DWC Issues - confusing. (Please help, read everywhere)

Hi guys, feeding these small plants at 400ppm in hydro using jungle juice nutrients 3 part. have put in equal dosages for each feed. My plants are getting worse each day despite the fact they're growing they're dying quicker than they grow. Anyone give me some guidance? my PH is at 5.5, got a decent air pump pumping the air to the bucket (600 lp/h) and growing under an LED 170w lamp rated at 300 watts. Average temperature in the room is around 26c. Roots are healthy, no slime no algae and using SM-90 as an additive. Would really like some advice here, is my feed too low a level or is it too much or...? growing jungle wreck seeds.
Adam

ph is to low should be around 6.5 5.5 is locking out nutrients available, Temp to low around 30 c plus is better in my opinion good luck an happy gardening

Thanks mate I'll try raising the PH up. I'm running a co2 bag in the room as well so higher temps wont be an issue should they raise.

Cool good luck

im no hydro grower but looks like ur ppm is to high ,

Have you calibrated your ppm pen? There is no way 400ppm is too high for plants that size but they are almost certainly suffering nute burn.

If you can't calibrate your pen to make certain of the ppm then I would drain and replace with fresh RO water and 1ml per liter or quart of water to make certain you aren't overdosing the plants but give them something to eat. Don't run with water only as that can cause an overnuted plant to reverse water flow and dry up in no time.

5.5 - 6.2 is the range of pH for DWC or other hydro methods. 6.5 is for dirt farmers.

If those nutes are pH Perfect then don't even bother checking pH. If using tap water get yourself some RO water to eliminate water caused problems.

so darkendangel, are you saying that you use 3 part nutes at 400ppm each? to make 1200? if so, that's your problem. if not, it still looks like you're overferting because you have dark green leaves, according to the pics, and leaf tip death, both of which tend to mean excessive nutrient level. If you're using 400 ppm of each fert, just cut the amount in half, 200 for each one. (if I have this right). the way you wrote your first post, it's a little confusing. if you're at 400 total, then for some reason it still looks like you're overferting for now as they are small. I need to know what you're total ppm is. Also you've made a mistake in putting three plants in the same bucket because they will easily outgrow one bucket, if done right. people always put small plants in a small space forgetting that plants will grow a lot if done properly. Give them space to grow.

Hi guys, with further though I believe I might have a faulty ppm meter. It was quite cheap from China so, 400ppm in total - sorry should have been clear. I wasn't sure if any other nutrients were being overdone, I noticed nitrogen toxicity but wasn't entirely sure if it was the strain or nutrients. Yeah it'll probably be quite an issue transplanting them into a bigger bucket. I was aiming for a small grow, I only had one other successful grow in soil. Using jungle juice 3 part sorry forgot to mention also. The plants appear to have stopped burning now I've let the PH raise up, dropped my total ppm's to 200. Even though it seems ridiculously low it seems to be okay at the moment

If you flower them before they get too big you can finish them up in there. I use Rubbermaid© tubs to do my DWC in and have had 20 plants in one tub before. Actually 2 tubs with lots of plants for an experiment in not changing nutes in one tub while doing a couple changes in the other. From that I learned not to bother changing nutes but once during the grow. Right after the stretch.

The biggest problem with growing large or multiple plants in a pail is that they drink the nute volume down too fast. As the volume goes down the ppm goes up. Because of the pots the actual volume of water in the pail is only about 4 gallons instead of 5 and when the plants get bigger they can easily drop the volume a gallon/day. This can raise the ppm a lot so if you're already running them high the ppm can get over what they can handle and they start to burn. The pH can go out of whack too so as you refill and the pH swings back and forth it stresses the hell out of the plant and that's never good.

You could just get a tub, carve an 8" hole in the middle of the lid and then lift the lid off the pail and drop it with the plants right into the tub. The taller tubs hold 50L/12.5USG so swings in ppm and pH are minimized. I basically do that with the tubs as I'll start with the shorter tub and switch to the taller one when I go into flower. As the lids are the same size it's really easy to do. I drill 2 holes just under one handle of the tub so there is no tubing to worry about when swapping lids. No holes below the waterline either to prevent leaks.

