Atlantadirect's first grow DWC closet

Hey everybody, I've been lurking on this site for a short while and I've started my very own first grow. I'm starting with some bag seed that I've collected over the past couple of months and I've set myself up with a DIY DWC and 250 watt digital ballast that I'll be using to switch between a MH and HPS bulb. I'm using the little washing machine room in my apartment as a grow room, it has conveniently all white interior and shelves to hold supplies and hand the light from. Before I fired up the MH bulb the room stayed a constant 70 F and 50% humidity, afterwards the temperature climbed to ~90 F and humidity fell to 40%. I set up a small swamp cooler and dropped the temp to the mid 80s and raised the humidity back to 50%. Here are some pictures.

Here is a picture of 6 sprouts



Here are my favorite 4 sprouts installed into my DWC


The two sprouts in the middle fell over so I made them little crutches out of twist ties, also you can see the swamp cooler


I'm not a big forum user so I don't know if I've inserted the above images correctly. Hopefully there are three pictures and everyone can see them.

I plan to try can keep this journal up to date so that others can follow my progress and learn from my mistakes and also so more knowledgeable growers can correct my mistakes before they become catastrophes.

First off, sorry I double posted this thread to start with. I wasn't able to find a way to delete the other one.

Its been two days since I transferred the sprouts into the DWC setup and 3 of the 4 seem to be doing well. The one that isn't doing so hot has sad leaves curling downward. I think I may have transferred the sprouts from the gentle nurturing warmth of the 24 watt T5 to the unforgiving and demanding 250 watt MH to soon. I haven't given up on the little sprout, I think it might survive.

In the below picture you can see the unhappy sprout in the background, the foreground is a relatively happy, if blurry sprout.




Also, I have added a second fan blowing air from my apartment into the closet and the temperature has fallen to a pleasant 76 F while maintaining a amiable 50% humidity. I have been maintaining the reservoirs pH between 5 and 6.

Here are pictures showing my thermometer/hygrometer and the general setup of the closet.




I am hopeful about this grow. I can see little leaves growing bigger already. Stay tuned for more exciting developments.

I am no expert, but they look stretched a tad. Maybe move the light about half a foot closer, if it doesn't feel to hot at the plants level

im not expert either but I would move that mh lamp to about 9-12 inchs from the top of your plants

I lowered the MH light to ~10 inches above the tops of the plants. They stopped dropping over and didn't need any support to hold them up, so thank you both for that advice. One of the plants stopped standing up later though and you can see the twist tie giving it support in the pictures. Something I'm concerned about is all of my plants have curly leaves instead of broad flat leaves. They are growing though, I can definitely see new leaves growing and old leaves getting bigger.






You can see in the pictures I have that one T5 bulb laying flat on the DWC shining upward into the reflector. I figured that as much light as possible was a good thing. You can also see the leaf curling I was talking about, what do some of you think this is? Are my plants unhealthy?

something is not good but since im no hydro man i cant really tell you how to fix it just keep the light close and it appears they are getting drowned

it looks like they are getting too much water

with dwc, that means theres not enough dissolved oxygen in the water (i.e. need another air pump)

how big is the reservoir and what kind of air pump(s) do you have?

i think it's possible that in a couple days they might just perk up on their own anyways even if you don't rush out and go buy another air pump

**edit**
Get that fluorescent tube out of there for now!!!!!

they are babies man... they can't handle too much light at first.
it's really best if they "harden off" to strong lights like HPS, and MH... which means they need to be very far away from the light just at first, and increase the distance day by day. (for future reference fluorescents are good for early seedling growth for like the first week if you have enough fluoro's to do that)

i have a 250w HPS light. my plants are 6-7 weeks into veg, and the tops are about 10-12" inches away from the bulb with a fan blowing over the tops.

