Jypsy Dog
Well-Known Member
I manage mine the same way... Lets me know how much of an adjustment to make on my pH also. I refill from a bucket of RO with Cal/Mag set @ 200ppm. I just ignore that and call it Zero when I log the changes.
First dwc grow and having issues?
- Thread starter Hikuntry
- Start date
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
The EC tells you nothing about whether your individual nutrients are in balance just the total amount of dissolved solids in the remaining sol'n.
Topping up first tells me exactly how much of the total I started with has been used so I know how much to put back to maintain my target ppm level. That's all I need to know.
I'm sorry you feel I was being insulting but that diploma comment was directed to the other guy who brought it up.
I don't even concern myself with that stuff but might keep track with my next DWC grow to see how valid it is. There are so many variables in plant growth rates depending on stage of growth, environmental changes etc that can affect those results that some experimentation is in order.
With 40+ DWC grows and never losing a plant I hardly consider spelling out how I do things that have worked fine for me these last 16 years misinformation.
im4satori
Well-Known Member
i appreciate and except your apology @OldMedUser
ive been growing in hydro well over a decade myself and ive recently switched to organic soil to broaden my experience
if I did hydro the way you do I would end up over fertilizing
I did take a peak at your link at the bottom of your posts "occasional pics of current grow"
I see your attempting to grow in soil?? is soil new for you??
seems like theres a lot going on in those pics
i assume you grew in hydro prior to your current soil grows?
if your happy with your way im happy for you my friend
to each there own i suppose
ive been growing in hydro well over a decade myself and ive recently switched to organic soil to broaden my experience
if I did hydro the way you do I would end up over fertilizing
I did take a peak at your link at the bottom of your posts "occasional pics of current grow"
I see your attempting to grow in soil?? is soil new for you??
seems like theres a lot going on in those pics
i assume you grew in hydro prior to your current soil grows?
if your happy with your way im happy for you my friend
to each there own i suppose
Enigma
Well-Known Member
I don't think you are following me here, if you add water before taking a reading the solution will be more dilute than it was previously, giving inaccurate results.
im4satori
Well-Known Member
hes following you
im4satori
Well-Known Member
below is some reading material I had saved on a flash drive from a long long time ago
it doesn't answer the debate but its what I have on hand on the topic
copy and paste;
How can I properly maintain my hydroponic nutrient solution?
Reservoir maintenance is the routine task of keeping the hydroponic nutrient solution in the reservoir from becoming too strong or toxic as the water is being evaporated and the nutrients within the solution are taken up by the plants.
Simply put...
Top off daily with *half strength nutrients, alternating days topping up with plain water. Change the entire reservoir with fresh solution every ten days to two weeks. (*half the strength of your current new reservior starting strength)
Why should you?
One problem in hydroponics solution maintenance, as water is being taken up by the plants as well as evaporating out of the solution, the concentration of nutrient salts in the solution becomes gradually stronger, sometimes to the point of certain elements becoming toxic to the plants. The TDS will always become stronger as water is taken away from the solution.
Another problem, is that hydroponically grown plants will take up what they need as they need it from the nute solution. A nutrient solution left alone will end up lacking key nutrients, with a build-up of *toxic levels of other key nutrients. *Toxic in the solution, as well as in the plants.
The only way around these problems for the average hydroponic grower, is to practice sound reservoir topping off procedures. The most widely accepted maintenance method, involves daily topping off and routine reservoir solution replacement. IE: Topping off the reservoir daily with a nutrient solution which is half of the current new reservoir strength, alternating days by topping off with plain water and finally, changing the entire res solution at least every two weeks.
Changing the reservoir solution every two weeks, will give the plants a fresh and well balanced nute mix, which has not been altered by the plants nutrient uptake.
*Many scientific studies have been performed, which demonstrate these facts by GCMS testing of the nutrient solution contents and the nutrient salts contained within the actual plant tissues, as the plants "take-up" the specific nutrients in the solution.
Metaphorically speaking...
Plants will take up excessive levels of some nutrients, leaving the solution lacking in certain key nutrients. Just like a puppy would make him/her self sick if it were allowed to feed from a bottomless food bowl, plants grown hydroponically can harm themselves with nutrient deficiencies, lockouts and overdoses, if allowed to continue feeding without some control over whats available in the "food bowl".
it doesn't answer the debate but its what I have on hand on the topic
copy and paste;
How can I properly maintain my hydroponic nutrient solution?
