White Widow closet grow + Hydro Waterfarm buckets + 1st grow **PICS**

if i were you i would just cut out the flora grow and use micro/bloom at 6/9ml per gallon. that gives you an ideal nutrient mix that gets your girls booming, i feed everyday in coco with this solution and it works great. only problems i have had is calcium deficiency but it was due to my ph, i use like 5.8-6.0 ph solution now and have had no problems with it. Or u can due a google search for lucas formula, i think its 8/14ml per gallon of micro/bloom and also works pretty good just more strength i guess.

Day 16: Nute Burn Hell

I was all wrong about my plants having a deficiency...in Fact, they are suffering from too much nutes...Nute Burn!

It makes sense... ever since the plants left the plug tray and went into the Waterfarms the problems began to arise.

Please dont take offense Mr. Bitti! I highly value your feedback, its just that I think my plants are still too young to begin such an aggressive formula of nutes.

I had made a post in the Marijuana Plant Problems forum of Rollitup: https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-plant-problems/173104-all-3-plants-sick-see.html

Everyone agrees that it seems to be nute burn based on the pics i had posted. And after looking over my situation again and not seeing much improvement.. an plus the fact that my plants are still so young. It was only 5 days ago since they've left their starter tray.

I flushed the growing chamber that contains the Hydroton and plug w/ plant with 5.8 PH water. Emptied and filled up the reservoir with tap water that has been adjusted to 5.8 PH. I will let the waterfarms circulate the plain water for 4-5 days. I will adjust PH as needed.

After I start seeing signs of improvement, I will start the plants on a very low dose nutrient program and build my base from there.

right on man no offense taken, great job figuring it out. They look more burned up today, that was a good call after they didnt react good to the new formula. it doesnt seem to be intense nute burn so it should recover nicely then. makes sense that its too aggressive as you continuously water. anyway good luck man keep us posted my man

Day 17: recovery?

Plants have been running just on PH Tap water for almost 2 days now. Plants are showing signs of new growth since discovering the Nute Burn. I noticed the tips of the new growth look yellow. This might be due to having a N def. I'm cautious now about adding nutrients. Should I wait a few more days for plants to cycle using just water and no nutrients? Or should I start by adding 1/4 strength of nutrients?

I just don't want the new growth to get sick. What should I do about the damage leafs from the Nute Burn? The leafs are crimpled, with ends pointing up and down. Should i just let them be, and they'll fall off on their own? Should I trim them? See Pics****

Nice setup! Your plants look very healthy...pretty soon they will be frosty as hell..take a look below.

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yea let your leafs be and as far as nutes go id start them off at 2/2ml per gallon. that should be more than enough to give them some food and then you can see how they react. maybe wait one more day of flush and see if they are still growing at a decent pace, if growth has slowed then you know they want to be fed.

Day 20: Added nutes again

Okay, so I've let the plants flush for 3-4 days using only PH water in my Waterfarm systems. Plant growth has been increasing. I've noticed that the new growth is showing a yellowish tinge on the edges. (I'm thinking it has to be a nute def. since im not running any nutes at all)

Yesterday, I emptied out all 3 reservoirs, washed down the drip ring and piping with hot water. Refilled with tap water and adjusted PH down to approx ~ 5.8 in all 3 buckets.

Following Mr. Biti's suggestion, i added nute formula at 1/3rd strength then I had original started with. PPM's were around 240-250.

Will see how the plants react to new nutrient formula. Note** during the res's changes I've noticed that the roots are breaking thru the bottom of the growing chamber and dipping into the reservoir now. This is a good sign.

Took some pics yesterday

So this morning I checked the PH levels of all 3 buckets. PH had risen in all buckets to approx ~ 7.0 PH, PPM stayed stable for the most part.. increasing slightly by 20-30 PPM.

