1st DWC Grow, 1st Grow Journal, Looking for feedback.

Hello All

I am new to growing, new to hydro and new to dwc.
I have 1 single harvest behind me in soil. I made many newbie mistakes, over fertilized, light leaks, and ended up with many seeds at the end.
So I am looking for feedback along the way. Especially with ways I can make things easier, faster and more efficient. And of course the most important thing is the quality and yield of my crop.

3 final soil crops are in the pipe and then I am done with soil.

Moving on to Hydro and DWC.

Meet the clones

They have been in this cloner for 2 weeks and all have rooted. The clones came from one of my soil grows just as they were being put in to flower.
The strain is Purple Kush originally from seeds from BCSeedKing.com

This is my first time using a cloner and only my 2nd time taking clones. Are these roots what you might expect after 2 weeks?

The cloner has:
10L of water
6.5Ph
30ml of Green Up
10 Drops of SuperThrive

They were misted for the first day or so.
I am concerned about my temps. They seemed to get pretty high but I didn't take the temp last night. I will do that tonight.

One other question, Do taller cuttings give the plant a bigger head start in veg?
Mine seem pretty short.

A quick tour of the room.
This is my veg bench. 2 12 site dwc res with 3.75" pots. Under 4 3' Sunblaster T5's,
and the 5 site cloner under 4 2' T5's.

Underneath are my moms. All are in single 5 gallon DWC buckets and are ready to be cloned. The 2 in front are from Fem. Purple Kush Seeds. The 2 in back are Super Silver Haze and Super Lemon Haze from seed.

I have had some problems with PH swings, Slime, and high temps. They all seem to have been cleared up. Including the temps and slime. All the root balls except one got hit pretty hard though. I am thinking of growing a new root system from clone. Maybe it will be faster than asking the plant to recover.
Can the plant recover from badly damaged roots in DWC?
Will new roots drop down?
I may document this further in a future post.
The moms are under 6 4' T5's with 2 more on the back wall.

The buckets contain
DNF Gro AB
Green Up
SuperThrive
H2O2
PH 5.8

In addition I just started some "Purps" seeds. Regular


On to the flower room.

The first 3 are just at the beginning of the 6th week of flowering. 2nd crop for me and better than the first but I still hurt them along the way. There were 4 of them originally but one developed seeds a week ago. So far nothing on these girls.
The 2nd set were actually cloned at the same time but sprouted up a little slower so were held back a few weeks to get bigger. They provided the clones for the first DWC crop. Beginning of week 3 of flower. They are easily in the best shape of any I have taken to this point before.

They are flowering under 600W HPS on dialable digital ballasts. The bulbs are in 6" cool tube reflectors hooked up to a 6" fan on the same timer setting as the lights.
As these plants finish flowering I will be installing a 4'x3' DWC Table with a DIY top and possibly external res to aid in res changes, top ups, cooling etc. under each light. I am thinking about 16 to 20 plants per tray. I will be investing in tri-meters and other tools to make my life easier.

More on that later.

Ventilation
My original plans were not good enough and I have had to adapt and add to my original design to finally get it 90% right.


Originally the 6" fan above the veg bench would suck from the basement through the cooltubes and exhaust out into the garage. But I got a lot of icicles around my garage that my neighbors don't have. They notice crap like that. So I reversed the fan to blow from the garage to the basement. I have installed multiple CO2 detectors in the basement and don't put cars in the garage. So I feel confident.
The basement gets cool but the fan is on a dimmer and the lights warm the air as it passes through.

Also I had another 6" fan attached to a big carbon filter in the flower room that vented through the veg room into the garage. That is still in place but I still get some melting outside so I may exhaust into the basement after getting a dehumidifier.

The Veg room had nothing dedicated to it really. Relying on the cool T5's and suction into the flower room. But odors were coming from the veg room and I had minor temp issues, so I installed the old 4" can and fan from my original cabinet in the veg room and vented out through an old unused dryer vent.
Odor and temp problems solved.

I dropped my wifes new camera. It seems to be broken. + =

Anyways this post took me a couple of days to write so I have some updates to make, maybe later tonight. In the mean time here is a final shot including a new batch of clones I took from the 2 PK moms.



Hopefully I get some followers and some feedback/help.

Famine

It's been a few days and most of my clones are yet to pop roots out the bottom of the pots. I had some heat issues the first day or so.

My vegging reservoirs on the bench were getting as high as 74 degrees. I had the air pumps down low to get cool air but to no avail.

I think the heat is coming from a few sources:

My lights in that room are all on 24/0
It's not so much that I want them to be, it is more that I find myself working in the room at all times of day and night, whenever it is convenient.
I will put them on 20/4 tonight.