Reservoir maintenance is the routine task of keeping the hydroponic nutrient solution in the reservoir from becoming too strong or toxic as the water is being evaporated and the nutrients within the solution are taken up by the plants.
Simply put...
Top off daily with *half strength nutrients, alternating days topping up with plain water. Change the entire reservoir with fresh solution every ten days to two weeks. (*half the strength of your current new reservior starting strength)
Why should you?
One problem in hydroponics solution maintenance, as water is being taken up by the plants as well as evaporating out of the solution, the concentration of nutrient salts in the solution becomes gradually stronger, sometimes to the point of certain elements becoming toxic to the plants. The TDS will always become stronger as water is taken away from the solution.
Another problem, is that hydroponically grown plants will take up what they need as they need it from the nute solution. A nutrient solution left alone will end up lacking key nutrients, with a build-up of *toxic levels of other key nutrients. *Toxic in the solution, as well as in the plants.
The only way around these problems for the average hydroponic grower, is to practice sound reservoir topping off procedures. The most widely accepted maintenance method, involves daily topping off and routine reservoir solution replacement. IE: Topping off the reservoir daily with a nutrient solution which is half of the current new reservoir strength, alternating days by topping off with plain water and finally, changing the entire res solution at least every two weeks.
Changing the reservoir solution every two weeks, will give the plants a fresh and well balanced nute mix, which has not been altered by the plants nutrient uptake.
*Many scientific studies have been performed, which demonstrate these facts by GCMS testing of the nutrient solution contents and the nutrient salts contained within the actual plant tissues, as the plants "take-up" the specific nutrients in the solution.
Metaphorically speaking...
Plants will take up excessive levels of some nutrients, leaving the solution lacking in certain key nutrients. Just like a puppy would make him/her self sick if it were allowed to feed from a bottomless food bowl, plants grown hydroponically can harm themselves with nutrient deficiencies, lockouts and overdoses, if allowed to continue feeding without some control over whats available in the "food bowl".
im4satori
Well-Known Member
my experience tells me different
if the nutrient solution is balanced and all the cations in line the plant will have less excess un-used or unwanted minerals
for example;
let take sulfur
most fertilizers have ample amounts of sulfur, more than what the plant requires... plants can usually tolerate high amounts of sulfur without issue but there sulfur requirements are relatively low comparatively
if your fertilizer is balanced then hypothetically the sulfur in the solution will reduce at some rate similar to the other required nutrient
if sulfur is in excess in the original solution the plant will not take up the excess sulfur but instead it let it pass by leaving it in the solution so that sulfur will continue to accumulate in higher ppms in the resevior with each pass over the plants root zone each time leaving sulfur behind from uptake and putting it back into the solution
pushing the solution further and further out of balance
in the case of sulfur its manageable because the cations aren't much of an issue with sulfur and plants can tolerate high levels of sulfur
I will give you the same example only with calcium
if calcium is in excess in the solution at the start of a new reservoir itll be even more excessive with each day as the excess is left behind while other nutrients are taken up within a recirculating reservoir...
eventually the excess calcium will reach a point where itll interfere with the cation and lock out magnesium..... so you identify magnesium def and add more magnesium sulfate or worse calmag...
magnesium sulfate adds to your total salinity and may help but the issue actually is lock out from the calcium and then if you use calmag you've made it worse since calmag is mostly calcium
accumulation happens when an individual element is to high or out of balance with its respective cation or when your EC is too high thus requiring frequent flushing
if running a drain to waste system on a commercial hydroponic farm (which is how they big boys do it)
ideally you should be able to take a water sample from your rockwool cube drain/waste and the EC coming out of the bottom of the cube should be close to whats going in.....
