Deepwater Culture help

[Silent14]

Ok this is my first hydro grow ever im using a deep water culture set up with 6 pots in one reservoir
1first question is water lvl I started out keeping the water lvl 1 inch into the bottom of the pots now as im ending week one of veg the roots have def got a lot longer should i lower the water lvl to a few inches into the roots or should i maintain a high water lvl?
2 ok say for instance i just changed out my reservoir on friday and I gave it a full week one vegative feeding how many more days should i wait to add nuets to that old reservoir or should i not add any nuets untill another reservoir change? and help is greatly aperciated ill get picks on here so u can see what im working with

Thanks for the help

 

[Neumann]

I'm still new too but what I do is make the keep the solution just below (half an inch or so) the pots until the roots get longer. I drop my levels a little as the roots get longer and thicker, ending up with about 2.5"-3" of space between the bottom of the pot and the nutes. Use real heavy aeration to create a light mist in the airspace between the nute solution and top of your container. I get nice air roots out the side of the pot and a massive root ball. Remember the better the roots the better the fruits.

I'll let someone with more experience answer #2.

 

[tomatogrowop]

if the roots are in water then you're good. You should change your nutes once a week. Sometimes and only in veg you can slack and re-add new nutes and top off instead of changing out the rez. Easy way to do DWC water changes for small DWC systems is to get a wet dry vac.

 

[tip top toker]

The lowering of the water is a funny one. I've been told by many old time growers to drop the water as the roots grow, so that they're constnatly workinging and branching out after water. Personally i just fill the res u7p, and then let it run dry, then fill it abck up.

I also do not add nutes to a half empty res. I either run the res right down or i top up with plain ph'ed water and refill with fresh once a week. My reasoning for this is that if you give the plant a full feed, half way through that feed it may have consumed 75% of the N and P that was present, but only 25% of the K. If you then add water and nutes, you may end up with the correct EC/PPM, but you now have a large abundance of K which the plant clearly doesn't need, and due to the already present abundance of K, you now have less N or P which the plant would have really liked. So i always add nutes to fresh batches of water.

 

[Silent14]

awesome thanks for the help guys

 

[Neumann]

The lowering of the water is a funny one. I've been told by many old time growers to drop the water as the roots grow, so that they're constnatly workinging and branching out after water. Personally i just fill the res u7p, and then let it run dry, then fill it abck up.

I also do not add nutes to a half empty res. I either run the res right down or i top up with plain ph'ed water and refill with fresh once a week. My reasoning for this is that if you give the plant a full feed, half way through that feed it may have consumed 75% of the N and P that was present, but only 25% of the K. If you then add water and nutes, you may end up with the correct EC/PPM, but you now have a large abundance of K which the plant clearly doesn't need, and due to the already present abundance of K, you now have less N or P which the plant would have really liked. So i always add nutes to fresh batches of water.

I've always wondered about that. I'm new but I read a lot and I keep seeing the *top with water and partial nutes* vs the *add water until total volume and change* but the point you brought up kept nagging at me. I never thought about the water level issue as I've run an RDWC but am switching to a DWC. I'm looking forward to other opinions on this.