The lights under the bench (8 4' T5's) are radiating heat up through the bench and the heat from the lights above was being absorbed by the black tray.
I am fixing this by place 1 1/2/" styrofoam under the res and the same styrofoam that has a reflective side to it is being made into a tray with 12 holes for 4"pots.
I got the idea from smithmds. Many thanks to him.

These measures along with ice bottles seem to be fixing it. The temperature increase between ice bottles is much slower. Probably only have to ice once a day to keep it close to the 65f range.

I am still looking for feedback on my clones. This is my 2nd attempt at cloning and I am not sure why they look so rough. This has happened both times and the first time some of the clones took forever to veg. They were just slow.

The mother plants they were taken from grew quickly, but they had been damaged with nute burn before I took the clones.
Also I am not sure what the temps in the cloner should be. For this group I think it was around 82F or higher. I didn't really check as I assumed that clones like a little warmth. Now I am trying to keep the cloner under 77F.

The new cuttings were taken from much healthier plants. So maybe that will make a difference. They already seem healthier.

Hopefully my next post will have more pics. My wife's camera is still broken, I should be returning it tomorrow.

Looking for some feedback.

Famine

Like you set up.

did you make that carbon filter? is it wrapped in cotton batting?

Really nice setup, very clean and lots of space..makes me want to redo my entire setup after my next grow. Everytime I browse these forums I realize how cramped I am. As for the clones, they honestly don't look too bad. They seem like they could use a bit more light since they're stretching, I'd bring them closer to the lights.

How many watts are you running for the T5s?

threeandahook said:

Like you set up.

did you make that carbon filter? is it wrapped in cotton batting?

Click to expand...

No I haven't really done much DIY stuff yet. Paying through the nose for stuff that I could make but getting a lot of knowledge along the way.
Eventually I will do as much DIY as I can. All part of the fun.

The can came from my grow store.

multiphrenic said:

Really nice setup, very clean and lots of space..makes me want to redo my entire setup after my next grow. Everytime I browse these forums I realize how cramped I am. As for the clones, they honestly don't look too bad. They seem like they could use a bit more light since they're stretching, I'd bring them closer to the lights.

How many watts are you running for the T5s?

Click to expand...

Thanks, I put a lot of thought into it. Trying to maximize the space the wife agreed to let me use.
Trying to build the room with a certain potential yield such that it would act as additional form of employment insurance.
Trying to make it flexible so that I can play with my new toys and hobby. Before this I had never grown anything. Ever. Including a household pet.
This is all very foreign to me. But I am having fun and learning a ton.

As for the T5's... In total the Veg bench has:

• 4 of these: http://sunblasterlighting.com/t524.html
• 4 of these: http://sunblasterlighting.com/t539.html

and below for the moms:

• 8 of these: http://sunblasterlighting.com/t554.html

I love these lights. The plants love them too.

I finally got returned and replaced my wifes new camera which means it's time for an update with fresh pics.

So I am about a week and a half in.

You can see my clones are just now started to grow roots are getting established down below.

All the changes I made to the setup. The sytrofoam on top and below, the change to the light schedule, and additional ventilation all have made the difference.
I haven't had to put in ice in the vegging res's for a number of days and temps are generally staying below 67.

You can see roots are now dropping down and they should really start to take off.
I am changing the res tonight to a 1/2 strength solution.




My new clones are looking quite well with roots that look better than last time to me. I added some very weak nutes in this time as I plan on leaving them in the cloner for 3 weeks to try and get some longer more established roots before vegging.

The first picture on the left show the roots of my current crop at 2 weeks and the 2nd is the current set of clones in the cloner after a week and a half.

I think the 2nd set look much better and temps seem to be holding under 80.

The final pic are some new cuttings I took tonight from my 2nd super secret flowering location.



I have decided to change my plan from using 2 4x3 DWC tables in my 3x8 space to setting up 12 buckets connected to a res in the flowering room. In a few more weeks you can see it all take shape. I am seriously pumped and I can't wait for my plants flowering in soil to finish and get out of my way.

New pics of the girls in flower.



And the moms and purps seeds.



The Super Silver Haze (front left) and Super Lemon Haze (back right) will be cloned in a week and then put into flower. I can't wait to see how they end up.

That's it for now.
Famine

Looking healthy! Where'd you get the cloner?

For only a grow or two behind you, you have quite the equipment stash. Nice!

Awesome setup OP. Subbed.

