first hydro grow... question regarding adding nutrients

when i do my first water change, should I empty it half way? all the way? do I add a new mixture of neuts each time?

I just added plain water during the week and did a full res. change once a week when I had my hydro setup.

dump the whole box on a change out...check everyday the ph level and fix it...check the ppm level and fix it too.Be sure to add hydro guard to combat algea.

Every garden is different. It depends on your design (Aero, DWC, Aqua, NFT, etc..), and Res size. Some systems need less water changes. Think of the water change as a reset button. It eliminates any bad bacterial growth and refreshes the Nut levels. Once a week is a good place to start, with topping of the Res with plain water. I've used this method a lot.

Keep in mind, the more plants you have, the more often you'll need to tend to your Res. The larger the roots, the more they'll drink, so late flower you might be increasing the Res change, and less with younger plant.

Happy growing!

It's a custom bubbleponics setup in 18 gallon tubs. I'll have three total tubs for 15 plants.
We have one tub going with three plants in it. The other will have 6 each.

We're using a digital gauge for pH, PPM, EC, etc.
We're using Voodoo Juice for root growth in the one tub and it says to add it every 3 weeks.

I haven't had to change the pH at all after adding the Voodoo Juice. It's stayed steady between 6.0 and 6.6 the PPM was 730 until I added a bit of 2-2-2 organic liquid fertilizer earlier because of some of the plants yellowing which brought me to 780 PPM. The water temp. stays between 70* F and 74* F --- I don't touch them and all of these numbers have stayed consistent through the first 5 days. The environment is 80-85* right under the lights by about 2 inches.

We have a Fox Farm trio coming for the other two tubs. I'm doing an A/B split test. I've used Fox Farm for a soil grow before.

Room setup:
-3x4 space in a tent
-2x 80 watt CFL veg. lights.
-1x 250 watt HPS I'll introduce once I get the other boxes setup.
-Digital gauge for reading measurements
-250 sq ft humidifier
-4" duct fan blowing cold air form outside directly on the lights.

The setup for each tub:
-1x 18 Gallon dark blue tubs
-2x big air stones in each on good 40 gallon air pumps each for oxygen.
-40 gallon tank submersible aquarium water pumps with DIG Irrigation AD6 6-Outlet Adjustable Dripper Head, 1/2" Female Pipe Thread on top of them running lines into the side of each black plastic mesh pot poking at the rock-wool cubes.

___________

What risks do I run changing the water every three weeks? I'll be topping it off with 7.0 pH water every day. I bought a small pump and a 6 gallon jug I can use for draining the water and pumping new water in the tubs.

The Fox Farm feeding schedule http://foxfarmfertilizer.com/images/pdf/hydroenglish2015.pdf shows to flush your soil every 2 weeks -- so I assume every 2 to 3 weeks shouldn't be bad for my bubbleponics 18 gal setups.

What do you think? Sorry I should have given all this information in the first place.

NVGrower said:

It's a custom DWC setup in 18 gallon tubs. I'll have three total tubs for 15 plants.
We have one tub going with three plants in it. The other will have 6 each.

We're using a digital gauge for pH, PPM, EC, etc.
We're using Voodoo Juice for root growth in the one tub and it says to add it every 3 weeks.

I haven't had to change the pH at all after adding the Voodoo Juice. It's stayed steady between 6.0 and 6.6 the PPM was 730 until I added a bit of 2-2-2 organic liquid fertilizer earlier because of some of the plants yellowing which brought me to 780 PPM. The water temp. stays between 70* F and 74* F --- I don't touch them and all of these numbers have stayed consistent through the first 5 days. The environment is 80-85* right under the lights by about 2 inches.

We have a Fox Farm trio coming for the other two tubs. I'm doing an A/B split test. I've used Fox Farm for a soil grow before.

Room setup:
-3x4 space in a tent
-2x 80 watt CFL veg. lights.
-1x 250 watt HPS I'll introduce once I get the other boxes setup.
-Digital gauge for reading measurements
-250 sq ft humidifier
-4" duct fan blowing cold air form outside directly on the lights.