I would suggest at the seedling stage having it 16" away or so, and then slowly increase it over the next 3-4 days to be 10-12"

Atlanta,

I'm going DWC with my next grow in about 2 days. I hope we can share info if thats good with you.
You said this is your first grow, so I dunno if you know but, whats the purpose of the clay pellots in the baskets?
I asked the associate at our local hydroponics shop and he suggested the plants will be fine in the rockwool, after I germ them, and stick them in a "bark plug". The plugs are the same size as the holes in the rockwool, and after the seed is in the "bark plug" I just stick it into the hole in the rockwool.
I know thats sounds complicated/confusing, but if you know the purpose of the pellots please pm me. Also, whats the diff. in 3" and 5" baskets? Again, the associate suggested I wont be 'super' limited by the baskets. Anyoone have info on this?

Lounge: Mods edit if i'm thread jacking, hope i'm not! Peace.

@funnyguy and iIIusion- The plants have only just begun to get their roots into the water so I don't think it could be that they are getting drowned. I have only been giving them a couple of squirts from a turkey baster (<4 fluid ounces of solution) everyday to get them moist, the clay pebbles drain very quickly. Also, I have a pump rated for a 40 gallon aquarium pumping air through two 5" diameter round air stones into 10 gallons of water. I haven't done this before but I think that this is sufficient from what I have read about DWC.

also @iIIusion- I took out the T5 and raised the MH up a couple of inches. I'll see if this makes them look any happier

@Lounge- The pebbles are to give the plants something to root in. Also, they hold very little moisture and this particular kind is very uneven and lumpy so that there is good aeration. I don't know much about the rockwool-in-the-plug-in-the-rockwool-cube thing. I used some seed starting plugs that the guy at the hydroponics store recommended to me and then buried those in the clay pebbles when I transferred the seedlings into the DWC from a seedling tray. Also, about the baskets, the larger the basket the more stable it will be, which could be important if your plants get top heavy. I went with four 5" baskets for my 14 gallon sterlite container because I bought a 250 watt light setup and I figured I might as well have more stable plants since four or five would be the max I could grow under that much wattage (or so I have come to determine through my web literature research on the matter).

Here are some new pictures. The plants are now on day 17 from seed (I planted the seeds on the 19th of December). Two pictures are different angle shots of the setup and all the plants and another picture is of the roots beginning to poke through the baskets. I have the baskets just touching the top of the solution in the reservoir so now this means the plants have access to food and water. I think I have two happy plants and two unhappy plants, but all of them continue to develop larger leaves and more new leaves. What is your opinion on their collective health?

The plants' health has seemed to improve over the last two days. The leaves seem both larger and happier and new leaves are clearly growing. Also, with just gentle support all of the spindly plants are standing strongly. However, there is one plant that is looking ill. It has turned to a more yellowly shade of green and parts of its leaves have browned. It is also the only plant that has not yet reached roots into the reservoir below. All the other plants have healthly little roots poking into the water.

Tomorrow I will be changing the reservoir for the first time. Ten gallons is very heavy and I will be moving it via a two gallon bucket. I think that ideally I would have a powerful water pump to quickly move the water around, but I don't.

Here are three pictures:
This one is Droopy, with its droopy lower leaves.


This one is sick little Yellowy.


This is all four; Happy, Yellowy, Droopy, and Curly. I think Curly is the most vigerous.

looking a lot better!
is the stretching from the beginning of their life? or has it been happening just recently?

Its funny how a lot of growers name some plants "droopy". The one you have doesn't even compare to the one i named droopy

hopefully this picture will make you feel better about the condition of your plant

The stretching is from early in their life. I was foolish with my lighting distance. Also, your Droopy looks a lot like my Curly did a few days ago.

I havent seen anything about your nutrients yet. they look hungry. also, now that the roots have made it to the water, you need to lower the water level to 1-2 inches below the bottom of the netpots and no more watering through the top (except the one that hasnt made it to the water).

Papajock, I am using GH floragrow/bloom/micro (I think that is the trilogy). The reservoir is at 10% full nute strength and the water level is just below the netpots. When I change the reservoir a little later today how much should I up the nutes? I was planning on going up to 20-25% full strength and also lowering the water level an inch. How does that sound?

do you have a ppm meter?
about what ppm or ec would you guess the solution is at besides 10% nutrient strength?

