DWC Starting. Questions for the experienced.

Sup guys,
Been doing some "dwc research" for about 3 weeks now. I think I've gotten everything I need to start.
My plan is
(5) 12g totes (HDX black with yellow tops)
Painted the lids black with reflective foil over just in case, with 6in holes for the netting pots. Will be using hydroton pebz. 8in air stones in each with a 32w commercial air pump.
2 (640w) leds full spectrum samsung leds 8bar style each.

Questions that are still sketchy to me....

Feed: plan is to feed one of the 5 totes with maxi series from gh and the others with GH flora series 3 part to see whats best to keep. I have as additives- Hydroguard, Calmag, epsom salts, free bottle of snowstorm ultra, and a free bottle of great white mycorrhizae (powder). (Gh also sent some small bottles of liquid koolbloom, florablend, and floracious plus will these actually benefit?)


Top off with Phd water or add back method?
I like the idea of adding back but not sure how it works. Ive heard people say something about 33 percent, some say they just add back with maybe 50ppms more of the last feeding, and some say they just dump and add water until the end of the week. If someone can explain this a little deeper, ill appreciate it.
(Would hate dumping 60g of water every week to refill again personally)

Water levels:
Hear people saying 1 to 2" gap under the netpot is ideal, then theres some that keep the water right under the netpot for the whole grow? How low can I let these girls drink the water down befofe I have to add back some nutes/water? Some more solid info on this would be great.

Flush:
Flush for a week because of how hydro works? Flush at all? Anything thats worth giving for good ripening, or is it all snakes oil? Would love some opinions on this if this affects quality of bud.

Pk boosters:
I REALLY dont want to get caught up with the million and one pk boosters out there...just want to know which one actually has been proven to improve quality with great taste and smell. At least 1 recommended pk booster that I can add would be a great help also. I just want to keep my bottles limited and simple with best results. Im just not ever convinced you need 20bottles of shit to grow quality bud.

Would love RDWC, but not until I get this dwc thing dialed in and understood.

Pics soon to document grow.

I can't really comment on the nutrients, but should be fine as long as they aren't organic. I would run sterile instead of messing around with beneficial bacterias i.e great white and hydroguard

I do a res change before switching to flower and then every second week I refill with nutes, I never completely drain the res. Eg first week of flower is a full fresh res, then second week I refill with just water, 3rd week I refill with nutes and water at same ratio I initially put in. This keeps the ppm from going super high without having to do a complete res change

Water in buckets 1-2 inches under is fine, I usually just fill the res back up when I can be fucked. Usually around when there is 3-4 gallons left (15 gal res) it is probably better to not let it get that low though.

I'll cop it for this, but I reckon flushing is bro science. I've done it before and never noticed any difference in taste or quality of bud

Any PK13/14 booster will be fine as long as it's not organic. Where I am i use GT and that works fine

I'd skip straight ahead and go rdwc. It'll save you a lot of headaches and help to prevent your res from growing snot

Hope this helps mate

mpence said:

I can't really comment on the nutrients, but should be fine as long as they aren't organic. I would run sterile instead of messing around with beneficial bacterias i.e great white and hydroguard

I do a res change before switching to flower and then every second week I refill with nutes, I never completely drain the res. Eg first week of flower is a full fresh res, then second week I refill with just water, 3rd week I refill with nutes and water at same ratio I initially put in. This keeps the ppm from going super high without having to do a complete res change

Water in buckets 1-2 inches under is fine, I usually just fill the res back up when I can be fucked. Usually around when there is 3-4 gallons left (15 gal res) it is probably better to not let it get that low though.

I'll cop it for this, but I reckon flushing is bro science. I've done it before and never noticed any difference in taste or quality of bud

Any PK13/14 booster will be fine as long as it's not organic. Where I am i use GT and that works fine

I'd skip straight ahead and go rdwc. It'll save you a lot of headaches and help to prevent your res from growing snot

Hope this helps mate

Click to expand...

I appreciate your time to answer that bro. So I do like that feeding every other week concept you mentioned there.
Do your girls ever show any deficiencies on the weeks with just water by chance?
And yea I just wanted to make sure that its OK to let the water get low once in a while to buy me some time.

And snot im assuming is root rot talk lol?

This might be of some help. I'm running dtw. I have no dwc or rdwc experience.

6 Leaf General said:

I appreciate your time to answer that bro. So I do like that feeding every other week concept you mentioned there.
Do your girls ever show any deficiencies on the weeks with just water by chance?
And yea I just wanted to make sure that its OK to let the water get low once in a while to buy me some time.

And snot im assuming is root rot talk lol?

Click to expand...

