegatrain31]

Hello everyone I'm about to start my first grow in a 4×4×6 tent with 2 5gallon bucket DWC with a bestva 1200w LED grow light and white widow feminized seeds any help would be super, oh and doing a scrog on each one.....does this sound ok? What are the best nutrients to use for white widow in this set up? How close should the light be? Thanks in advance

 

[fragileassassin]

Dont scrog your first grow imo. Or do much at all to them tbh. Let them grow and focus on keeping the first ones alive.
How big is your air pump for 2 buckets?
General hydroponics trio is a tried and trusted nutrient line with lots of available info.

 

[Vegatrain31]

Dont scrog your first grow imo. Or do much at all to them tbh. Let them grow and focus on keeping the first ones alive.
How big is your air pump for 2 buckets?
General hydroponics trio is a tried and trusted nutrient line with lots of available info.

Thank you very much! I wanted to scrog because of my small space, each bucket has it's own pump it came with, I have seen general hydroponic notes I will try them, thank you again for your response

 

[sandman83]

plan your design so the water changes will be easy to do without moving anything, the plants will get large and heavy hopefully and you need to replace the water often. gh 3part is good or the cheaper maxigrow/maxibloom dry salts.

Do you have a good ph/ppm meter?

 

[Vegatrain31]

I'm going to have spare empty buckets to switch out so it it will because little easier, I dont have a meter yet do you suggest a particular one, thank you

 

[SheeshM]

Welcome to the world of growing! That light has 240 true watts so you should plan on at least two for good coverage in a 4x4. I like the GH floratrio but start with 1/4 to 1/2 of the recommended strength IMO. With hydro, make sure you can control water temp and get some hydroguard. Good luck!

 

[PissingNutes]

Thank you very much! I wanted to scrog because of my small space, each bucket has it's own pump it came with, I have seen general hydroponic notes I will try them, thank you again for your response

Don't take advice from rollitup.org, look at posts that show what worked but don't take all you read for real here.

 

[Vegatrain31]

Don't take advice from rollitup.org, look at posts that show what worked but don't take all you read for real here.

Thank you, I'm OCD when it comes to researching and studying things before I do them and getting advice from any and all experienced ppl, I know what you mean thank you for your help boss

 

[myke]

Spare buckets dont work once the plant is scroggd in,a valve on a bulkhead and raise the pail a couple of inches to help it drain.Or get a drill pump to drain the buckets.Myself Id go rdwc with a res outside of tent,ph tests and everything else is much easier.Good luck.Remember to cover everything including air lines,no light leaks at all.

 

[Vegatrain31]

Spare buckets dont work once the plant is scroggd in,a valve on a bulkhead and raise the pail a couple of inches to help it drain.Or get a drill pump to drain the buckets.Myself Id go rdwc with a res outside of tent,ph tests and everything else is much easier.Good luck.Remember to cover everything including air lines,no light leaks at all.

Thank you so much

 

[WankerTokinWanker]

I just did my second hydro grow. I Scroggd this second time and quickly learned once Scroggd I couldn't drain or change my water.



but since I used a baby crib metal mattress holder as my Scrogg net I wired up my baskets to the metal frame popped there lids of the two buckets and hoisted both up into the air thankfully bring able to came my buckets.


Also I didn't wait long enough in flower on my first grow, my second grow needed about 4 months of flower for some fuckin reason, and still wanted two more weeks or so, but I ran out of nutes and harvested early.

My advice is go small first so you get it down, then second time go bigger.

 

[fragileassassin]

Yeah

My advice is go small first so you get it down, then second time go bigger.

Yes! I did not follow this advice on my first grow and things got rough at several points. In my first 2 grows, I learned that I was aiming unnecessarily high for no reason.
And this is all I meant by my post yesterday. There is a ton of stuff to learn and its much easier if you go simple the first time around to reduce as many variables as possible. Its more fun to finish a crop then look at what you can change to do better next time instead of trying to learn everything all at once.

 

[Vegatrain31]

Yeah

Yes! I did not follow this advice on my first grow and things got rough at several points. In my first 2 grows, I learned that I was aiming unnecessarily high for no reason.
And this is all I meant by my post yesterday. There is a ton of stuff to learn and its much easier if you go simple the first time around to reduce as many variables as possible. Its more fun to finish a crop then look at what you can change to do better next time instead of trying to learn everything all at once.

