35 gallon DWC ScrOG

[herbdoctor420]

hey guys this is my first grow journal and my 3rd successful grow. I am used to hydro ponics (i have grown soil in the past also) so i decided try out a deep water culture this time. i have heard very good things about how inexpensive it is and how efficient it is in getting more oxygen to the roots.

So i went out and got a 35 gallon rubbermaid roughneck tote with a lock in lid for like 15 bucks. i would have went with a 25 gallon but it didnt have enough space to accomadate 3 plants like i wanted to i stepped it up to the 35. i cut 3 holes for my 5 in net pots to sit in comfortably. then i went and bought an air pump with 4 ports, two 5 in air stones and a foot long bubble wand (they ran out of air stones so i wanted to try the bubble wand), and 25 foot of black tubing. i drilled holes in the side of my tote to thread my tubing through and connected the wand and stones so they sat under the net pots.... sooo many bubbles. i think that will make a big difference i should buy more.

i bought a galaxy 400 watt hps/mh balast for like $150 and the hydro farm fixture for like $100 and he threw in a free hortilux 400watt hps bulb. i know metal halide is better for vegging but i only had enough funds to choose one so i chose the money maker.

My seeds came in about a month before; i got feminised kalshikova from greenhouseseeds. its a ak47 x white widow that i chose because its supposed to be branchy (good for ScrOG) and its potent. it cost about $50 for 10 of them including shipping. i got dinafem diesel 1 as a freebie with it.

i took these picturs all with my web cam because my girlfriend made off somewhere with my camera haha. but ill get it back

 

[herbdoctor420]

hey guys im at day 13 from when my 3 seeds sprouted so im just giving you the back story on how i got to this point.

i put the 3 seeds in a wet paper towel and 48 hrs. later when i saw the root, i put it root down in rockwool cubes. next time i think ill wait for the seeds to fully crack open because it took a little bit longer for the leaves to come out of the seeds and it seemed like they got kind of deformed or were smaller then they should have been. but anyway i put them under the windowsill for two days because hey whats better then free light?

once i couldnt stand the anticipation of turning my light on anymore i filled the net pots halfway with clay pellets, than the rockwool cubes, and than more clay pellets tofill it in. The reservoir got filled almost the full 30- 35 gallons because i wanted the water to at least touch the net pots. no nutrients yet. i lowered my light to about one and a half feet from the tops and let them go to it.

i made a mistake by spraying them with a spray bottle because the little droplets of water on the leaves acted like prisms and would burn the leaves under the hps. as u can see on the one on the right... the leaves started crimpleing on the edges. but live and learn, now everythings okay.

i also switched around two of them because i noticed some stretching and the plant would get blown over by the wind. i also straightened a paper clip and used it as a stake for about 2 days until it could stand on its own.

day 5 i bought nutrients. i got the GH flora nova and bloom for $25 each and he threw in some samples of a bloom booster and root strengtheners. good deal... i did 1/3 the dosage because i was scared it would burn and wound up buying a ph test and control kit, a water pump so i could empty the massive reservoir, and tubing.

Well there you go. im at day 13 now and im starting to think about LST training them and then getting my screen built out of chicken wire. but ill let you know what transpires

 

[rayishungry]

Looking great....those ladies should recover and be fine. I'll be watching and stopping in. It would be worth it to get a MH though. You can wait, but you'll get bigger bushier plants with more buds with a MH. I use a MH/HPS ballast too and grew w/ only HPS, but MH works so much better. Save the red light for flowering. Oh and CAN'T believe FloGrow hasn't hit this up already. He'll be here...just wait. But I beat him. HA.

 

[faithfulmastiff]

looking nice there herb, if you are using the GH, take a look at the GH floralicious plus, its super concentrated & iv'e heard lots of good things about it.

 

[herbdoctor420]

yeah thats true ive actually seen some cheap $50 MH bulbs in lowes. ill try to pick one up but currently i dont have a job haha this grow stretched me to my limit. ive got everything except a screen, one of those ppm detectors, and oh yeah i need an exhaust and carbon filter. it all cost me roughly 500

 

[herbdoctor420]

ive heard i could buy club soda and put a sprayer in it and then spray it on my plants. i heard its an effective foliar feed is that true? also since my reservoir is so big and i have 3 air stones in there they keep moving around or turning over. its kind of frustrating to make them stay in one place. im sure thats not as big a problem in 3 and 5 gallon buckets

 

[pwizzle]

hell yeah herbdoctor! nice babies and setup.
You're gonna get some monsters! I'll sub and +rep

 

[herbdoctor420]

thank you and maybe you can help my screen when i put it up. this is my first screen grow but iget the concept of it. since they are from seed and im using a hps to veg im going to flower at day 30 maybe. what you think?

 

[herbdoctor420]

hey pwizzle how do you make your web link at the bottom say something else?

 

[pwizzle]

Yeah if that's what you wanna do, roll with it.
with the scrog grow, when the plant grows through the holes pull them back through and move them to the next hole in the screen to get max light penetration of whole plant..

 

[rayishungry]

That sounds like the normal...veg 4 week and flower 8-12 weeks. As for the air stones...it's ok for them to move around as long as they're on the bottom, if not you can use fishing weights or anything else to hold them down. I understand being on a budget, you'll be fine with the hps for veg, it just won't get as big as it would would mh. I don't use a ppm tester or carbon filter. I do use a fan, but is needed if you have heat issues.

 

[pwizzle]

hey pwizzle how do you make your web link at the bottom say something else?

go to edit sig and highlight your link you got right now and right click and "cut"
then type in whatever you want it to say then highlight what you just wrote and click on the link button(world with infinite symbol) and right click "paste"
click ok and save
good to go

 

[herbdoctor420]

what do you do for smell then?

 

[pwizzle]

what do you do for smell then?

light incense in the living room.

 

[rayishungry]

haha...yeah. I don't do anything for the smell. It's not too bad. I spray some OZIUM (<Link) when my landlord or wife's parents stop in. Other wise my house smells like weed anyways.

 

[herbdoctor420]

oh crap i woke up today just before my plants went to sleep. and the leaves on the one with crimped edges in the picture got worse like that. and the other two show it slightly... the things i changed yesterday was i took the glass out of my hood and lowered the light like 4 inches. its sitting at about 1ft 3 in from tops of the big one so i dont know why it would be that since the temp is 74-80 degrees everyday. and also when i changed the nutes yesterday i tested the ph and it was fine it was 6.0 (yellow), and then today i took the ph and it was green like a 7.0. i leveled it out as soon as i could.

could the ph have made my leaves look like that? ill post pictures when they wake up in 3 hrs.

why did the ph fluctuate so rapidly in one day?

 

[herbdoctor420]

okay ill check out the ozium ive heard good things. i bought some chicken wire today at home depot so im going to set up my screen if there not mortally wounded =(

 

[pwizzle]

yeah, ph can do strange things. just keep an eye on it and it'll be ahight.
different nutes change ph differently.

 

[herbdoctor420]

what about water temp? my water feels like bath water, it feels like 80 degrees. im going to tin foil the top of it because the light just beats on it all day since theres not much foliage to block it.

 

[BeaverHuntr]

what about water temp? my water feels like bath water, it feels like 80 degrees. im going to tin foil the top of it because the light just beats on it all day since theres not much foliage to block it.

Hot reservoir water will lead top problems for sure.