1st Hydroponic Grow/3 varieties at different stages!

Ok, so I was told starting a grow journal is the best thing to do so I can go back to see what I have done and to help others, so here we go.

1st plant - White Widow or White Rhino (unsure)
Started from seed on 2/5/15. Germinated and sprouted overnight. Transferred into peat pellet, put into seed station, feeder leaves sprouted 1 day later under 2 50watt flours. Left under flours for 2 weeks, then moved into grow room, under 400watt MH, into 5 gallon DWC, 18/6. PPM's at about 400, Ph 6.5. Using part well water, part spring. No nutes at this point other than Rapid Root. Started using 1/4 strength nutes at first rez change of Fox Farm Grow Big and Rapid Root. Next rez, added 1/4 strength Grow Big, Big Bloom and Rapid Root. Week 4 plant at 4" (see first pic). Had a hard time for weeks keeping Ph at good level and humidity up. Ph liked to stay at 6.0-6.5 and humidity at 30-35%. This is about week 3-4. Notice the twisted leaves and lime green color...thought this was due to some sort of def or lighting issue, turns out it is the strain of cannabis. It is now going on week 6, currently have my ppm's at 900-1000, room temp 74-77, rez temp 67-70, Ph 5.8-6.3, 600 watt MH, still at 18/6...and she is looking good. Changed rez yesterday, first time using Fox Farm recommended nutes, a little Rapid Root, added about 1/4 tsp. Hydrogen peroxide and did my first folier spray (noticed a little crisping on a couple leaves, worked great). Oh, I have two air stones going in rez now for extra bubbly and to keep rez temps down a bit. Humidifier not putting out what I would like, so still add wet towel to room, humidity at 40-50 now. Oh, she is just over 6" now, still seems like slow growth to me, but she is bushy. Wonder if the slow growth has to do with bad lighting first few weeks of life? Hmmmmmm

Ok, on to the seeds. On 3/6/15, for 8 hours I soaked my 4 Gouda Cheese seeds and 4 OG Poison. Placed all 8 seeds in paper towels, next day, all but one popped. Soaked my rockwool for 10 hours in Ph'd water with tad of rapid root. Placed seeds in rockwool cubes early this morning. Seems to me like the Gouda Cheese is just taking off while the OG is a bit slower, like it should be. First day under lights. Did not like the slow growth my White Rhino had for first couple weeks under flours, so I am trying the Cheese and OG under the MH, lower dose and further away, of course.

Ok, so I am very interested in what anyone has to add, opinions, things that have and have not worked for you, recommendations...but only from those that are very familiar with growing hydro, please.
Let me know if I forgot to add something or if there is other important shit I should be taking notes on. This is my first hydro grow and first grow journal. Looking forward to feedback!

I didnt read the whole thing but it looks good. Id move the electrical cords to be off the table and onto the wall away from any chance of getting wet.

1000 ppm seems high for those plants and why did you peroxide the leaves?

Yes, did move electrical cords when switching rooms. Everyone I have ever spoke to about growing DWC told me that I should be following the chart I was given by Fox Farm as far as how much nutes and where my EC/PPM should be. I thought it a bit high too, that is why I toned down the nutes by using 1/4 strength and I toned the ppm's down. But now that I am at week 6, everyone is saying to follow the chart, so that is what I am doing, for the most part. The chart tells me I should be at 900-1100 ppm right now, seems high to me, so I decided to stay under 1000, currently at 950. Used 1/4 tsp in my 5 gallon bucket because I noticed a bit of brown on root, cleared it right up, but I think that is what caused the droop last night. Was told that happens. Did not use it directly on leaves, put in rez.

Sorry, the 1/4 tsp in rez was the hydrogen peroxide.

Update: ok, things are going a bit wrong now. My room temps are 75-80, working hard at trying to keep it at more like 77. Rez temp keeps rising, range from 68-73, I add either a few ice cubes or a frozen water bottle whenever I notice it getting high. My humidity seems to be staying more around 40% now. So, my White Widow/Rhino has really slowed. I did lower my nutes, trying for 400-600 ppm. I noticed a small bit of brown still on roots, probably size of half a dime. Found this great tea solution on here from Heisenberg. Applied it exactly as he said. It has been over 24 hours and the small brown spot is now a small mass that looks like brown goop. No slime on roots or rez, doesn't smell and plant still looks good, but slow growth. The new brown goop is about size of a lighter. Not sure what happen there????? Been keeping ppm at 300 for now as not to overwhelm her. Any ideas on why tea not working or whatever it could be?

As for my other two, the OG Poison has sprouted up out of the rockwool cubes. All but one is about 1" long and has their first true leaves. I have them about 4' under MH.

