First DWC grow

firsttimeARE · Feb 12, 2012

It was weird actually, I raised it to 5.8 and checked 6 hours later and most were at 6.0 the bagseed was @ 6.1. Brought all buckets to 5.5

Power Africa, Day 5

Chronic Haze, Day 5

Gave them both about 40ppm of nutes from 90-130, trying not to get slow growth with not enough nutes, hopefully I didn't start too early. *EDIT* This was made up of about 10ppm calmag and 25ppm ionic grow. 5 ppm superthrive

Bagseed

Auto, notice the half green/light green leaf

MK Ultra, leafs are small and droopy, new growth is barely there, tried to get detail on the white patches

Moby Dick

firsttimeARE · Feb 13, 2012

Day 20(morning):

Bagseed - 6.2...lowered to 5.5/6
Auto - 5.6/7...left alone
MK Ultra - 5.6...left alone
Moby Dick - 5.6...left alone

Nothing new.I'll edit this post later for night/daytime readings, possibly more pics

Day 20(hell):

Bagseed - I open up the res and it looks like bubbles at the top, I shut off air pump to see if they go away and they stayed, and the res had a smell to it, but now that I think about it, it could have been the superthrive smell, and the bubbles from the airstone could have stayed at the top after shut off(as thats what happened with a new bucket I filled up). But iunno it had a weird smell to it. Stinkier than superthrive smell.

I took the plant out and it's roots were white, ripped it out of the RW and the main stem/stalk that was inside the RW was a bit on the tan side. (see pics below)

After this fiasco I dosed all the tanks with about, I don't know really I just poured, maybe 50ml of 30% h2o2. The moby dick made a fizzing noise, not good. I know I don't use h2o2 as often as I should, but the highest i've seen my temps were 18C(64F).

This brought the buckets from 5.6 to 5.4 so I PHed up to 5.7 and will check tomorrow morning.I chucked the superthrive in the trash, 2nd time this shits happened to me where I changed a res that I had been slacking on the h2o2 dosings(sometimes once a week) and then filled a new res and superthrived it a ton and the microbes thrived all right. About the only thing however.

I put the power africa into a bucket today. I filled up the bucket so water was about 1/2" or less below netpot and I PHed to 5.5(knowing it'll rise) and put 50ppm worth of nutes(calmag and grow) and then I put a layer of growstones on the bottom about 1" thick, not even. I then flushed about 2 gallons of res water 1liter at a time through the growstones and then I cleared an opening into the res and positioned the root sticking towards that part. Going to check how wet the cube is, I got 2 micro pore xl diffusers with 8L/min of air going through them so I imagine a lot of spray, there were so many bubbles bursting at the surface, big and small. I may have to lower the water level.

By the end of the week I shall have 2 GH dual diapraghm air pumps feeding 2 stones to each bucket and can setup 4 waterfarms with my current 4 outlet air pump and finally give these ladies some proper oxygen and hopefully help clear up whatever bacteria I had, or didn't have.

MK Ultra - Going to scrap it and put chronic haze in it's place. My equipment only allows for me to run 4 waterfarms anyways, I was trying to figure out how I was going to run 6 without another airpump.

Moby Dick

Auto

Lessons learned:

Whatever benefit superthrive may have, it's not for me right now.
I either need to be more diligent on my h2o2 dosings or make some of heisenbergs sauce, despite what the guy at my hydro store saying that it's a bad idea for me as things can go bad with that?? I don't know...Everyone raves about it on here. Alls I know is i'm getting sick of cleaning res's and treating my room like a hazmat cleanup and spending hours cleaning everything.

wiimb · Feb 13, 2012

defo get some pics

Someguy15 · Feb 13, 2012

firsttimeARE said:
Day 20(morning):

Bagseed - 6.2...lowered to 5.5/6
Auto - 5.6/7...left alone
MK Ultra - 5.6...left alone
Moby Dick - 5.6...left alone

Nothing new.I'll edit this post later for night/daytime readings, possibly more pics

Day 20(hell):

Bagseed - I open up the res and it looks like bubbles at the top, I shut off air pump to see if they go away and they stayed, and the res had a smell to it, but now that I think about it, it could have been the superthrive smell, and the bubbles from the airstone could have stayed at the top after shut off(as thats what happened with a new bucket I filled up). But iunno it had a weird smell to it. Stinkier than superthrive smell.