You guys are great thank you so much, ok this is my idea now, it's going to be a 2 person job for cleaning/changing out the dwc notes, ok I'm only going to grow 2 in the 4x4 but I will get the 4 bucket dwc, then when it's time for change I will have 2 extra buckets, I will fill the extra bucket with new water and nutes have one person lift up the net pod lid then I will slide the new bucket in place, then repeat for the second one, as long as I have another set of hands it should be easy this way, do you all think this is a good idea

 

[fragileassassin]

You guys are great thank you so much, ok this is my idea now, it's going to be a 2 person job for cleaning/changing out the dwc notes, ok I'm only going to grow 2 in the 4x4 but I will get the 4 bucket dwc, then when it's time for change I will have 2 extra buckets, I will fill the extra bucket with new water and nutes have one person lift up the net pod lid then I will slide the new bucket in place, then repeat for the second one, as long as I have another set of hands it should be easy this way, do you all think this is a good idea

sounds like a fairly solid plan, but you can likely do that on your own until near the end when theyre tall and top heavy. Even then you can probably still manage it on your own if you put the new bucket right next to the one its in.
If you dont want to tote buckets around, shop vacs are amazing. One of the best purchases I made after starting hydro and for sure my most used tool down there.

 

[Lpena007]

Use peroxide in your reservoir

 

[Vegatrain31]

sounds like a fairly solid plan, but you can likely do that on your own until near the end when theyre tall and top heavy. Even then you can probably still manage it on your own if you put the new bucket right next to the one its in.
If you dont want to tote buckets around, shop vacs are amazing. One of the best purchases I made after starting hydro and for sure my most used tool down there.

How do you use a shop vac

 

[Vegatrain31]

Use peroxide in your reservoir

What is that for

 

[fragileassassin]

How do you use a shop vac

When setup for wet use, you can just vacuum up straight water with it. I use it for everything from general sweeping up to spills to draining my systems. It can make things much easier in a limited work space. I have an 8 gallon one i think it is and it was worth every penny.

What is that for

Peroxide is on the opposite side of hydroguard that was mentioned earlier.
Most of us in hydro use either something to sterilize the res or a beneficial bacteria to keep the bad stuff in check. Its not 100% needed by everyone, but doing one of the two makes things less likely to go bad and can hold off stuff like root rot in conditions that youd otherwise probably get it in.
Beneficials are stuff like hydroguard, southern ag garden friendly fungicide, and great white. With the southern ag being by far the cheapest.
Sterilizers are peroxide, chlorine (often in the form of pool shock), and bleach. All of these get used in very small amounts to kill off everything.

Both sides have been proven to be effective. The one you pick is up to you.
Sterilization is going to be cheaper, but I personally prefer to not nuke everything in my res.

 

[polishpollack]

The shop vac is to remove remaining water. Not necessary if you're switching buckets.
Even lifting the lid won't be easy if you scrog because the screen will be in the way. I think I would avoid the screen and just trim them short. I'm really impressed with the idea of using a tent. Make sure you place a fan close to knock the plants around. This is necessary because if you don't gets the plants to bounce a little, the strems won't strengthen and they plants will fall over, believe it or not. Ideally your space isn't any hotter than 75F.
Dynagro fert is also good. It's a one part for veg, one for flower. One teaspoon per gallon in hyrdro. Use good quality air pump. People use air stones, but know that they start to crumble and bit sit in the bucket. It's probably not a problem, though. If done right, they will grow like mad. You'll have to do daily maintenance on them however, checking the ppm levels. Don't try to fight pH too much as it will drift. Maybe do some reading from a book on hydro will help.
Slime that shows up in the water is algae and the result of a light leak, so make sure no light gets to the water. Some hydroguard will help. don't add nutrients like extra calcium and magnesium unless you're sure you have to. People keep doing that but your fert should have that stuff already. Perhaps use boiled water that has cooled, to prevent pathogens. Distilled water you buy might be good too. Putting buckets on platforms that have wheels will make for easier pulling, pushing.

 

[GBAUTO]

You guys are great thank you so much, ok this is my idea now, it's going to be a 2 person job for cleaning/changing out the dwc notes, ok I'm only going to grow 2 in the 4x4 but I will get the 4 bucket dwc, then when it's time for change I will have 2 extra buckets, I will fill the extra bucket with new water and nutes have one person lift up the net pod lid then I will slide the new bucket in place, then repeat for the second one, as long as I have another set of hands it should be easy this way, do you all think this is a good idea

I usually grow using an RDWC system but I have done random closet bucket grows.
My suggestion would be to rig up some method that allows you to drain/refill your buckets without having to move the plant.
If your plants get large(which is what most of us are after), it's a struggle to maneuver them onto another bucket without damage.
Using any type of scrog/trellis prevents you from moving the plants at all.