As for the Gouda Cheese, which I thought was going to out grow the OG, never popped out of rockwool. Decided to check them out and noticed that they have sprouts, just the same as before I put them in rockwool. So I put the 4 cheese back in paper towels and started two new ones in case they don't make it. So we will see. Pics won't post right now, so I will try again later.

Update: Ok, so when I first started out planting seeds, I started with 4- OG Poison and 4- Gouda Cheese that germinated on 3/7. Here is a pic of my 4 OG.


I just transferred them to 3 gallon buckets and started some nutes. I am doing a little experiment with these OG's and the Gouda before my real good seeds come in. On my OG #1 & #2, I decided to follow the Fox Farm recommendations to the T. The ppms were at about 400 for a day or two but it is currently about 350. I keep PH at 5.6-5.9. They are the two in the front. OG #3 & 4 are at around 200-250ppm. OG #4 (aka Nemo), sprouted with half a cotyldon leaf, hence the name, but it's doing well. Some of the leaves have light green blotches on them?????? Not sure what that is.

As for the 10 Gouda Cheese seeds I have attempted to germinate on 3 different occasions, the first 4 did not make it, they sprouted a spec of a root tip and just gave up. The next two I planted, sprouted and are growing, but very small and slow.


There is six seedlings total in this pic, Gouda Cheese #1 & 2 are the biggest ones. A week later I planted GC #3 & 4 and just two days ago I planted #5 & 6. I can see now I will be lucky if one or two make it. I definitely think it was bad seeds. Trying to decide if I should throw the rest of the OG in or wait for my good seeds (which seem to taking FOREVER). I water these little guys with like a ppm of 30-40 (couple drops of Rapid Root).
My temps in the veg room for all these little ladies is low 70 high 79. Rez temps for OG I keep between 67-70, using frozen water bottles or it will get up to 73.

Ok, on to my special girl, yep, I said it, girl. My lovely White Widow is growing nicely. I ended having root rot with her. Every three days I was doing a H2O2 soak, then putting her into a new rez. I started buying compost tea from my hydro guy, I add a cup to her rez the night before I change her. The next morning it has attached itself to the bad roots, I rinse them off, get all the gunk off, and then they look ok, like a off white color. I know I can not completely get rid of root rot, but I am keeping it at bay, for now. She has tons of new white roots, I am hoping to keep them that way. I started using some Aquashield and Cal Mag regularly. She has really taken off.



She is 47 days old, 15" and has numerous buds beginning after being in flowering for almost a week.
Anyone have any better ideas on the root rot issue or the light green blotchy seedling leaves? Oh yeah, and two of my seedlings cotyldon leaves are yellowing already, is that normal. My WW kept hers until like two weeks ago.

So I have figured out the blotchy leaves issue. It was only a couple of them that had it, but one of the same strain did not and they were all kept the same but one thing...in my "experimentation" phase I am going through, I decided to drip feed just one of them 2-3 times a day for 5 min. I believe that because of how small the plants were...it was splash from the drip! I caught it sputtering a few times and had to wipe some leaves, and only the ones around the one being dripped have spots. The only one still growing blotchy leaves is the drip one...but it's the biggest so far...so we will see. This also gives me my answer to the yellow cotyledon leaves, same issue, splash, only on the same three. Still fucking around with this root rot. She is growing tons of new white roots and of course, the rot still spreads, but not very fast. I try to keep everything so clean, I am rez changing her every three days or every other if I deem necessary...is there ANYTHING that can stop this shit. She is only about 4 left in flowering. I have heard some talk about Subculture B...any users????

Oh yeah, I have decided to start the rest of my OG seeds AND I am going to give a few hempy buckets a try...like 2 Cheese and 2 OG...just started looking into it, but sounds cool, and easier than DWC. This PH shit is killing me...Ph it to 5.6 before dark then...BAM...it's at 6.5 or so in the morning, but she's eating....hmmmm?

I DID IT...went hempy. Ok, so u I went a little more hempy crazy than I initially planned. I needed to get my Gouda Cheese in a stable home, so I made all six of them hempy for right now in Solo cups...but...keeping up with all this experimenting, I made a couple hempy cups with strictly Perlite, a couple with Perlite/Vermiculite mix and a couple with Hydroton in the little rez in bottom and Perlite or Perlite/Vermiculite mix. I also wanted to see how one of OG Poison would turn out in hempy since it is Sativa, interested in how big it will get in 3 gal bucket, so I made that with Perlite/Vermiculite mix.


So even though my White Widow has root rot, it really seems like she is getting better, she has had some AMAZING growth, up top and in the water, big nice ball of white roots, just a small amount of brown but I have not changed rez in 3 days and she is still looking good, going to do it today again anyways, keep the rot at bay.

