RDWC Questions

SuperiorBuds said:

Everything is fine, until it's not.

How do you combat lockouts if you don't pH or change the res? How does the pH stay steady while the plants are absorbing ions from the water, especially if it's not being changed out? How do you ensure you keep DO levels high enough w/o a chiller?

I have to know, what type of yields are you pulling from this system?

I don't doubt it's working for you, but with no protection in place it's only a matter of time before you have a failure.

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You are confusing me for the other guy. I was asking THT that.
I have a full rdwc sysytem with a chiller and automatic PH doser. I also do complete rez changes every 7-14 days depending on my ec levels

Sorry I was talking to him. I agree with your points so your post was quoted for context.

SuperiorBuds said:

In your environment that works, great, but that is very atypical of DWC in general.



Everything is fine, until it's not.

How do you combat lockouts if you don't pH or change the res? How does the pH stay steady while the plants are absorbing ions from the water, especially if it's not being changed out? How do you ensure you keep DO levels high enough w/o a chiller?

I have to know, what type of yields are you pulling from this system?

I don't doubt it's working for you, but with no protection in place it's only a matter of time before you have a failure.

Click to expand...

Hey there, so for clarification I DO PH the water that I pour into the buckets -- sometimes -- at this point I check PH maybe 3 or 4 times throughout the grow, at the very beginning I balance, then I 'adjust' by using whatever water I add. PH issues are the only real issues I have had because I will admit how being lazy about checking the PH means it can go one way or the other off-balance. The PH doesn't stay steady, and it doesn't really need to as long as its floating around within the right values as you obviously are aware by the context of your question.
DO has never been an issue, maybe the pumps and stones are the factor here, and I'm not certain what my water temps are, ambient temp is about 65 in one room and 70 in another room, my guess is the water temp is right about there too.. I am sure they are warmer than they should be, yet I haven't had issues in this regard. Sometimes the plants ( I start with 4 plants in a single 5 gallon bucket ) will drink the bucket nearly dry, does that count as a res change? I add about 2.5 gallons of fresh (ph'd) water on a normal 'fill-up' so its a factor of about 3 to 1 'new' water to 'old' water being mixed.

Now the fun stuff. I grow 12/12 from seed. Always. I plant a seed in 12/12 and I harvest (strain depending) 3 months later. Yields are outstanding (again strain dependent). One of my best g/w lately was with my Uptown Orange strain (uptown brown x tangie) in a 2x4 which under a mars hydro tsl2000 (300w) I pulled about 420g after just3 months of grow. It's documented actually on another forum's grow competition which I can provide you the link to. heres some shots from that grow




Its not like my plants are 'Perfect' most of the time, nor do they need to be 'perfect' to get the most out of them

Here's some shots of a more recent grow which I have yet to weigh, but on average I get something like 30- 90g per plant, it really does depend on the strain because some plants/strains yield significantly more like 120g+

This is two plants in a 2x2, Dynamite Diesel on the left and Terpendado (my own f2) on the right. These are both going to yield more than 90G a piece I think..


I also made Cackleberry f2 and finally found my keeper female (and two male selections) for going to F3

ÒÒlegilizeitÒÒ said:

In addition you are prone to crop failures from improper nutrient feeding/uptake and root rot.

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I don't disagree, you are right. In my case the yield and quality are always on point, and it really doesn't need to be any better than consistently being over 1Gpw in my case. My plants always finish regardless of how little attention I give the details, and quality is determined mostly by the strain too in my opinion. You can grow a bad strain really well and still have weed that you hate at the end - My methods allow me to harvest 4 times per year in each tent, which means for me, I can see one extra grows worth of strains.