The roots may look like they fill up the bucket but they don't really take up much volume. This mass of roots only displaced 2L of water in a 50L tub so that's just 4% of the available volume. Looks like it takes up most of the space in there but not so.

Darkenedangel said:

Hi guys, with further though I believe I might have a faulty ppm meter. It was quite cheap from China so, 400ppm in total - sorry should have been clear. I wasn't sure if any other nutrients were being overdone, I noticed nitrogen toxicity but wasn't entirely sure if it was the strain or nutrients. Yeah it'll probably be quite an issue transplanting them into a bigger bucket. I was aiming for a small grow, I only had one other successful grow in soil. Using jungle juice 3 part sorry forgot to mention also. The plants appear to have stopped burning now I've let the PH raise up, dropped my total ppm's to 200. Even though it seems ridiculously low it seems to be okay at the moment

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what do your roots look like?

what is your water temp?

looks like you have foliage and no roots (pythium). if water gets much higher than 70f, roots die. ph and ppm are fine for dwc, so check water temp and roots.

oldmeduser, nice post.
if a person doesn't grow well in soil, it's probably because you give ferts when you shouldn't. many potting soil already have fert in them, like foxfarm.

Hi guys, the roots are growing very slowly on 2 out of 3 plants despite them being healthy with no slime, algae etc. They're a nice white colour, at the moment I have no way of measuring res temperature, had been having quite large ppm swings before I set the ppms in my bucket to 200, its raised by 12 in 2 days now but the plants are still burning and ph keeps reaching back up around 6.5-7.0, am keeping an eye on it daily and making adjustments as necessary. I never really though about it having 3 plants taking at once causing bigger swings. No foul smells from the bucket etc, I think it might be that my tds meter is cheap and giving wrong readings - calibrated the ph meter so I know that ones definitely accurate. Perhaps temperature in the res is causing ph to rise? Adam

Darkenedangel said:

Hi guys, the roots are growing very slowly on 2 out of 3 plants despite them being healthy with no slime, algae etc. They're a nice white colour, at the moment I have no way of measuring res temperature, had been having quite large ppm swings before I set the ppms in my bucket to 200, its raised by 12 in 2 days now but the plants are still burning and ph keeps reaching back up around 6.5-7.0, am keeping an eye on it daily and making adjustments as necessary. I never really though about it having 3 plants taking at once causing bigger swings. No foul smells from the bucket etc, I think it might be that my tds meter is cheap and giving wrong readings - calibrated the ph meter so I know that ones definitely accurate. Perhaps temperature in the res is causing ph to rise? Adam

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I'll just throw my two pennies in when ran dwc I used jungle juice and it has been the ONLY nutrient line I had issues with. Oh and get you some good pens to check your ppm and such man they're worth the money. You really need to know your Rez temp man it's pretty important in those setups even if you go out and buy a cheap brewing thermometer.

Anytime I've done DWC and I've done about 50 tubs in the last 15 years the pH tends to rise over a period of a few days. I would top up the tub with RO water then check the pH and ppm and adjust as needed. I'd bump the pH down to around 5.3 or so and it would rise to around 6.2 in a few days.

For about the first 12 years I used the old AN 3 - part nutes then a couple years ago tried Sensi Grow for veg and the Connoisseur for flowering with a little Big Bud. That was my first go with the pH Perfect nutes and I love 'em. For the whole month of August I was in Kelowna, BC helping my 89yo mom pack up and move out of her big house into a 5th wheel at my sisters. Talk about stress but she laid some cash on me so I stocked up on nutes, bulbs, light rail and a few other things to grow with this winter. Went back to the 3 - part nutes so I can go Lucas formula after the stretch and limit the amount of N in later flowering. Always getting the crispy leaves with the 2 - part as you can't really cut back the N without losing other goodies that help the flowers grow.