I took the plant out and it's roots were white, ripped it out of the RW and the main stem/stalk that was inside the RW was a bit on the tan side. (see pics below)

After this fiasco I dosed all the tanks with about, I don't know really I just poured, maybe 50ml of 30% h2o2. The moby dick made a fizzing noise, not good. I know I don't use h2o2 as often as I should, but the highest i've seen my temps were 18C(64F).

This brought the buckets from 5.6 to 5.4 so I PHed up to 5.7 and will check tomorrow morning.I chucked the superthrive in the trash, 2nd time this shits happened to me where I changed a res that I had been slacking on the h2o2 dosings(sometimes once a week) and then filled a new res and superthrived it a ton and the microbes thrived all right. About the only thing however.

I put the power africa into a bucket today. I filled up the bucket so water was about 1/2" or less below netpot and I PHed to 5.5(knowing it'll rise) and put 50ppm worth of nutes(calmag and grow) and then I put a layer of growstones on the bottom about 1" thick, not even. I then flushed about 2 gallons of res water 1liter at a time through the growstones and then I cleared an opening into the res and positioned the root sticking towards that part. Going to check how wet the cube is, I got 2 micro pore xl diffusers with 8L/min of air going through them so I imagine a lot of spray, there were so many bubbles bursting at the surface, big and small. I may have to lower the water level.

By the end of the week I shall have 2 GH dual diapraghm air pumps feeding 2 stones to each bucket and can setup 4 waterfarms with my current 4 outlet air pump and finally give these ladies some proper oxygen and hopefully help clear up whatever bacteria I had, or didn't have.

MK Ultra - Going to scrap it and put chronic haze in it's place. My equipment only allows for me to run 4 waterfarms anyways, I was trying to figure out how I was going to run 6 without another airpump.

Moby Dick

Auto

Lessons learned:

Whatever benefit superthrive may have, it's not for me right now.
I either need to be more diligent on my h2o2 dosings or make some of heisenbergs sauce, despite what the guy at my hydro store saying that it's a bad idea for me as things can go bad with that?? I don't know...Everyone raves about it on here. Alls I know is i'm getting sick of cleaning res's and treating my room like a hazmat cleanup and spending hours cleaning everything.

I've gone 4 weeks without cleaning my rezs. Just drain as much as the pump allows and fill it back up. There's def bacteria in there, but it never seems to get out of control. The only bad thing I've had in my rez is the white snot (alge) but keeping everything dark helps with that emsly. It looks like some kind of fungus on the roots, weird I've never seen anything like it. Almost looks like mycorhiza do on roots. I think the Superthirve caused you issued because you were using it as such a high dosage. I've never exceeded 5 drops/gal and never had it do much of anything (good or bad lol). At this point I'd say you just leave em, consider the tea... brew it as me or hellraizer direct, and use it on one plant. A cup or so is all you need. I used it in my waterfarms with no problem, I also poured it as a drench on my flowering ladies and they loved it, no noticed effect except the leaves were standing at complete attention (the praying meaning they are perfectly happy). I was a little hesitant to use it because a small amount of snotty clumps had started forming and when I stirred it they broke up into a million pieces. To the best of my knowledge it is a 'mother' which is a colony of bacteria...but since we are brewing beneficials it didn't seem to be any harm. Kinda like Kombucha if you have ever heard of that... it has a mother in it. watched my cousin drink it and I about threw up lol but non the less it was harmless to him.

When you use the tea stop using the h2o2...you want to invite beneficial bacteria to fight bad bacteria...instead what you are doing is creating a sterile environment where the bad bacteria is outpacing the beneficials. Reverse that and your nasties will be gone.

firsttimeARE · Feb 14, 2012

Do you think I can manage whatever that fizzing sound was in my moby dick tank with daily or bi-daily h2o2 dosings until I get the tea ingredients.

Yeah I see those fuzzies on my roots. I thought they were tiny hairs. Lol im dumb.

Thanks for the response...so me handwashing with hot soapy water and then rinsing is a bit overkill every weekly res change?

Ill pick up the ingredients for the tea. Don't know why they recommended not doing it

Someguy15 · Feb 14, 2012

firsttimeARE said:
Do you think I can manage whatever that fizzing sound was in my moby dick tank with daily or bi-daily h2o2 dosings until I get the tea ingredients.

Yeah I see those fuzzies on my roots. I thought they were tiny hairs. Lol im dumb.