this is a common commercial method of testing and based on the same reasoning... if the solution that exits the plant is higher than that going in the the EC is to high and its accumulating
no one says... oh wait I need to dilute the rockwool sample before I test it
but again... I will say.. in your defense @OldMedUser I have read it both ways
so there may be more than one method written out there
but from my experience I have found this to work better
im4satori
Well-Known Member
as for changing reservoir solution or vs just topping off endlessly
sure you can top off and not change the solution ... ever... but youd better have a nice big reservoir
the smaller the reservoir the quicker the plants uptake will change the nutrient ratio
a smaller reservoir requires more frequent changes.. a large reservoir less frequent changes
because a larger reservoir will take longer for the nutrient ratio to go far enough out of balance to cause an issue where a small reservoir itll happen faster
and that's not even addressing the additional concerns with root disease from not changing the reservoir
sure you can top off and not change the solution ... ever... but youd better have a nice big reservoir
the smaller the reservoir the quicker the plants uptake will change the nutrient ratio
a smaller reservoir requires more frequent changes.. a large reservoir less frequent changes
because a larger reservoir will take longer for the nutrient ratio to go far enough out of balance to cause an issue where a small reservoir itll happen faster
and that's not even addressing the additional concerns with root disease from not changing the reservoir
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
If I can run a grow from clone to harvest and never change out the rez then balance is not an issue for me to be bothered with and I want to grow my meds as simply and easily as possible.
I basically taught myself DWC in 2001 and developed my own methods thru trial and error. No internet forums and no manuals. Never lost any plants tho some grows weren't nothing to write home about.
Between '78 and 2001 I probably grew a couple hundred plants sporadically here and there when I had somewhere to grow them and all of those were in soil of some kind. Never was that good in dirt and once I got going in DWC finally found my niche. Just always seemed to work for me way better. Maybe it wouldn't have worked so well with other nutes but I got 3 gallons of AN stuff and that lasted for years. Tried a couple others but the results were never as good. pH would wander all over, plants seemed to either starve or burn with no happy medium.
Since joining forums in '09 I've walked at least a dozen nOObs thru my way of doing DWC and every one was happy with their results or improvements to past attempts.
You could have saved yourself a lot of copy/pasting and typing in those last 3 posts. I'm fully aware that plants uptake different nutrients at different stages of their growth. I might just add some of one of the 3 part nutes to correct what I feel to be an imbalance. It wouldn't be that difficult for me to set up a small wet lab and analyze my nutrient solutions to find out exactly how much of each is in there but then we're getting away from the easy and simple method that already works for me. There is no fancy, expensive equipment required and I likely have most of what I'd need besides some simple reagents and other trivial bits and pieces. The procedures for doing the analysis is widely available online.
When I top up before testing it gives me a common starting point where I don't have to take any other variables into account as I'm only interested in how much the ppm has dropped since the last top up. There is probably some value in testing before topping up but there are a lot of variables that need to be accounted for and your results will be different each time depending on the influence of those variables. I really don't need to know the results of that test tho I'm going to be trying it next time to see how it relates to growth etc. Might be useful to help dial in a new strain. When I first grow a strain for the first time I'll push the ppm until I see tips starting to burn and be taking notes so the second time I can stay just below that level.
My current growing has been an experiment too. Kind of heading towards organic growing but still can't get half of what I can a lot easier in hydro and don't want to get into all the details of doing it "right". Organic growers always bitch about all the bottles of watered down nutes us hydro lovers use. I use the base nutes and 3 other bottles plus Big Bud and some epsom salts. Most of these wonderful soil mixes you see posted have a dozen or more ingredients with many of them exotic fertilizers like bat and seabird guano that is much more unsustainable than mining nutes and damages animals habitats and kills thousands of bats and birds each year. Do they ever wonder how and where these things are obtained. Do they think the poor natives of these countries are following established environmental harvesting methods while digging out caves or shoving aside the birds nesting on the piles of aged guano they want?
I'll always have some plants growing in pots but will be going back to straight soilless with hydro nutes. This half and half soil/soilless doesn't float my boat. Moms, cuttings and seeds all start well and stay healthy for me that way if I pay attention. Due to my chronic depression it's often hard for me to keep on track and the plants suffer for it. When I have DWC going I use the Rubbermaid tubs that hold 50L so I can top up, set my ppm and not step foot in the room for 3 or more days and everything is fine when I get back. If I did that with all those plants in pots I'd lose some pretty regular for sure tho they go 3 - 4 days between watering as it is.