Hi from the UK. This is my first post on any grow site but I hope it helps.
First thing I noticed about your cloning is your PH is way too high if you have it at 6.5, try taking it to between 5.8 & 6.1. In fact never let your PH stray outside this range throughout your grow & remember to calibrate your meter regularly.
Second relates to EC or nutrient level, forget what all manufacturers say on their products, in a bubble bucket you never want to take the EC above 1.0 Much better to keep it around 0.7, your plants will not suffer from underfeeding. (Don't forget to check what your fresh water EC reading is before adding nutrients)
I would never use organic nutrients in DWC, they don't work well with the oxygen.
I don't use any root stimulators, only thing I may add is about a 3rd dosage of boost during flowering.
I have a compressor air pump that takes its air from the intake fan, the water is always clear & possibly too cold sometimes but it does compensate by adding a lot more dissolved oxygen to the water. I find the small air pumps heat the water to some extent.
I will try to post some of my pics soon but I popped 5 seeds (My own Afghan strain) been 2 years in the fridge, germinated in 3 days, 9 days of 18/6 (under 144 watts of T8 4 foot daylight tubes) & are now under 1200 watts of mixed HPS on day 60 of 12/12, all were female but 2 have stood out, both very different from each other but equally impressive.
I am not joking when I say I will need a hand saw to cut the trunk, I have only ever had similar growth from outdoor plants at twice the age.
Hope some of my rantings have helped because I get fed up with stoners who go on these forums just to try & polish their somewhat inflated ego because they have a small penis, you know what I mean, we should help others if we can & not call them all sorts because they ask a question. The only stupid question is, should I ask a question?
Could be worse, you could be an American !

could be an american ha?

Alpazz said:

Hi from the UK. This is my first post on any grow site but I hope it helps.
First thing I noticed about your cloning is your PH is way too high if you have it at 6.5, try taking it to between 5.8 & 6.1. In fact never let your PH stray outside this range throughout your grow & remember to calibrate your meter regularly.
Second relates to EC or nutrient level, forget what all manufacturers say on their products, in a bubble bucket you never want to take the EC above 1.0 Much better to keep it around 0.7, your plants will not suffer from underfeeding. (Don't forget to check what your fresh water EC reading is before adding nutrients)
I would never use organic nutrients in DWC, they don't work well with the oxygen.
I don't use any root stimulators, only thing I may add is about a 3rd dosage of boost during flowering.
I have a compressor air pump that takes its air from the intake fan, the water is always clear & possibly too cold sometimes but it does compensate by adding a lot more dissolved oxygen to the water. I find the small air pumps heat the water to some extent.
I will try to post some of my pics soon but I popped 5 seeds (My own Afghan strain) been 2 years in the fridge, germinated in 3 days, 9 days of 18/6 (under 144 watts of T8 4 foot daylight tubes) & are now under 1200 watts of mixed HPS on day 60 of 12/12, all were female but 2 have stood out, both very different from each other but equally impressive.
I am not joking when I say I will need a hand saw to cut the trunk, I have only ever had similar growth from outdoor plants at twice the age.
Hope some of my rantings have helped because I get fed up with stoners who go on these forums just to try & polish their somewhat inflated ego because they have a small penis, you know what I mean, we should help others if we can & not call them all sorts because they ask a question. The only stupid question is, should I ask a question?
Could be worse, you could be an American !

Click to expand...

multiphrenic said:

Looking healthy! Where'd you get the cloner?

Click to expand...

Thanks.

I got the cloner at the grow store. To be honest I have been happy with most purchases there.
But...
I have overpaid for some things. DIY/Internet would be much cheaper.
The grow store has its advantages, the guys working there have taught me a lot and are very helpful.
Plus buying retail at first lets me see how the retail products work and how they can be improved.

I would love to source more stuff online but I am in Canada and all the best gear can be found on US sites.
I hate getting raped by UPS for Customs and Brokerage when buying from the states.

Thanks for the interest.

sccerfrk26 said:

For only a grow or two behind you, you have quite the equipment stash. Nice!

Click to expand...

Thanks. This is not what I originally intended. I started with a cabinet. Which grew to 2 cabinets. Which grew to a room. Which grew to a 2nd flowering room at another location.
At this point for everything I have spent since I started this new hobby last summer is just shy of $14K.
I was pretty confident that I could make it work and that within a year it would be paid for.

My wife has been very tolerant. nuff said.

Shopping has been a lot of the fun but I am about spent out.
I am lucky I had the ability pay/finance the project to completion.

Looking for some bills to be paid now.

Famine

ExDex1x1 said:

Awesome setup OP. Subbed.

Click to expand...

Great! Thanks for following. Motivates me to post more often.

Famine

Hi from the UK. This is my first post on any grow site but I hope it helps.