Thanks for the response...so me handwashing with hot soapy water and then rinsing is a bit overkill every weekly res change?

Ill pick up the ingredients for the tea. Don't know why they recommended not doing it

It's pretty cheap, maybe 50 bucks and would def. be worth your investment. Yeah I'm one of the never completly sterile types. See in the 60-80s we thought we knew it all, created a shitload of chemicals and thought them to be the cure all... Then we encountered problems, like pest resistance to pesticides... or how about the massive polio outbreak, it was all caused by people washing their hands. We were killing a bacteria that was fighting the polo virus, when we removed that and failed to kill the polio, it took over. Granted we got that outbreak under control, but just realize that the earth is anything but sterile, we live around millions of bacteria and viruses and it's better to work with them instead of against them. We have embraced this idea since the late 90s with integrated pest management. Instead of just spraying a million chemicals we actually started using our brains on how to get nature to fight nature.

When I clean my rezs the MOST I do is use 'Bio Green Clean' which is a all natural cleaning product made from plants & seeds. Works well no nasty smell. But I only use that in between cycles, and not even religiously.Rez changes I'm pretty much just trying to knock the shit off the sides of the rez, rinse the pump filter, and then re assemble it all. Your not working in a serile lab lol stop trying to make it so. (ps I was also using h2o2 when I started growing, quickly realized it wasn't doing shit at the strength I was using it, and raising it was causing the roots tips to die from the oxidation.)

firsttimeARE · Feb 14, 2012

http://www.amazon.com/Unco-Industries-Wiggle-Worm-30lbs/dp/B0001YEYP2/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1329259653&sr=1-2 This is all my store carries for earth worm castings. Would it do? And whats your take on great whites expensive price tag, worth it?

Yeah I need to be more chill down there and just let shit go. I see dirty grow room pics on here with nice beautiful plants in the forefront.

My new pumps will be here on friday and I can start my waterfarms, yay.

The plants this morning weren't bad.
Power Africa was at 5.9 - lowered to 5.6.
Auto was at 5.7/8 - kept it for later
Moby Dick was at 5.7/8 - kept it for later
MK Ultra was at 5.7 - kept it for later

Someguy15 · Feb 14, 2012

firsttimeARE said:
http://www.amazon.com/Unco-Industries-Wiggle-Worm-30lbs/dp/B0001YEYP2/ref=sr_1_2?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1329259653&sr=1-2 This is all my store carries for earth worm castings. Would it do? And whats your take on great whites expensive price tag, worth it?

Yeah I need to be more chill down there and just let shit go. I see dirty grow room pics on here with nice beautiful plants in the forefront.

My new pumps will be here on friday and I can start my waterfarms, yay.

The plants this morning weren't bad.
Power Africa was at 5.9 - lowered to 5.6.
Auto was at 5.7/8 - kept it for later
Moby Dick was at 5.7/8 - kept it for later
MK Ultra was at 5.7 - kept it for later

Yeah as long as your not breaking 6.0 no reason to drop them, let em ride!

Great white is expensive but the small jar goes a long way, like a year long way.

Get the 4.5lb of the Wiggle-Worm that's what I'm using.

firsttimeARE · Feb 14, 2012

Yeah i think they have a 10lb smallest. I'll see though.

I'mma prolly go with the great white and aquashield with the smallest EWC bag they got.

wapow1001 · Feb 15, 2012

all i used to get rid of slime was some regenaroot and wiltguard by cx hydroponics i used about 8 drops in my 14l res of superthrive and u must be talkin about my dirty room

firsttimeARE · Feb 15, 2012

Day 21(morning):

Power Africa - 5.9 brought down to 5.6
Auto - 5.7 kept it
Moby Dick - 5.6 kept it
MK Ultra - 5.7 kept it

Day 21(afternoon):

Power Africa - 6.0 brought down to 5.6
Auto - 5.7 still kept it
Moby Dick - 5.6 still kept it
MK Ultra - 5.8 kept it

Day 22(afternoon):

Didn't check them in morning, was nervous all day

Power Africa - 5.9/.22/164(ppm went up, must be too much for them, drinking more water than nutes) surprisingly was still under 6.0 PH, looks green and healthy, new growth is starting, just small. Lowered to 5.5
Auto - 5.9/8 / .50/ 357ppm(ppm also went up) The yellowing is still there, but it appears to stopped progressing. New leaves are bigger and green, new growth is coming up. Lowered to 5.6
MK Ultra - 5.9/.40/286ppm(stayed about same ppm) New growth is coming up, finally, its old growth still is fucked. Maybe phosphorus the way the leaves are brittle and dark tips. Lowered to 5.6
Moby Dick - 5.7/.48/342ppm(stayed about same ppm) New growth is coming up, set before that got bigger, the first set has yellow tips, but that hasn't progressed in 36hrs so we'll see. Could of probably been from when I was feeding it low.