Nothing's perfect and never will be. Overthinking shit kills more plants than almost anything. There are dozens of ways to reach the same goal but almost always one that works best for a particular person. I worked in a lot of different factories when I was a kid. I've always rebelled against authority so when I would get told what to do by some old fart I'd do it totally different just to be defiant but would eventually end up doing it almost exactly the same way. But I would always find little tweaks that made the job easier or more efficient and worked a little better for me. Seems these old farts learned a thing or two doing that job for a few years before I got there. When I was 17 working in a factory or mill I considered anyone 30 or older an old fart.
I bought a couple grand worth of grow stuff last fall so that I could knuckle down and grow a shitload of pot and make a few bucks. Got all the materials to build a new 8x6 grow room with an 8x4 grow space inside it but it ain't built yet. Did one regular size grow that got harvested around the new year and then started the grow I'm finishing now. Because of all the screwing around with this grow and less than stellar results I've decided to stick with what I've been doing and get back into DWC as my main source of meds. I'll grow enough to stock up as I also decided I want out of here. This time next year I'd like to have a for sale sign in the front yard and all my personal shit in a sea can ready to ship out. Got a lot of personal stuff.
Enough of all this. Friend dropped off 10g of Cannatonic for me to make her some cocobudder with for her sister in law and I had a couple hits in the pipe. The damn stuff is only supposed to be <1% THC ~15% CBD and it's f'n narcotic. Seems odd as I've researched that strain as I'm growing a cross of Cannatonic and Otto#1 and on seed sites its rated as a 1:1 or 2:1 CBD/THC strain so the numbers seem off for this pot. Kills my joint pain damn good tho. It's LP pot from Aurora and they call it Sentinel tho list its' common name as Cannatonic.
Sentinel is our second batch of cannatonic and it is a very close cousin to Aurora's flagship strain, Temple, offering CBD content of ~15% with THC content of 2%. This medicinal hybrid strain yields medium sized, multi-coloured buds with a beautiful blend of purple, dark green, and orange tones. Sentinel delivers a pine based smell that is complemented by a crisp, tropical aroma.
Being a close relative of Temple, Sentinel also delivers a fairly unique terpene profile. It's extremely high CBD content makes this strain ideal for use at anytime of day. It also makes a great pairing with any other strain to boost the CBD dosing in your medical regimen.
I would be having words with the people at Aurora if I'd bought this to stay lucid during the day. I haven't smoked couch lock pot like this for years and only had three tiny single hits in my pipe. I had given her some of my cocobudder I made with Sweet Skunk CBD that had been lab tested at 12% CBD, 7% THC so almost a 2:1 ratio and it wasn't narcotic at all. Mellow to smoke but uplifting and the buzz from the cocobudder was more like being tipsy from booze with great pain and depression relief that lasted almost 24 hours. That's the kind of stuff I want to be growing but if this cannatonic cross I have hits me like this LP stuff does I'm growing the wrong strain for me. Crossed the Otto with all four strains in the grow room now so there should be something good come out of that. I'll be growing some of each this winter.
Another hit or two and I'm off to bed.
I basically taught myself DWC in 2001 and developed my own methods thru trial and error. No internet forums and no manuals. Never lost any plants tho some grows weren't nothing to write home about.
Between '78 and 2001 I probably grew a couple hundred plants sporadically here and there when I had somewhere to grow them and all of those were in soil of some kind. Never was that good in dirt and once I got going in DWC finally found my niche. Just always seemed to work for me way better. Maybe it wouldn't have worked so well with other nutes but I got 3 gallons of AN stuff and that lasted for years. Tried a couple others but the results were never as good. pH would wander all over, plants seemed to either starve or burn with no happy medium.
Since joining forums in '09 I've walked at least a dozen nOObs thru my way of doing DWC and every one was happy with their results or improvements to past attempts.
You could have saved yourself a lot of copy/pasting and typing in those last 3 posts. I'm fully aware that plants uptake different nutrients at different stages of their growth. I might just add some of one of the 3 part nutes to correct what I feel to be an imbalance. It wouldn't be that difficult for me to set up a small wet lab and analyze my nutrient solutions to find out exactly how much of each is in there but then we're getting away from the easy and simple method that already works for me. There is no fancy, expensive equipment required and I likely have most of what I'd need besides some simple reagents and other trivial bits and pieces. The procedures for doing the analysis is widely available online.