Used PH down to bring PH levels down to 5.6-5.8 PH. I guess this is normal in a hydro system to check an adjust your PH everyday. Any tips on better stablizing the PH?

ph i think is always rise back to ph of the water

ph should stay rather constant once you have adjusted it. are you using general hydroponic nutes?? i use them but only in one gal containers and the ph stays constant atleast 3 days. Still havent had a formula have any drastic ph changes. Add you nutes before you ph your solution down. Also are you adding back water to your resevoir? Maybe try using r/o water or filtered water. My tap comes out around ph of 8, but my water filter brings it down to about 5.2 so i ph it up to 5.8 and it never changes. I havent worked with a resevoir so im not very clever when it comes to keeping solution stable for weeks. Try in the hydro thread im sure those guys can tell you in a second.

Day 22: Flush again

Mr.Bitti wrote: ph should stay rather constant once you have adjusted it. are you using general hydroponic nutes?? i use them but only in one gal containers and the ph stays constant atleast 3 days. Still havent had a formula have any drastic ph changes. Add you nutes before you ph your solution down. Also are you adding back water to your resevoir?...

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Mr. Biti: I'm using, GH nutes: FloraGro, FloraMicro, and FloraBloom. Also, I'm adding in some Drip-Clean to help keep my hoses clean. Also using GH Ph Down/Up atm.
Lately I been adding back some tap water to bring the solution up to my 2 gallon mark. I thought about RO filters and such but atm i'm broke. Plus I did some research and there is differing opinions on the subject. Since my tap water is safe to drink, i've been going with it. Not ruling it out, but we'll see how things go. As always, I highly value your feedback!

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For the past 2 days, I've been checking my plants twice a day: Once in the morning and again at night. When I take the PH readings they are reading approx. 6.5
I add in some more tap water to bring it back up to my 2 gallon mark.
I add PH down to bring to approx. 5.4-5.7

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Well today, it looks like my plants are getting slight nutrient burn again (please see Pics!!***) since I added in my nutrients (at approx. 1/3rd strength). I don't understand, when am I suppose to add nutrients?

Well i did some research, and it seems like the way to go is under feed and wait to see signs of Deficiency then adjust accordingly.. instead of anticipating the plants needs.

So, today I emptied out all my reservoirs. Filled with plain tap water. Added some Drip-Clean (so prevent deposit buildup in my hoses an drip-ring) and PH down to bring water PH from approx. 7.4 to 5.6 approx~ I added no nutrients, whatsoever. I took the PH water and poured it over my hydroton several times to clear out any excess nutrients.

I've noticed that the bottom leafs of my plants are getting wet from splash-up from the drip-rings. I've read that nutrient solution that splashes up onto leafs can cause burning under the Hot HID lights.
To help remedy this: I also added more hydroton to decrease the distance between the hydroton and drip-ring..in hoping i decrease the splash-up on the leafs.

Currently: All 3 plants have a 2gallon solution of approx 5.8 tap water and drip-clean. NO nutrients. I plan to check on this solution twice a-day, adjusting PH down back to 5.8 approx.

I uploaded a bunch of pics of how the plants look today. They look like they have nutrient burn again, but if see something else, please let me know!!



It goes without saying, thank you Rollitup community!!

Hey madhat, one thing I have noticed with my waterfarm buckets is that if you fill the hydrotron all the way up to the ring, you wont get the splash which gets everywhere and can damage your young plants. I used to have to put plastic bowls with the bottoms cut out to protect the young plants from the splash but then I realized that if you fill the hydrotron to sit flush with the drip ring, all my problems went away and young plants started quicker/better. Hope all works out well for you. https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/119479-waterfarm-mods-tips-4.html here is a link for some other waterfarm tips just in case they may help you.

Day 25: Growth improvement!!

Still in vegetative phase, but I'm going to start flowering next week! Plants have been vegging for over 3 weeks, going on 1month. Height of biggest plant is 8 inches. The other two plants are 6 inches (the runt had caught up to my 2nd biggest plant!)

I've read other journals, and it seems my vegging phase is lasting longer then usual for hydro grows. (i've read 2-3 weeks for vegging in Hydro). I had problems with nutrient burn in the first two weeks. It slowed the growth of my plants as well as burning my lower leafs.

Now my system is running only PH'd tap water (5.8Ph approx) and Drip-Clean (to keep hoses clean) and the plants seem to be thriving. I'm guessing my plants still have alot of nutrients stored up due to the nutrient burn i had earlier.