Still no roots out the bottom... I see that same white hairs on the roots coming out the sides of the RW if I move some growstones around I can see, they look like tiny hairs.

I'll snap some new pictures for tomorrow afternoons update.

firsttimeARE · Feb 16, 2012

Day 23(morning):

Power Africa(day 9) - 5.6/.23/167
Critical+ Auto - 5.7/.49/351
MK Ultra - 5.7/.40/290
Moby Dick - 5.7/.47/340

All buckets are pretty stable now. Not going to do morning checks again until I change res sunday after next. Left PH at 5.7 for all.

Day 23(evening):

PF(day 9) - 5.8/.20/158
Auto - 5.8/.50/356
MK - 5.8/.39/283
MD - 5.8/.48/343

Used h2o2 for hopefully the last time and about 30ml per bucket and that brought the PH down to 5.7. By the time I check tomorrow they'll be about 5.9/6.0 tops I hope.

Critical+Auto, That new growth in the middle wasn't there this morning. Yellowing of the older set has stopped it looks like

Moby Dick, see the yellow tip on the older leaf...Hasn't progressed any in a couple days. Looks good and taking off

MK Ultra, New growth is coming in, looks a bit reddish towards the center, but we'll see how it comes out

Power Africa

Chronic haze(Day 9), Hmm its first root is brown, a new white root is out now though.

Well thanks for checking in. I think upping the nutes helped out a lot, new growth looks good.

firsttimeARE · Feb 17, 2012

Day 24:

The moby dick 2nd set of leaves are drooping down a bit and the leaf edges curling up a bit so you can see the underside a tad. Was at 5.7 still. Didn't record the rest on any of them was in a rush.
Auto was also at 5.7 and looked fine. The new growth is a bit bigger
Power Africa was at 5.9. Put it to 5.5
Mk Ultra was at 5.9. Put it to 5.5. Going to end it soon if it doesn't look better and put chronic haze in, in a few days.

I got bigger air pumps and will be putting them in tomorrow and using my old 4 outlet as a waterfarm.

So I will be using 2 GH dual diaphragm air pumps serving 4 tanks totaling 40L/min via (2) 6" cheapo blue airstones per bucket.

I also got ingredients for beneficial microbe tea.

Ill snap pictures of the moby dick plant so yall can see.

firsttimeARE · Mar 17, 2012

Lost all pictures. Unfortunately I delete them from my computer and camera also.

Still seeing yellowing. PH is stabilized though, I made the mistake on Thursday night of bringing the PH to 5.5 and then I checked last night and in about 24hrs it moved to 5.6/5. Barely moved so I upped the nutes and PH upped after to 5.8.

veneno was on .55EC --> .7 EC
bubba 76 was at .55EC --> .7 EC
fruity chronic juice was at .73EC, so I upped a little because it was the only one still growing.
The veneno new set is reddish on the leaves near the growing stalk and mostly up leaving just the green ends, but it's growing a little. The bubba 76 just looks droopy. I lowered the water a lot and the only RW thats still squishy wet is veneno. But its drying. The rest are mostly dry on the top, but mid way down the medium is wet so the bottoms must be getting wet?

Bigz2277 · Mar 17, 2012

firsttimeARE said:
Lost all pictures. Unfortunately I delete them from my computer and camera also.

Still seeing yellowing. PH is stabilized though, I made the mistake on Thursday night of bringing the PH to 5.5 and then I checked last night and in about 24hrs it moved to 5.6/5. Barely moved so I upped the nutes and PH upped after to 5.8.

veneno was on .55EC --> .7 EC
bubba 76 was at .55EC --> .7 EC
fruity chronic juice was at .73EC, so I upped a little because it was the only one still growing.
The veneno new set is reddish on the leaves near the growing stalk and mostly up leaving just the green ends, but it's growing a little. The bubba 76 just looks droopy. I lowered the water a lot and the only RW thats still squishy wet is veneno. But its drying. The rest are mostly dry on the top, but mid way down the medium is wet so the bottoms must be getting wet?