Click to expand...

Welcome. I am also very new.

First thing I noticed about your cloning is your PH is way too high if you have it at 6.5, try taking it to between 5.8 & 6.1. In fact never let your PH stray outside this range throughout your grow & remember to calibrate your meter regularly.

Click to expand...

I agree. The 6.5 number came from the instructions provided by the grow store.
Last rez change I changed things up a bit. I was unhappy with my first results.
I dropped the ph to 6.2 and added a small amount of veg nutes. I also paid more attention to temps in the cloner. I am seeing better results this time. I intend on experimenting with my cloner and starting a thread with results. As for calibration I just calibrated for the first time since purchasing. I am now on a 2 week schedule for that chore.

Second relates to EC or nutrient level, forget what all manufacturers say on their products, in a bubble bucket you never want to take the EC above 1.0 Much better to keep it around 0.7, your plants will not suffer from underfeeding. (Don't forget to check what your fresh water EC reading is before adding nutrients)
I would never use organic nutrients in DWC, they don't work well with the oxygen.
I don't use any root stimulators, only thing I may add is about a 3rd dosage of boost during flowering.

Click to expand...

To be honest with you the area of nutes and additives is the one area I still feel that I am fumbling my way with. I don't really understand yet what everything is and what it does. I have been focusing my research on environmental concerns, heat, humidity, lighting, efficient use of space and ease of maintenance have been top of my mind. Starting to get into nutes now.

I have a compressor air pump that takes its air from the intake fan, the water is always clear & possibly too cold sometimes but it does compensate by adding a lot more dissolved oxygen to the water. I find the small air pumps heat the water to some extent.

Click to expand...

I am switching slowly to better air pumps. I find the cheap aquarium ones aren't nearly as vigorous. See my upcoming post. The cheap ones are handy to have around though.

Could be worse, you could be an American !

Click to expand...

Actually I am originally from the UK like you. But everybody who has something positive or constructive to add to this thread is welcome. Including Americans.
If you like weed then we have something in common. Regardless of geography or politics.

Thanks for posting
Famine

Tough to get my family off my computer for some privacy to post.

These pics are from 2 days ago.

First a spotlight on some new tools of the trade.

I am replacing my cheaper aquarium pumps with new stronger pumps from the grow store. They produce a lot more bubbles.

The Hydro Sparkle was given to me for free by the grow store to try. I used it after cleaning up brown algae problems I had. I have been clear since starting to use it. But that could also be my temps being under control. If anybody knows what it should be doing let me know.

Finally my TDS/PH meter. I cannot believe how much use this gets. It is always in my hands. I recently calibrated for the first time since purchase. I left it too long and it was out of calibration. I now have it on a 2 week maintenance schedule.



The clones are fully into vegetative growth now and looking gorgeous under the T5's I love that color green. The roots are long and bright white. Temps remain well under control.

The purps seeds continue to grow but no signs of roots out of the rockwool yet.

The clones I took a week and a half ago are well rooted and starting to veg, I will move them out of the cloner in a couple of days.

These guys have grown much faster than the previous set. They may in fact over take them. It maybe the strength of their parents. The first set were taken from parents that were themselves slower clones left to veg longer. I wonder if a clone for whatever reason is slow will all of its offspring pick up that trait? It could also be changes made to the cloner setup.

Original setup:
New Setup:
The clones I took about 4 days ago are yet to show roots but are nice and green still.


My mother plants had to be moved. They were overgrowing the space under the bench. I put them in the flower room. I have taken too many clones, too early and will need space to veg them until I have room to flower them. This also means I can start be more selective on the clones I continue to take into flower. I will take clones from clones for a while at least.

About my genetics.
The "Purple Kush" I have comes from bcseedking.com. Their customer service, shipping, etc have all been excellent. All of the seeds germinated and sprouted. I killed a number of sprouts in my first grow by overwatering and stuff but the seeds were good. I have only had one seed that produced a runt. I have had problems with seeds though that is also likely due to temp, light leak issues in my first cabinet. My original plan was to keep track of all plants and their offspring so I could pick a good mom. Transplanting while very high caused me lose track, + =
Now though I am naming every plant and all clones are named for their mom. That will allow me to track which plant provides the best smoke. (Assuming I can get a consistent grow going.). I have already identified distinct "phenotypes" in the plant as they grow and can't wait to compare the smoke. (Hope I used phenotypes correctly)
Using female names of course. We have Alice through to Ingrid. 9 plants to sample.

Pics of the flower room. Looking crowded.


Later.

Bump bump!!!! How did the harvest come out

looks real nice op..