I've never tried the Jungle Juice but have read a few journals where problems seemed to be the order of the day. I've also read that they changed the formula couple years ago and it's been crappy since but not sure if that's true. Love AN and hate to think they are cheaping out and hurting growers.

You can get those little stick-on thermometers at pet shops that sell fish or wine making stores. About a buck each and you just stick it on the side of your bucket.

Temp is important but if your roots are still slime free and white then it's likely not too high atm. I chill mine to 65F with a DIY chiller I made out of an old water cooler. Hope to have a couple of tubs going in a while with a shitload of plants in each for a fast turnover.

Yeah my problem always seems to be with feeding the plants properly and I've read a few places too that jungle juice has been troublesome for most too, so I agree with you there. I'm gonna invest in a decent tds meter and some new nutrients I think. They used to drop my ph when mixing them but they dont seem to do that now - have got an r.o filter but had been using tap water for a while just because there were so many adjustments to make. Will stick to R.O now, it'll probably be calcium from tap water adding to the rise, will check out the ph perfect line. The nitrogen content throughout the 3 part in total is quite high, probably why I ended up with dark green leaves and as you said before oldmeduser, its a struggle to increase one nutrient without increasing the others because of it. They seem to have stopped burning, the tds meter I have is reading 100ppm but seems a bit off, I read 400parts is ideal for seedlings in dwc

Sorry I meant will check out the sensi grow line

I had a good grow with dynagrow. best of luck.

The N part of the 3 - part nutes is fairly high but most of it is in the Micro part.

For veg I use equal parts of the Grow and Micro but only 1/3 as much of the Bloom. A week before flipping I up the Bloom to twice as much as the others and toss in a half dose of the Big Bud. Then as the plants go into flowering and start the stretch they have a good dose of blooming nutes and it seems to prime the pump so the bud sites are showing up in a week and getting pretty fat by the time stretch is over. After the stretch the plants don't need high levels of N so I will change my nutes then and reload with no Grow and use the Micro and Bloom at a 1:2 ratio with a full dose of Big Bud.

I also use silica from the very start with all my plants and don't wait until flowering is started like it says on the bottle. I prefer to use Rhino Skin but have run out so bought some concentrated stuff in BC as I couldn't find the Rhino. The Rhino works better with the pH Perfect nutes and doesn't shoot the pH way up like no-name stuff. Usually you add the silica first then add pH down to get it around 6 - 7 then add the rest of your nutes and make any final pH adjustment to get it where you want it. With the Rhino I'd just put it in first then add the nutes and use them.

CalMag should be used with RO water but only at about half the maximum dose on the bottle. When using tap water, unless it's very soft, no CalMag is needed and adding any generally causes more problems than benefits. I'm out of that too.

I started doing DWC in 2001. Just experimenting after reading stuff about floating water gardens in Babylon or somewhere and some other stuff about hydroponics I found at the local library. Didn't have no internet at the time and my only link to cannabis culture was magazines like Cannabis Culture and High Times. No one was doing DWC back then and now it's all over the place.

After doing about 50 tubs since then I've settled on the above method as a basic standard that always seems to work out OK.

Darkenedangel said:

Sorry I meant will check out the sensi grow line

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My next run I'm using vegamatrix nutrients I've been using their big and sticky in flower for two weeks and I'm biting. I'm gonna run a log on the full line come next month.

Thanks Oldmeduser. I'll mix less in of bloom and give it a try. Have bought a new TDS meter which cost £30 on ebay. So it should be reasonably accurate, a little tight on money. Here's the link - ( http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391549041469?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT ) (Hope its acceptable to post links here), Yeah the grow seems to have all the elements the others do but added ontop as a supplemental. Will go check out the different lines suggested and probably start fresh with some better nutrients than the jungle juice i'm using. Might be okay once the TDS meter arrives but if not will definitely give it a go at changing nutes. My plants always end up dying when I feed them, weak feed or not Silica is one thing I haven't added to my DWC bucket previously, I did read it helps for plant elasticity? or perhaps i'm thinking of something else. & Lordhooha, your buds sounds amazing xD love the feeling of walking into the grow room and smelling the buds.