My first try at DWC

Dezracer

Dezracer

Well-Known Member
So I put 2 clones (in rockwool) that are only a couple days old in the DWC system I put together. It's a 10 gallon rubbermaid tote with 5" net baskets, the clones are Green Cush and I mixed in some Big Bloom and some Grow Big Hydro as per the FF feeding schedule. I actually put less than the feeding schedule said to because I don't have my EC/PPM meter yet. It's 6 gallons of water with 6 tspns of Big Bloom (by the chart this should be 12 tspns) and 6 tspns of Grow Big Hydro.

I have 3/4" styrofoam separating the cloner's lights from the bottom of the tote for heat reasons and wrapped the tote in some left over Panda Film to keep the inside of the tote dark. The lights are 4X26watt CFL @ 6500k and they're about a foot away right now. I'll move them a little closer each day until I start seeing roots and then drop them down close to the plants.

What do you guys think? Good, bad, ugly? Wait, I know it's ugly, haha.
 

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Looking good!

Do you have any roots yet and have they exited the baskets? For my clones I ran straight PH'd water until I had a strong set of roots coming out of the rockwool and then started with 1/4 nutes and have been bumping up by 1/4 every 2 days. Tonight will be full strength for me.

Don't ferget us DWC guys like LOT's of root porn. :)

peace

+rep
 
Haha, that's funny. No roots yet as I just put them in the rockwool a couple of days ago and in the DWC this afternoon. I'll post pics as soon as they show though. I'm wondering noe if I should've just gone with straight water. That was the plan until I read the FF feeding schedule, after reading I decided to put some nutes in. we'll see I guess...

Thanks for the props btw.
 
They're not looking bad but not exactly awesome either. Hopefully they'll be looking good by Monday or Tuesday. Hoping to be seeing roots by then since the clones will be a week old and wil have been in the DWC for five or six days.
 
I'd dump at least half of your res and fill it back up with ph'd water. You want little to no nutes in there until you have yourself a good size plant.

My plants are a month old... about 20" tall and I'm feeding at about 600 ppm. You are probably close to that with a plant not even past being considered a clone.

Just dont want to see you kill your baby's man! Good luck!
 
Thanks for the tip. I think it's far less than that now though since I pulled some water out and replaced it with adjusted ph water that was cold to get temps and the ph down. I've doen it twice already with 1 gallon each time so the nutes are definitely getting dilluted. I figured out a better system to coll and adjust the water going forward but I will not add any more nutes until I change the res water. I'll prob use plain water a that time too.
 
Be ready for explosive growth once those roots hit the water! Make sure you keep those roots searching for water. You want your medium to be slightly moist - not wet!

Just as an example take a look at my grow in my signature. I realized later that when I raised my veg bin off the ground at one point that it was not level. It made the one plant get a lot of water to the medium and the other two were searching. The two had roots and took off leaving the one lagging behind. Now its finally starting to catch back up.
 
I hope so. I have the water level 1" below the baskets right now. That's what I read somewhere so that's how I set it up. The baskets are always wet right now, should I lower the water level a bit maybe? I changed the res water a couple hours ago and it's plain ph'd water now (6gal. in the 10gal tub w/5" baskets).
 
If it is to moist because you have plenty of bubble action - yes... but to be honest if that's the case just leave it be. As the plant drinks water and some evaporates, it will naturally go down.

Post up some new pics when you get a chance.

Take care and happy growin!
 
Man it's crazy how much less the PH is fluctuating now that it's plain water. The little girls weren't looking so great before I changed the res water to plain water but hopefully they'll per back up now. They look a little better today than yesterday I think but it's hard to really tell. I put a digital thermometer in there too so now I don't have to guess, lol. 63 degrees right now in the water and 78 in the room.

I need to figure out something with the other clones that are in the dome because the lights being below the res is warming the water I think. I put styrofoam between them but it's not a perfect scenario. Might try to shift the baker's rack to the left side of the room and pull the lights over too. Then I could let the cloner stick out the the right side of the rack and hang the lights above it. The lights wouldn't be directly under the res anymore after that. If you look at the pics you'll understand what I'm saying.

I'll take some pics of them tomorrow and hopefully they'll be looking better. Hoping to see some roots any day now.
 
I've been learning the same lesson myself. I actually raised the water level so I could set my meter into an empty basket to take readings. Lazy ass stoner I am! :) Levels are back down and things going back to normal.

Looking forward to pics.

peace
 
Pulled a clone out the rockwool to check progress and found there wasn't any. In a week there was no change in the cutting. So I pulled them all out, shaved the lower half, split them and redipped them in the gel. One of them was messed up looking so I threw it out but the other three are back in their spots. I hope at least one of them takes or I'll have to germ some seeds so I can keep the flow going. Either that or go buy a couple clones. I just don't want to go to the place near me that has the good clones. The place I went to last is closed now and the place I got the first 2 from is also closed. really bummed about one of them because they carried the Oaksterdam clones and they had seeds.

My Birthday today so it's not all bad.
 
Happy Birthday Dude!

Keep your chin up! I'm nursing a clone who's new roots were accidentally all ripped off. I did the same as you, cut it back, redipped and put it back in my cloner. It looks like all is lost and it's all bent and shit, but there is viable green still after 4 days so I'm hoping to see just the tiniest of root nubs appearing. I just refuse to give up until she does!

peace
 
The 2 in the DWC don't look good at all. The one under the humidity dome looks ok still though. I also noticed some bugs moving around on the top of the rockwool of one of the DWC babies. It was time to spray them all down anyway so I sprayed the babies, then pulled the other 4 out of the flower room and sprayed them down really good too. I didn't see any signs of bugs on those 4 and hopefully it stays that way. I'm only 2-3 weeks away from my first harvest so I'd like them to stay healthy til then.
 
I fear my clones aren't going to make it so I went out and bought a Sour Grape clone (that's well rooted) today and put in the DWC. I pulled the worst looking of the 2 Green Cush cuttings out and put it back in the dome. So now I have 1 GC clone and 1 SG clone in the DWC and 2 GC clones in the dome. If they all do make it by some miracle I'll be in trouble since I don't have room for that many plants vegging at once. Plus when it's time to flower in say 4 weeks I'll still have a GC and a HS plant in the flower room and they will be pretty big by that time. There won't be room in there for 4 small plants and 2 big ones since there's barely room for what's in there now and the 2 older plants are small.
 
Another clone down. One GC clone left looking good (in the dome), one looking not so good (in the dome) and one Sour Grape clone looking great. C'mon baby, make it happen for me...
 
Here's the first root to exit the basket. It's the SG plant. The GC clone didn't mke it. I still have one that hasn't died in the cloner.
 

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In the 8 hours since I took that pic the amount of root hanging down has doubled. It's hanging about an inch below the basket now. Guess I'll add a little bit of nutes to the water tonight and see how it goes.
 
Keep the nutes out. Wait till the plant is a little bigger or shows any signs of needing them which 99.9% will not at that age.
 
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