The feeding every other week might not be the right way, but I've always had good harvest and never had deficiencies. Main reason for it is that if you add nutes every refill the ppm gets ridiculously high. Especially since I just run tap water which is already at 350ppm. If you notice a deficiency, which will pop up quickly,then just add nutes. And yeah by snot I mean algae and all the other fun stuff that results from a res full of Luke warm l, stagnant, nutrient rich water. I'd definitely go with putting a pump in to mix the water. You also get the added benefit of having a waterfall for DO

I've been growing dwc/rdwc for 5 years now.
One issue you are going to encounter is keeping your solution cool.
My first 3 years were done running bennies in an attempt to keep root funk from forming in the rez.
I usually do a rez dump every 14 days.
Since I use leds, I need to keep the room temps in the low 80's to get best growth, but that's too warm for the solution even with bennies.
I finally invested in a chiller a couple of years ago-plants are MUCH happier.
Running a sterile system is your best option without a chiller.
I've run GH flora trio in the past-worked well but I've switched to dry nutes.
I run Jacks 3-2-1 with some Tribus bennies and PowerSi.
If I use a rockwool starter cube, I will keep the solution level below the net so the cube doesn't stay saturated.
If I transplant directly into hydroton, I will submerge the bottom inch of the basket.
I use ec measurements to track whether the plants want more or less food.
I will add 1-1.5g/gallon mkp during flower stretch and then back to normal.
I like to stop feeding when the trics are cloudy and get the plants to senesce for a week or so.

mpence said:

The feeding every other week might not be the right way, but I've always had good harvest and never had deficiencies. Main reason for it is that if you add nutes every refill the ppm gets ridiculously high. Especially since I just run tap water which is already at 350ppm. If you notice a deficiency, which will pop up quickly,then just add nutes. And yeah by snot I mean algae and all the other fun stuff that results from a res full of Luke warm l, stagnant, nutrient rich water. I'd definitely go with putting a pump in to mix the water. You also get the added benefit of having a waterfall for DO

Click to expand...

Definitely will look into that rdwc after this attempt at least. My issue right now is limited space. And my water out the tap has 100ppms already and 7.5 ph

GBAUTO said:

I've been growing dwc/rdwc for 5 years now.
One issue you are going to encounter is keeping your solution cool.
My first 3 years were done running bennies in an attempt to keep root funk from forming in the rez.
I usually do a rez dump every 14 days.
Since I use leds, I need to keep the room temps in the low 80's to get best growth, but that's too warm for the solution even with bennies.
I finally invested in a chiller a couple of years ago-plants are MUCH happier.
Running a sterile system is your best option without a chiller.
I've run GH flora trio in the past-worked well but I've switched to dry nutes.
I run Jacks 3-2-1 with some Tribus bennies and PowerSi.
If I use a rockwool starter cube, I will keep the solution level below the net so the cube doesn't stay saturated.
If I transplant directly into hydroton, I will submerge the bottom inch of the basket.
I use ec measurements to track whether the plants want more or less food.
I will add 1-1.5g/gallon mkp during flower stretch and then back to normal.
I like to stop feeding when the trics are cloudy and get the plants to senesce for a week or so.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info bro. How different is going sterile from running the Bennies?
And yea I have a tight footprint to work from for right now and rdwc is my next step in a different area. For now I gotta try and make this dwc thing work without a rez and chiller.
And you mean you stop feeding and start the flush when trics are cloudy? Do you flush or nah?

What convinced you to stay with the dry nutrients? Better results all together? Or simplicity? Thanks

6 Leaf General said:

Thanks for the info bro. How different is going sterile from running the Bennies?
And yea I have a tight footprint to work from for right now and rdwc is my next step in a different area. For now I gotta try and make this dwc thing work without a rez and chiller.
And you mean you stop feeding and start the flush when trics are cloudy? Do you flush or nah?

What convinced you to stay with the dry nutrients? Better results all together? Or simplicity? Thanks

Click to expand...

I've never run a sterile system but based on the number of folks that use it, it works well.
Frankly, that's the option I would take if a chiller isn't possible.
When I attempted to just use hydroguard or GFF, I would always have signs of root rot by the end of the run.
Based on what I've grown with liquid and dry nutes(jacks), the final products were very similar but the ease of storage and significantly lower cost of dry nutes just made more sense for me.
Again, all I do to finish is a system dump, refill with ph'd water, and allow the plant to senesce for about 7-10 days.

You will relief so much stress for you and your plants just getting a water chiller haha. It's more than worth it. I grew some trees without a chiller but then root rott took over. After that I never grew without a chiller in RDWC. I was shocked how much they appreciate the cool feet. Or you can mess with beneficial bacteria which then I say good luck!

Take in to consideration temperature control in regards to the ambient temp and reservoir temp. Those are going to be your worst enemies. If your plant's are not happy they wont produce. It's always better to avoid stunning then risking it.

The number 1 problem to solve in hydro is light leaks. Even black buckets will let in light! Shine a high powered light against your container and if you see light glowing through your gonna have problems. A pinhole can cause problems. There are a lot of ways to 100% light proof a container. I painted them once but that was a waste of money because paint chips away with all the moving around. I wrap in panda film or duck tape now.

I even threw away my 2" colored foam collars for my clones because they let in light and caused clones to rot before rooting. Now only black ones. No light leak and no rot.

Good luck with your grows.

Perfect looking for some of the same answers you asked thanks. Doing a similar set up

Wow, if sterile is superior to bennies perhaps I could just watch them grow instantly.

Personally use botanicare products with microbial mass , clear water, very stable ph and very rapid growth.

es300's driving the party.

Loving it.

I love DWC I'm getting close to my first run finishing up. I started with some bag seed to just dial things in a bit before switching to a more valued crop.. I run with Hydroguard with no rot issues PH at around 5.8 rez temps under 71f. The growth has been incredible. Here's a pic of one of my girls at 8 weeks old starting her 4th week of flower. I vegged a little longer than I should have and 3 plants filled a 4x4 tent so I had to move 2 to another tent

looks nice, good job