Sea of green, hydro first time

Hi guys,

This is my first grow in water. I have not expected it to be such a blast. In the same space I can usually grow 6, may be 8 in soil.

However I could only go with 4 buckets DWC and it seems it was a right decision. Look at them there is no space left at all. There are two extra in soil planted at the same time sitting on the right but they are struggling to reach light as their neighbours in hydro growing like crazy.

I actually had to switch to flowering after 4 weeks of vegetation as they were quite huge already at 4 weeks and taken almost all space.

They now at 6th week from a seedling, 2nd week under 8 hours of light. Light is two Samsung QBs about 260W draw each. They run on full power almost from a start.
The main ste on each almost 1 inch in diameter if not bigger.

I use experimental fertiliser designed for hydro and provided to me for testing by my friend. It regulates PH automatically and keeps it at 6.1-6.3 My friend advised me to keep EC above 2300 and I usually do new water at 2800 for flowering. Each plant drinks about 7 liters of water per week. Each root ball looks fantastic and taken already at least 1/3 of a 20L bucket.

Now a simple question, I guess they need to be defoliated at least at the bottom. Is it too early?

It is Indica strain called Purple Sunset. Some leaves are tremendous and can be over 25cm in size

PinPin said:

Hi guys,

This is my first grow in water. I have not expected it to be such a blast. In the same space I can usually grow 6, may be 8 in soil.

However I could only go with 4 buckets DWC and it seems it was a right decision. Look at them there is no space left at all. There are two extra in soil planted at the same time sitting on the right but they are struggling to reach light as their neighbours in hydro growing like crazy.

I actually had to switch to flowering after 4 weeks of vegetation as they were quite huge already at 4 weeks and taken almost all space.

They now at 6th week from a seedling, 2nd week under 8 hours of light. Light is two Samsung QBs about 260W draw each. They run on full power almost from a start.
The main ste on each almost 1 inch in diameter if not bigger.

I use experimental fertiliser designed for hydro and provided to me for testing by my friend. It regulates PH automatically and keeps it at 6.1-6.3 My friend advised me to keep EC above 2300 and I usually do new water at 2800 for flowering. Each plant drinks about 7 liters of water per week. Each root ball looks fantastic and taken already at least 1/3 of a 20L bucket.

Now a simple question, I guess they need to be defoliated at least at the bottom. Is it too early?

It is Indica strain called Purple Sunset. Some leaves are tremendous and can be over 25cm in size

Click to expand...

Why only 8 hrs of light? Your limiting potential from the gate? If healthy you can defoliate.

There is simply no room for them to grow, they are hitting walls for days and in terms of height they are now only 70-80cm from the light. The area that they are pictured in is about 1.3x1.5m. There is more room on a side but it is under steps, they go down there and no way I can put a big plant there and have some distance to a light above.

The buckets are connected with rigid hoses and I cannot even bring them closer, not that there is any clearing left between the buckets.
And I still want something from 2 sitting in soil. I used to keep them between the buckets but hydro plants filled all the space in 3 weeks and I had to move the pots with soil on the right side.

No problems with them. Nice big plants and even top stems are quite big.. some are almost 1/3" in diameter if not more.

i'm amazed you can run at 2.8EC.

looking good.

In the buckets it is about 2300-2400 microsiemens/cm2 top. It is only when I add new water I add nutrients until I get 2700-2800. It mixes with what left and it comes to 2300-2400.

If there is enough light they can eat a lot. In just 24 hours they seem to grow another 5cm. I put the light 5cm higher and I have another 10cm I can raise it up.

I have trimmed some leaves and small stems at the bottom of each. Got a lot of cutlings that can be turn into plants but I have no spare hydro setup to grow them in.

I'm jelly dude. Must feel good to succeed.

Ok, I am a bit worried about what's going on. I have 6 plants, all females, all the same strain(Purple Sunset). 4 are growing in hydro directly under the light(Samsung QBs total over 500W draw), two are going on a side in soil. The ones in soil are not receiving most of the light. Sometime I can even forget to water them and I have not added any food since the start. I have added a 600W viparspectra above two in soil just to give them extra light. However it is not the light problem... I started flowering about 2 weeks ago, just a few days before I created the post. 2 that are in soil are shown signs of flowering, 4 in hydro do not have any sign.

Since I have created this post(see the top pictures) the hydro plants have grown extra 20cm so to me with no signs of flowering it looks that they are still in vegetation.