The setup for each tub:
-1x 18 Gallon dark blue tubs
-2x big air stones in each on good 40 gallon air pumps each for oxygen.
-40 gallon tank submersible aquarium water pumps with DIG Irrigation AD6 6-Outlet Adjustable Dripper Head, 1/2" Female Pipe Thread on top of them running lines into the side of each black plastic mesh pot poking at the rock-wool cubes.

___________

What risks do I run changing the water every three weeks? I'll be topping it off with 7.0 pH water every day. I bought a small pump and a 6 gallon jug I can use for draining the water and pumping new water in the tubs.

The Fox Farm feeding schedule http://foxfarmfertilizer.com/images/pdf/hydroenglish2015.pdf shows to flush your soil every 2 weeks -- so I assume every 2 to 3 weeks shouldn't be bad for my DWC 18 gal setups.

What do you think? Sorry I should have given all this information in the first place.

Click to expand...

Hydro is a little different than soil. Your plants would thank you if you dropped you pH a bit.


The risk of not changing you Res could be catastrophic or possibly total loss. It's hard telling with out hands on. Hydro requires more attention. You might squeak by with younger plants.

Big corporate always strives for profit first, be careful not to overfeeding with following a companies feeding schedule.

I used to get my pH to 7.0 in the tank I used to water the soil plants.

When I top off these plants in hydro what should I get the tank of waters pH to I am going to pump in it in your opinion. I saw your chart at 5.8 as optimum.

Also, how often should I be doing a total change in water for the 18 gallon tub? Every 1, 2 or three weeks?

NVGrower said:

organic liquid fertilizer earlier because of some of the plants yellowing which brought me to 780 PPM. The water temp. stays between 70* F and 74* F

Click to expand...

root rot going to happen

Terry385 said:

root rot going to happen

Click to expand...

Tell me more -- books and the Internet say keep the temp water between 65* and 80* for the best neut absorption

NVGrower said:

Tell me more -- books and the Internet say keep the temp water between 65* and 80* for the best neut absorption

Click to expand...

one organic don't play nice in DWC,, water temp must be in the 60's 40 gal air pump is shit... i use 951 gal pump 12 gal of water 3, 5 gal buckets what you trying to grow little 1 oz plants if that 6 in one tote won't work hell tote's are shit too
one plant one pound is the goal in dwc not how many i can put in a tote that won't work from the start
one plant one 5 gal. black bucket with 6 inch lid skunklab nutes with tea works every time for me

Terry385 said:

one organic don't play nice in DWC,, water temp must be in the 60's 40 gal air pump is shit... i use 951 gal pump 12 gal of water 3, 5 gal buckets what you trying to grow little 1 oz plants if that 6 in one tote won't work hell tote's are shit too
one plant one pound is the goal in dwc not how many i can put in a tote that won't work from the start
View attachment 3576218 View attachment 3576219 one plant one 5 gal. black bucket with 6 inch lid skunklab nutes with tea works every time for me

Click to expand...

I turned the heater off I had on. It should bring the water temperature to 65 - 69*

I'll do three a tub. What do you mean, organic don't play nice in DWC. I also am using a bubbleponics system (I don't know the systems yet, grew in soil).

I'm not looking for a huge yield right now, this is just for personal use. I enjoy having a few of them.

How else can I avoid root rot in this setup?

make sure no light getting in tote i know light go's rite thew blue lid dwc just grows huge plants in short time and can go south real fast also
nothing organic in water...the fox farm for soil won't work in dwc i'm assuming your using tap water ro is for dwc and use calmag
if your root are in the water now and are white at res change roots will turn brown because of the organic in there and the plant well stop growing and look sad system must be setup rite and the rite nutrients or you get root rot don't mean to sound like the bad guy here just took me a year to get things rite
do you have all them going now i just do the 3 and see what happens in the system watch some videos about dwc your going to have to run root assist complete if roots turn on you
dwc is one of hardest to run sound and looks easy but not

http://www.skunklabshc.com/shop.html

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqxIclItlmFudDAsPzc4zg

Terry385 said:

make sure no light getting in tote i know light go's rite thew blue lid dwc just grows huge plants in short time and can go south real fast also
nothing organic in water...the fox farm for soil won't work in dwc i'm assuming your using tap water ro is for dwc and use calmag
if your root are in the water now and are white at res change roots will turn brown because of the organic in there and the plant well stop growing and look sad system must be setup rite and the rite nutrients or you get root rot don't mean to sound like the bad guy here just took me a year to get things rite
do you have all them going now i just do the 3 and see what happens in the system watch some videos about dwc your going to have to run root assist complete if roots turn on you
dwc is one of hardest to run sound and looks easy but not

http://www.skunklabshc.com/shop.html

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqxIclItlmFudDAsPzc4zg

Click to expand...

I appreciate your help. I just bought these Fox ferts and are currently being shipped.
FoxFarm FX14011 1-Gallon FoxFarm Grow Big Hydroponic Liquid Concentrate 3-2-6
FoxFarm FX14020 1-Gallon FoxFarm Tiger Bloom Fertilizer 2-8-4
FoxFarm FX14003 1-Gallon FoxFarm Big Bloom Liquid Concentrate 0.01-0.3-0.7

I am using tap water. I'm waiting on some pH up and down to get here. With tap water and Voodoo Juice and 2-2-2 and the pH has been very steady in the 6.0 to 6.7 range. I'll be getting it down to 5.8

Which calmag would you recommend? These all look like 2-0-0 -- I have a 2-2-2 organic kelp & fish liquid fertilizer with molasses.

**On a side note. Only 1 single 18gal tub is setup with 3 growing in it. I have not setup the others tubs yet. I am considering just doing 2 plants a tub for the others can doing like you've said and just growing them as big as I can instead of growing my max allowed.

i use calimagic with tap water may not need calmag
can use the fox farm see if works
organic kelp & fish liquid fertilizer with molasses. all a no no
i started with one in a black bucket took long time to learn that's not stain in pic's

I checked out the skunk ferts.

You still used calmag with them (what brand do you use? easier to mix it myself?)

Should I still use calmag with fox ferts?

What your getting at is the roots won't stay nice and white if I use organic products? I really need to keep it 100% organic for extraction reasons.

Also I did some research on the water temperature and your spot on about the 60's

"Algae growing conditions need to be optimally maintained for high growth. ... between 16 and 27°C. Temperatures lower than 16°C will slow down growth, ..."
www.growing-algae.com/algae-growing-conditions.htm

So 60-65* F is optimal. But not lower than 60*. I can get it down to that. I'll get some reflecting paneling to block the light heat and light from the lids.

Here is a debate I found on pro skunk type nutes vs the fox farm ones.
http://generalhydroponics.com/genhydro_US/quicktips/OrganicHydroponicArticle.pdf

From reading it, as long as your using nutes; specifically for hydroponics. Your in the clear. It seems that the argument is people using dirt organic (liquified fertilizers) in hydro systems isn't needed because skunk type nutes are designed to not leave trace of chemicals in the actual plants.

But your saying from your experience that it rots the roots growing organic in hydro. I'll keep a picture feed up as the roots get bigger. Thanks Terry. Happy new year.

DWC you can't run organic well give you root rot pic's above is root rot

you want organic grow organic can't be done in dwc


what brand do you use? DWC skunklabs ,,have blue planet nutrients also for my promix this run http://www.blueplanetnutrients.com/index.php/blue-planet-nutrients-products
complete nutrients line up for each in qt's $100 per say
EDIT good videos to watch
5% off blue planet https://www.youtube.com/channel/UColTXGgXJmfYEGowvWCLQJQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUeOHcC5i_h-Rh-G_LqGoog

and the Best DWC grower http://hygrohybrid.com/

ya i found out about skunklab tea so i try it and it worked so now i use whole line up for dwc
seen videos on blue planet so tried it out on my promix plants have to use at .25 to .5 to the gal. http://www.blueplanetnutrients.com/index.php/nutrient-calculator stuff well last long time

Happy New Year to you also
keep us updated