Update - Ok, I made my bubble cloner. Took ideas from other people, of course, not sure if it has been put together exactly as I did, but I am sure it has been done. I bought two tubs. One is a large tub but only about 10" deep and the other one was bought strictly to use as the humidity dome. I bought the 4" net pots, put a little layer of hydroton in the bottom after drilling a hole in the center of the bottom of net pot for stem. I then cut my 1" rockwool cubes in half, so that way it is easier for me to lay stem down center as to leave enough stem to hang out bottom. Filled in around it with more hydroton for support. My water is at 5.8 Ph, 73 degrees and I added 1 drop Superthrive and 1 drop Rapid Start. So far so good, they all look happy, although I think two will not make it, thought that during to set up process. Hope it works!


My 4 OG Poison are doing good, at least three of them are. One has always looked off, but we will see. The last 6 OG Poison seeds I germinated never made it, just as the Gouda Cheese seeds. Don't think I will be purchasing seeds from Pure Michigan Genetics again.


Some of the Goudas are coming around now and just taking off, others, not so much.


My White Widow is doing awesome, even though I just sliced her up recently. I know it's frowned upon to clone a plant already in flowering, but she has only been in for about two weeks and she has been such a great plant for me as my starter, hydro plant, I hate to smoke her all up with nothing but a superb high to show for it. So I am hoping one of these clones will make a good mother plant so I can always have White Widow on hand.

Update on White Widow, OG Poison and Gouda Cheese. WW is doing great. Root issues don't seem to be a problem, but I am doing rez changes on her once or twice a week to keep it at bay. It was suggested to me that I add some side lighting to her, so I added what I have for now. She's smelling AWSOME!



The OG and Gouda are growing, some nicely, others a bit strange.It seems to me the genetics are not good, maybe not on all PMG seeds, but definitely on these. The few that I thought were looking really good, which they are, are deformed in some way. Either growing oddly, weird shaped leaves, gimpy leaves, blotchy colors on all old and new growth and one has six leaves. Not really sure where this grow is headed, but I haven't culled anything out yet out of curiosity. I did contact the owner of PMG, Drew, and pretty much got no help or explanation, just a sales pitch. I have never seen any marijuana plants that are odd like these. But they are growing and unless they die or grow balls, they stay.

Ok, so I am switching the majority of my plants to GH nutes. Been using FF and after one plant got brown, yucky roots, I quit giving it the Big Bloom part of FF and didn't have much trouble with it after that, as long as I kept doing rez changes twice a week. But then my hydro guy said most people love BB because of how it helps roots. So I decided to start feeding my plants the BB again, now all my DWC plants have brown roots, and I don't even know how it is affecting the ones in Perlite and Vermiculite. So as of today, I am trying GH CocoTek A&B. We shall see how that works out. My hydro guy did say that GH products tend to not fluctuate the Ph as much as FF products do and my Ph is always all over the place everyday. I really like doing hydro, but I hope I can get all this shit figured out or I will have to quit DWC.

Well, discovered a bit of an issue with my White Widow a day or two ago, her leaves coming from the buds are curling down, like downward "taco". Posted it on another site, going to try an experiment with the nutes/ppms. I lowered her to 445 ppm this morning, I will check her tomorrow morning to see what or if she's eating. I had her ppm at 750 on Tuesday, Wednesday morning it was about 550, so I put it back to 750, this morning it was 400. I have not seen her eat this much so quick, I probably should not have put her back to 750 again. But I did notice the curling leaves before all this. So we shall see.




As for OG and Gouda, they are moving along, still the weirdest looking/growing plants I have seen. A couple of them have these real light yellow spots on the fan leaves???
On a great note, I have six rooting WW clones from my very first DIY Bubble Cloner...yay!!!

Back for an update! Ok, so my White Widow has done great despite what could have been root rot, she has pulled through, her roots are looking real nice and her buds, of course, look better. I am starting her on her final flush today which I will do for a week and then harvest next weekend. She topped out at 42". I have pruned her a bit over the last few weeks to get more light to her buds.


I am down to 2 OG Poison plants, out of 10 seeds, I ended up with 4 good plants, two of which were chucked recently for having balls. One has gone into flowering and is a girl...yay. The odd one is still not showing, so I will wait, but is not looking good. The first pic is the girl, second is of my WW clones, Gouda Cheese and the very back, tallest one is my odd ball OG.



Out of the 10 Gouda seeds, some did not even germinate, I have 4 survivors, not sure of sex yet, still too young, but two are looking hopeful. I realized that I am not a big fan of the hempy bucket. I was all geeked about it at first, then they took off and was looking great. Then one of my OG's that was in hempy got root bound, I had to transplant which is not an easy process and it took its toll on my plant, so I think I will just stick to DWC in the future. Might hempy some auto's since they don't get too big, but definitely not hempying another sativa.
Only one issue now, my clones are growing massive roots, but no new top growth?????
I also have a couple clones I took off my female OG before she went into flowering. Yay...babies!