When I top up before testing it gives me a common starting point where I don't have to take any other variables into account as I'm only interested in how much the ppm has dropped since the last top up. There is probably some value in testing before topping up but there are a lot of variables that need to be accounted for and your results will be different each time depending on the influence of those variables. I really don't need to know the results of that test tho I'm going to be trying it next time to see how it relates to growth etc. Might be useful to help dial in a new strain. When I first grow a strain for the first time I'll push the ppm until I see tips starting to burn and be taking notes so the second time I can stay just below that level.
My current growing has been an experiment too. Kind of heading towards organic growing but still can't get half of what I can a lot easier in hydro and don't want to get into all the details of doing it "right". Organic growers always bitch about all the bottles of watered down nutes us hydro lovers use. I use the base nutes and 3 other bottles plus Big Bud and some epsom salts. Most of these wonderful soil mixes you see posted have a dozen or more ingredients with many of them exotic fertilizers like bat and seabird guano that is much more unsustainable than mining nutes and damages animals habitats and kills thousands of bats and birds each year. Do they ever wonder how and where these things are obtained. Do they think the poor natives of these countries are following established environmental harvesting methods while digging out caves or shoving aside the birds nesting on the piles of aged guano they want?
I'll always have some plants growing in pots but will be going back to straight soilless with hydro nutes. This half and half soil/soilless doesn't float my boat. Moms, cuttings and seeds all start well and stay healthy for me that way if I pay attention. Due to my chronic depression it's often hard for me to keep on track and the plants suffer for it. When I have DWC going I use the Rubbermaid tubs that hold 50L so I can top up, set my ppm and not step foot in the room for 3 or more days and everything is fine when I get back. If I did that with all those plants in pots I'd lose some pretty regular for sure tho they go 3 - 4 days between watering as it is.
Nothing's perfect and never will be. Overthinking shit kills more plants than almost anything. There are dozens of ways to reach the same goal but almost always one that works best for a particular person. I worked in a lot of different factories when I was a kid. I've always rebelled against authority so when I would get told what to do by some old fart I'd do it totally different just to be defiant but would eventually end up doing it almost exactly the same way. But I would always find little tweaks that made the job easier or more efficient and worked a little better for me. Seems these old farts learned a thing or two doing that job for a few years before I got there. When I was 17 working in a factory or mill I considered anyone 30 or older an old fart.
I bought a couple grand worth of grow stuff last fall so that I could knuckle down and grow a shitload of pot and make a few bucks. Got all the materials to build a new 8x6 grow room with an 8x4 grow space inside it but it ain't built yet. Did one regular size grow that got harvested around the new year and then started the grow I'm finishing now. Because of all the screwing around with this grow and less than stellar results I've decided to stick with what I've been doing and get back into DWC as my main source of meds. I'll grow enough to stock up as I also decided I want out of here. This time next year I'd like to have a for sale sign in the front yard and all my personal shit in a sea can ready to ship out. Got a lot of personal stuff.
Enough of all this. Friend dropped off 10g of Cannatonic for me to make her some cocobudder with for her sister in law and I had a couple hits in the pipe. The damn stuff is only supposed to be <1% THC ~15% CBD and it's f'n narcotic. Seems odd as I've researched that strain as I'm growing a cross of Cannatonic and Otto#1 and on seed sites its rated as a 1:1 or 2:1 CBD/THC strain so the numbers seem off for this pot. Kills my joint pain damn good tho. It's LP pot from Aurora and they call it Sentinel tho list its' common name as Cannatonic.
Sentinel is our second batch of cannatonic and it is a very close cousin to Aurora's flagship strain, Temple, offering CBD content of ~15% with THC content of 2%. This medicinal hybrid strain yields medium sized, multi-coloured buds with a beautiful blend of purple, dark green, and orange tones. Sentinel delivers a pine based smell that is complemented by a crisp, tropical aroma.
Being a close relative of Temple, Sentinel also delivers a fairly unique terpene profile. It's extremely high CBD content makes this strain ideal for use at anytime of day. It also makes a great pairing with any other strain to boost the CBD dosing in your medical regimen.
I would be having words with the people at Aurora if I'd bought this to stay lucid during the day. I haven't smoked couch lock pot like this for years and only had three tiny single hits in my pipe. I had given her some of my cocobudder I made with Sweet Skunk CBD that had been lab tested at 12% CBD, 7% THC so almost a 2:1 ratio and it wasn't narcotic at all. Mellow to smoke but uplifting and the buzz from the cocobudder was more like being tipsy from booze with great pain and depression relief that lasted almost 24 hours. That's the kind of stuff I want to be growing but if this cannatonic cross I have hits me like this LP stuff does I'm growing the wrong strain for me. Crossed the Otto with all four strains in the grow room now so there should be something good come out of that. I'll be growing some of each this winter.