I did one mistake though and I set light on 8/16(off) for flowering but considering their size two weeks ago I wanted them to start flowering asap as there is no room left to grow in any direction apart from up anymore. But seeing they had no intention to flower anyway I changed to 10 hours on 14 hours off a week ago. Still nothing shown on hydro ones. It drives crazy as if they intend to grow more I may hit the ceiling or to be exactly a shelf below it where my QBs are hooked to.

What else I have done is trimmed them removing huge fan leaves at the top to let the light penetrate and reach lower stems as I have plenty of them under the top fan leaves. I have also removed all low sitting leaves and small stems. It has almost recovered all leaves I cut of but they are smaller as for now.

There is no sign of any deficiency or excessiveness . Roots are tremendous and look healthy. Light is now really close to them about 45cm top but there shouldn't be any heat stress and there is no sign of it. Light meter though shows only 45000 lux at this distance.

I have had a chat with my friend microbiologists who supplies me his food for hydro and the only idea we have come with is that the plants feeling happy with a lot of light and food and do not care much about increasing period in darkness.

Any idea what is happening with my hydro plants?

I will post pictures soon if it helps.

Sorry no pictures yet. Without any advice the only thing I can do is to give them 36-48 hours s of complete darkness.
However any advice would be appreciated. It may be a lot of food in water makes them thinking they can go vegging forever.
From another hand if they grow wild in reach with nutrients soil outdoor they still flower based on increased darkness period. Something is not right.

If I had not had two in soil of the same strain flowering already I would have not worried so much. They are all only 7 weeks from seedlings.

Temperature? Buddy had a bunch of plantss that he put out too early this spring and they all went in to flower

I had quite an opposite with four in water refusing to start flowering. However the problem has been solved. I have given them 48 hours of darkness and they are flowering now.

It is kind of cold now in Brisbane during nights but water stays at +18C even at night. I do not think it was caused by lower temperature. It was warmer a week ago and they did not want to start flowering back then.

The plants now are almost 90cm tall. I hope they won't go another 50% in size

Remove all your lower bud sites and super crop all your tallest ones.Theyll still grow but this will buy you some space.
This has happened to all of us,learn from it and move on.Good luck.

shit, some are almost 10cm before they reach my neck. Some big bud sites are just 20cm from the light, others 30cm from it. I hope they are not going to grow significantly anymore. I have another 15-20cm left to rise the lights but it would be very tough as power supplies will be just be 5cm from steel mesh they are hung on.

I have removed anything from the bottom leaving only 25cm foliated from the top on each bud site. each plant has about 8-9 huge bud sites. They drink like crazy and each consumed more than a half of a 20L bucket in less than 5 days.

I would love to do super cropping but there is no space for it. It is kind of hard to do it for about 27 bud sites in a space where they cover the top of the space with thick canopy already. I can only tie them in the centre and on one side. there are walls and a door on other three sides and they are crawling along them.

Next time I won't put more than two or get sativa strain. No way to grow four indica plants with their huge leaves in my space. Lesson learned, if you grow in hydroponics forget all you know about growing in soil

I have just measured them. The tallest is 110cm but buckets are 42cm tall so it is 152cm at the maximum height from the ground.

I am preparing to get a 2m tall tent with a 1.5x more space just to relocate them from a limited space under my steps. I had to bend one bud site in two places already because it was just 7cm below my QBs.

Sure it is not going to be easy with everything joined with tubing but I believe it is doable.

Has anybody every seen a tent that is 140/130cm wide, 120cm deep and 200mm tall?

I can get 120x120x200 one but I believe it can still be too small and 140x140x200 won't fit in depth for me unless I can find one with an opening on the left side of it.

I can build a wooden frame room but my wife will kill me seeing me spending so much time on my grow and it will take some time.

The problem has been solved with an extra 120x120x200cm tent. Since my last post some have grown even more higher and reach my eyes level. One bud site top has even been burnt a bit by the QBs heat. Now they are split in groups of two. It is hard though comparing to soil grow to split them and move. I have had to disconnect two, plug all connections left from them and branch from a reservoir bucket in a different direction towards the tent and add more lengthy connection for dripping, air and water exchange. It has taken me half of a day to do including setting up a tent in a very limited space. And I am lucky to have another light Viparspectra 1200W with the same power consumption in total as two QBs