That's why i use photobucket. ya my posts were lost but i just did a 20 pic update to catch it up lol. almost a flipbook of my grow so far lol, check it out.

firsttimeARE · Mar 18, 2012

Plants look a lot better with the .7EC the fruity chronic is at .8EC. New growth(4th node, 3rd set of 3 leaves) on both the fruity chronic and bubba 76. Bubba 76 is still drooping a tiny bit. No roots out bottom yet on any of them.

BigBuddahCheese · Mar 19, 2012

Those plants are 23 days old? They small for that age, and you're using too big of pot for seedlings. Not only for root propagation but the rockwol needs to be deeper for support your whole plant is going to rip itself out.

5.6-5.5 is too low for dwc hydro also.

Here is a day 15 from seed Sage and Sour that is in 2.5 gallon bucket with 3.75 net pot. 3.75 nets are big as I go. I use DynaGro and that has a lot to do with it, as I am a 100% supporter since I switched. Lid is about 8" diameter for reference.

firsttimeARE · Mar 19, 2012

Yeah I've been hearing good things about it. Keep in mind I'm a new grower who doesn't know these strains to know how much feed to give.

I made mistakes in the beginning feeding too much too early and trying to avoid that but now I'm giving too little.

Your plants are way bigger than mine at that age. I was just putting them in the buckets. This current grow is moving faster than the last. The pictures you're referring to were of my last grow that got crushed by my light setup. This current one is about 25 days old though. The pictures got deleted during the recent hackings.

Dynagrow has high nute ratios compared to the ionic I'm using. And you most likely are an experienced grower so comparing yours to mine isn't really fair comparison.

Thanks for following though I appreciate your input I just feel I'm going to have a hard time if I compare my grows to other experienced growers. I also put the nutes to 5.8 and letting it rise to 6.0 now. I only did 5.6 because the ph was going crazy. Now I run my buckets for 3 to 4 days with nutes until ph is stabilized.

Oh and the rw is like 3 inches below the rim of the pot. Its exactly an inch from the bottom of the netpot. My pots are prolly 5 inchers. Maybe ill get smaller onmes

Bigz2277 · Mar 19, 2012

We all gotta start somewhere

BigBuddahCheese · Mar 19, 2012

firsttimeARE said:
Yeah I've been hearing good things about it. Keep in mind I'm a new grower who doesn't know these strains to know how much feed to give.

I made mistakes in the beginning feeding too much too early and trying to avoid that but now I'm giving too little.

Your plants are way bigger than mine at that age. I was just putting them in the buckets. This current grow is moving faster than the last. The pictures you're referring to were of my last grow that got crushed by my light setup. This current one is about 25 days old though. The pictures got deleted during the recent hackings.

Dynagrow has high nute ratios compared to the ionic I'm using. And you most likely are an experienced grower so comparing yours to mine isn't really fair comparison.

Thanks for following though I appreciate your input I just feel I'm going to have a hard time if I compare my grows to other experienced growers. I also put the nutes to 5.8 and letting it rise to 6.0 now. I only did 5.6 because the ph was going crazy. Now I run my buckets for 3 to 4 days with nutes until ph is stabilized.

Oh and the rw is like 3 inches below the rim of the pot. Its exactly an inch from the bottom of the netpot. My pots are prolly 5 inchers. Maybe ill get smaller onmes

Right on brother, no way was I cutting your grow down. I was just stating this so you can pinpoint your problems and get them corrected. Anyone can read, search correct information but understanding them, correcting them, adjusting or just learning from mistakes is more important. Also do what works for YOU not others, if you can think out side the box you will be way ahead of the curve.

I run my water to bottom of pot the ENTIRE grow, unless I don't top off that night. 5" nets are ok, but you're putting the seedlings in too early if you are not top feeding them or watering them by hand regularly. Either way note your progress and adjust, other poster is right we all start somewhere and I am no expert. All I can do is tell you what I encountered in DWC and how I corrected it.

Not sure if I missed them, but you say you are worried about giving them too much? Do you have a PPM meter? If not get one. Monitor the ppm daily or every other, and adjust. Lower ppm need more nutes, higher ppm more water etc. The plants will talk to you if you have the right gear to understand them, sad problem people want to cheap out on the most important aspect of hydro the WATER. You need to know what is in it, and how much at all times and what the plants are doing in it.
Good luck.

First DWC grow

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