Another hit or two and I'm off to bed.
im4satori
Well-Known Member
awesome sounds like your a proIf I can run a grow from clone to harvest and never change out the rez then balance is not an issue for me to be bothered with and I want to grow my meds as simply and easily as possible.
I basically taught myself DWC in 2001 and developed my own methods thru trial and error. No internet forums and no manuals. Never lost any plants tho some grows weren't nothing to write home about.
Between '78 and 2001 I probably grew a couple hundred plants sporadically here and there when I had somewhere to grow them and all of those were in soil of some kind. Never was that good in dirt and once I got going in DWC finally found my niche. Just always seemed to work for me way better. Maybe it wouldn't have worked so well with other nutes but I got 3 gallons of AN stuff and that lasted for years. Tried a couple others but the results were never as good. pH would wander all over, plants seemed to either starve or burn with no happy medium.
Since joining forums in '09 I've walked at least a dozen nOObs thru my way of doing DWC and every one was happy with their results or improvements to past attempts.
You could have saved yourself a lot of copy/pasting and typing in those last 3 posts. I'm fully aware that plants uptake different nutrients at different stages of their growth. I might just add some of one of the 3 part nutes to correct what I feel to be an imbalance. It wouldn't be that difficult for me to set up a small wet lab and analyze my nutrient solutions to find out exactly how much of each is in there but then we're getting away from the easy and simple method that already works for me. There is no fancy, expensive equipment required and I likely have most of what I'd need besides some simple reagents and other trivial bits and pieces. The procedures for doing the analysis is widely available online.
When I top up before testing it gives me a common starting point where I don't have to take any other variables into account as I'm only interested in how much the ppm has dropped since the last top up. There is probably some value in testing before topping up but there are a lot of variables that need to be accounted for and your results will be different each time depending on the influence of those variables. I really don't need to know the results of that test tho I'm going to be trying it next time to see how it relates to growth etc. Might be useful to help dial in a new strain. When I first grow a strain for the first time I'll push the ppm until I see tips starting to burn and be taking notes so the second time I can stay just below that level.
My current growing has been an experiment too. Kind of heading towards organic growing but still can't get half of what I can a lot easier in hydro and don't want to get into all the details of doing it "right". Organic growers always bitch about all the bottles of watered down nutes us hydro lovers use. I use the base nutes and 3 other bottles plus Big Bud and some epsom salts. Most of these wonderful soil mixes you see posted have a dozen or more ingredients with many of them exotic fertilizers like bat and seabird guano that is much more unsustainable than mining nutes and damages animals habitats and kills thousands of bats and birds each year. Do they ever wonder how and where these things are obtained. Do they think the poor natives of these countries are following established environmental harvesting methods while digging out caves or shoving aside the birds nesting on the piles of aged guano they want?
I'll always have some plants growing in pots but will be going back to straight soilless with hydro nutes. This half and half soil/soilless doesn't float my boat. Moms, cuttings and seeds all start well and stay healthy for me that way if I pay attention. Due to my chronic depression it's often hard for me to keep on track and the plants suffer for it. When I have DWC going I use the Rubbermaid tubs that hold 50L so I can top up, set my ppm and not step foot in the room for 3 or more days and everything is fine when I get back. If I did that with all those plants in pots I'd lose some pretty regular for sure tho they go 3 - 4 days between watering as it is.
Nothing's perfect and never will be. Overthinking shit kills more plants than almost anything. There are dozens of ways to reach the same goal but almost always one that works best for a particular person. I worked in a lot of different factories when I was a kid. I've always rebelled against authority so when I would get told what to do by some old fart I'd do it totally different just to be defiant but would eventually end up doing it almost exactly the same way. But I would always find little tweaks that made the job easier or more efficient and worked a little better for me. Seems these old farts learned a thing or two doing that job for a few years before I got there. When I was 17 working in a factory or mill I considered anyone 30 or older an old fart.