@iIIusion: I don't have a ppm/ec meter for the time being, so I was basing my 10% strength off of the recommended formula for vegging on the bottles of my nutes. General Hydroponics recommends 3 tsp veg nutes, 2 tsp micro, and 1 tsp of bloom per a gallon for the vegetative period. So I put 3 tsp veg, 2 tsp micro, and 1 tsp bloom into my 10 gallons of water to make a 10% strength solution.

I changed the reservoir yesterday. After emptying the DWC container I sprayed it down with a weak alcohol solution to clean it. I also rearranged my closet a bit. I think all of my plants are much happier. Their roots are growing very rapidly it seems like, even Yellowy has roots poking into the reservoir now. All of them seem to be much healthier with perky leaves reaching toward the light.

Here are some pictures. It has been 19 days since I planted the seeds and about 13 days since the plants sprouted with leaves.

Here you can see the root development. After being in the new tank a little while the roots have expanded noticeably further.


This is te better organized grow space. You can see the oscillating fan swamp cooler on the left and the aquarium pump in the middle. The stripe down the DWC tank is how I peek into the solution to see the bubbles and roots without disturbing the plants.


In this picture we can see all four plants looking pretty good. Even Yellowy.

I upgraded my swamp cooler today. I bought a shallow baking sheet and stacked it with a pair of baking sheets I already had in front of my fan. With the fan on medium I keep the room at a constant 78-80 F and 55-60% humidity with the light on, even when the closet door is closed (which is a big improvement).




I think the plants are all looking as good as they ever have. Even Yellowy, who is not very yellow any more (just small and a few burnt leaf tips). All of their root systems have grown a bunch, certainly at a more noticeable rate than the leaves. Their leaves are growing well too though.



I am worried about Droopy though, here is a closer picture.



Is that yellow hue normal? Or is it a sign of some sort of deficiency, maybe an immobile element since it is new growth that is a yellowish hue?

Can anyone tell me if I should be concerned about the yellowness that my plant Droopy has on it? Having never done this before, I don't know if this is some sort of sign that something is wrong or if this is just normal for some plants.

My plants have been in the DWC and under the 250 watt MH for two weeks now and I am pleased with their progress. Mostly I'm happy that all four plants have survived thus far. Even Yellowy has turned green and developed a good set of roots.

Yesterday morning I decided it was time to begin their LST. All plants either had their third set of fan leaves or had them growing. I simply bent them over and held them down with twist ties that were taped to the top of the container. Here is a pic of them from today. You can see how they have all already bent back towards the light.



I was worried about Droopy's yellow leaves, but most of the yellow has faded away and been replaced by a healthy hue of green. However, there are some brown splotches on some of the leaves that were yellow. Here is a closer pic of Droopy. I think it is probably healthy, but let me know what you all think.



And last the last picture for today is of Curly, I just wanted to show how bushy it has gotten.



The roots of all the plants have been growing so fast that they quickly descended into the solution below. So today I changed the reservoir a little early than I had planned. I'm glad I did because I discovered a little bit of floaty algae bits floating around inside. I washed the reservoir out very well and cleaned it with some disinfectants. I also taped a layer of corragated cardboard to the outside of the reservoir to let less light in for the algae. I filled the reservoir up with 6 gallons of tap water that I let sit out for 48 hours, 45 ml Floragro, 30 ml Floramicro, 15 ml Florabloom, 60 ml of 3% H2O2, and 11 drops of superthrive before I pH balanced the solution to 5.7. I'm letting the plants sit in the dark for a little bit so that I could mist them with a weak superthrive solution and let their roots grow for the now more distant solution. My plan is that they will keep growing strong for three to five more weeks before I switch them to flowering and that will hopefully give me my first harvest in early to middle March.

yellow cud be nitrogen deficiency, n i just havce to say i love the AC unit u installed lmao ingenious setup sir