I bought a couple grand worth of grow stuff last fall so that I could knuckle down and grow a shitload of pot and make a few bucks. Got all the materials to build a new 8x6 grow room with an 8x4 grow space inside it but it ain't built yet. Did one regular size grow that got harvested around the new year and then started the grow I'm finishing now. Because of all the screwing around with this grow and less than stellar results I've decided to stick with what I've been doing and get back into DWC as my main source of meds. I'll grow enough to stock up as I also decided I want out of here. This time next year I'd like to have a for sale sign in the front yard and all my personal shit in a sea can ready to ship out. Got a lot of personal stuff.
Enough of all this. Friend dropped off 10g of Cannatonic for me to make her some cocobudder with for her sister in law and I had a couple hits in the pipe. The damn stuff is only supposed to be <1% THC ~15% CBD and it's f'n narcotic. Seems odd as I've researched that strain as I'm growing a cross of Cannatonic and Otto#1 and on seed sites its rated as a 1:1 or 2:1 CBD/THC strain so the numbers seem off for this pot. Kills my joint pain damn good tho. It's LP pot from Aurora and they call it Sentinel tho list its' common name as Cannatonic.
Sentinel is our second batch of cannatonic and it is a very close cousin to Aurora's flagship strain, Temple, offering CBD content of ~15% with THC content of 2%. This medicinal hybrid strain yields medium sized, multi-coloured buds with a beautiful blend of purple, dark green, and orange tones. Sentinel delivers a pine based smell that is complemented by a crisp, tropical aroma.
Being a close relative of Temple, Sentinel also delivers a fairly unique terpene profile. It's extremely high CBD content makes this strain ideal for use at anytime of day. It also makes a great pairing with any other strain to boost the CBD dosing in your medical regimen.
I would be having words with the people at Aurora if I'd bought this to stay lucid during the day. I haven't smoked couch lock pot like this for years and only had three tiny single hits in my pipe. I had given her some of my cocobudder I made with Sweet Skunk CBD that had been lab tested at 12% CBD, 7% THC so almost a 2:1 ratio and it wasn't narcotic at all. Mellow to smoke but uplifting and the buzz from the cocobudder was more like being tipsy from booze with great pain and depression relief that lasted almost 24 hours. That's the kind of stuff I want to be growing but if this cannatonic cross I have hits me like this LP stuff does I'm growing the wrong strain for me. Crossed the Otto with all four strains in the grow room now so there should be something good come out of that. I'll be growing some of each this winter.
Another hit or two and I'm off to bed. View attachment 3959536
im going to make one short point for your benefit and let it go.....
all that uncertainty in your reservoir and your afraid of the 200ppm in your source water?
im4satori
Well-Known Member
part 1
Nutrient Solution Control
In addition, the usual management considerations relating to costs for reagents
and water, as well as the energy required to move the nutrient solution, must
be integrated into the operation and plan of a hydroponic/soilless growing
system. One of the major financial decisions involves balancing replenishment
schedules against input costs and losses due to single use and dumping.
One set of terms used to describe two methods of nutrient solution management
are “open” and “closed.” An “open” system is one in which the nutrient
solution is used only once in a one-way passage through the rooting vessel. In
a “closed” system, the nutrient solution is reused by recirculation (Hurd et al.,
1980). These two means of nutrient solution management pose different problems
for the grower, which will be discussed in greater detail later.
Faulkner (1998b) identified five nutrient solution characteristics given by
Dr. John Larson, Emeritus Professor of Horticulture of Texas A&M University
Nutrient Solution Control
In addition, the usual management considerations relating to costs for reagents
and water, as well as the energy required to move the nutrient solution, must
be integrated into the operation and plan of a hydroponic/soilless growing
system. One of the major financial decisions involves balancing replenishment
schedules against input costs and losses due to single use and dumping.
One set of terms used to describe two methods of nutrient solution management
are “open” and “closed.” An “open” system is one in which the nutrient
solution is used only once in a one-way passage through the rooting vessel. In
a “closed” system, the nutrient solution is reused by recirculation (Hurd et al.,
1980). These two means of nutrient solution management pose different problems
for the grower, which will be discussed in greater detail later.
Faulkner (1998b) identified five nutrient solution characteristics given by
Dr. John Larson, Emeritus Professor of Horticulture of Texas A&M University
im4satori
Well-Known Member
part 2
All systems of nutrient solution management, whether open or closed, must
lend themselves to precise control of the nutrient solution composition so that
the concentration of elements can be varied in response to both known
physiologic stages of the developing plant and the grower’s sense of the
condition of the crop (Schon, 1992). When beginning, it is advisable to have
the constituted nutrient solution assayed by means of a laboratory analysis.
Such an analysis ensures that all of the elements in the nutrient solution are
at concentrations specified in the formula.
It is very important in a closed recirculating hydroponic system to add
water to the nutrient solution in order to maintain its original volume. In
addition, some elements will have been removed along with the water; these
elements can be included in the make-up water. The question is “how much
of which elements should be added?” A common practice is to use an electrical
conductivity (EC) measurement of the nutrient solution as a means of determining
what level of replenishment is needed. Surprisingly, this technique
works fairly well. Unfortunately, such a measurement does not determine
what differential change in elemental concentration may have taken place in
order to enable the grower to add back what was removed element by element
All systems of nutrient solution management, whether open or closed, must
lend themselves to precise control of the nutrient solution composition so that
the concentration of elements can be varied in response to both known
physiologic stages of the developing plant and the grower’s sense of the
condition of the crop (Schon, 1992). When beginning, it is advisable to have
the constituted nutrient solution assayed by means of a laboratory analysis.
Such an analysis ensures that all of the elements in the nutrient solution are
at concentrations specified in the formula.
It is very important in a closed recirculating hydroponic system to add
water to the nutrient solution in order to maintain its original volume. In
addition, some elements will have been removed along with the water; these
elements can be included in the make-up water. The question is “how much
of which elements should be added?” A common practice is to use an electrical
conductivity (EC) measurement of the nutrient solution as a means of determining
what level of replenishment is needed. Surprisingly, this technique
works fairly well. Unfortunately, such a measurement does not determine
what differential change in elemental concentration may have taken place in
order to enable the grower to add back what was removed element by element
Last edited:
im4satori
Well-Known Member
part 3
Such a determination requires a complete elemental analysis of the nutrient
solution (Chapter 13).
The elements that are most likely to show the greatest change in the
nutrient solution with use are N and K. A possible rule of thumb would be
to dilute the initial nutrient solution formula for the major elements only and
add that as the make-up water, making this solution about one-quarter to onethird
the strength of the original nutrient solution. Some experimenting and
testing will be necessary to determine what that proper strength should be to
avoid creating an ion imbalance by adding back too much or too little. The
micronutrients should never be included in the make-up nutrient solution;
this minimizes the possible danger from excesses. Phosphorus is also an
element that should possibly be excluded from the make-up solution. Recommendations
for the composition of make-up water will be given later for
particular hydroponic growing systems.
Another factor that must be considered is what elements were being left
behind in the rooting medium; the amount will vary depending on the medium
characteristics, the composition of the nutrient solution, and the frequency of
recirculation. An important measurement that is recommended with some
growing systems is to periodically take from an access port an aliquot of
solution from the rooting medium, or of that flowing from it, and then
determine its EC. At some designated EC reading, the rooting medium would
then be leached with water to remove accumulated salts.
Such a determination requires a complete elemental analysis of the nutrient
solution (Chapter 13).
The elements that are most likely to show the greatest change in the
nutrient solution with use are N and K. A possible rule of thumb would be
to dilute the initial nutrient solution formula for the major elements only and
add that as the make-up water, making this solution about one-quarter to onethird
the strength of the original nutrient solution. Some experimenting and
testing will be necessary to determine what that proper strength should be to
avoid creating an ion imbalance by adding back too much or too little. The
micronutrients should never be included in the make-up nutrient solution;
this minimizes the possible danger from excesses. Phosphorus is also an
element that should possibly be excluded from the make-up solution. Recommendations
for the composition of make-up water will be given later for
particular hydroponic growing systems.
Another factor that must be considered is what elements were being left
behind in the rooting medium; the amount will vary depending on the medium
characteristics, the composition of the nutrient solution, and the frequency of
recirculation. An important measurement that is recommended with some
growing systems is to periodically take from an access port an aliquot of
solution from the rooting medium, or of that flowing from it, and then
determine its EC. At some designated EC reading, the rooting medium would
then be leached with water to remove accumulated salts.
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