Next week, I plan to put my babies into flowering. I've read that you can kick-start the flowering phase by initially giving the plants 24-36 hours of darkness before going 12/12. Is this a myth, any thoughts on this?

For flowering, I'm going to switch-out my 400watt Growlight MH Conversion bulb from my cooltube and replace with a Agromax 400watt HPS bulb. I also plan to flush the reservoirs and add a very mild nutrient solution at the start of the flowering phase.

I uploaded pics of how my plants look today. See earlier entry (3 days ago) and compare the growth rate. Do the plants look good? Still only running them on tap-water.

tman42 said:

Hey madhat, one thing I have noticed with my waterfarm buckets is that if you fill the hydrotron all the way up to the ring, you wont get the splash which gets everywhere and can damage your young plants. I used to have to put plastic bowls with the bottoms cut out to protect the young plants from the splash but then I realized that if you fill the hydrotron to sit flush with the drip ring, all my problems went away and young plants started quicker/better. Hope all works out well for you. https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/119479-waterfarm-mods-tips-4.html here is a link for some other waterfarm tips just in case they may help you.

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Hey Tman, thats exactly what I ended up doing. In fact, today I used up the last of my excess hydroton to further close in the gap between the drip-ring and hydroton. That is an excellent thread for Waterfarm users. I've infact read that thread over before modding my own WF units. You can see how I modded my units in the first couple pages of my grow journal

i would skip the dark 24-36 period just switch to 12/12

Day 29: Flowering begins! and my MH conv. bulb melts!

For the past week, plants had been showing steady growth under 400watt MH Conv. bulb. I was using only PH water and Drip-Clean (to keep hoses clean). I added no nutrients.

Today I will start the flowering phase.
Tallest plant is 10 inches, and two others are at 9 inches approx. I flushed all 3 reservoirs, cleaned the drip-ring, and added in fresh tap water.

I decided I will start adding nutrients again (its been 7 days since they last had some)
Nutrients i added: 2ml FloraGro, 2ml FloraMicro, 2ml FloraBloom per reservoir (2 gallons). I then add in PH down. I bought a new container of Advanced Nutrients PH Down (more $$, but higher qual). Finally, I add in Drip-Clean to keep hoses clean.
PH is 5.5-5.8 PPM is approx~ 190.


I cleaned up the closet and checked over for light holes. Since I'm going to start 12/12, I need to make sure that the closet is light proof for total darkness. Sealed in spots using good ol' duct tape.

Time to change out the bulb and add in my 400 watt AgroMax bulb. So I turn off my 400watt MH Conv. bulb for the 1st time in over 4 weeks. Now I'm not sure why I did this.... but after like maybe 2 minutes of the bulb being off I decided to turn it back on then snap!
I stared at the bulb for a moment as it made very weird noises and the light inside was flashing starnge colors, I saw an orange piece of metal then it snapped and punctured thru the glass. I quickly turned off the lights.

The bulb did not explode, although the inside was a mess (See pic.) I decided to let the bulb cool off for a bit before changing it out. Went out to the store and picked up some fans. Installed a 31inch tower fan that was slim enough to fit inside the closet perfectly. (The Fujitronic that I had mentioned earlier in the thread was too big for the closet and now just purifies the air in the outside room.)

Installed circulating tower fan in back of closet.. on lowest setting. Disconnected my venting from the open end of the cool tube and changed out the MH Conv. bulb. Installed a 400 watt AgroMax HPS bulb. Reconnected venting to cooltube.

Programmed my heavy duty timer to turn off lights at 8pm then turn back on at 8am. Figure I'll keep the lights off at nighttime to minimize sunlight from getting into the closet. My concern is temperature levels.. i'll have to keep an eye on them.

Took a bunch of pics of how the plants look today.

nice nice, now the fun begins

hey madhat, nice journal.
Im growing a white widow with the same hydro setup but Im about a week behind you. I too have noticed issues with nutes. In my case i have never gone over about 200 ppm but still saw signs of burn.
I have one question and one comment for you.....Did adding the extra hydroton improve the plant growth at all, or just cut down on the splashing? Also, I had many of the same PH issues you mention until I noticed some algea growth on the hydroton. Then I covered up all the hydroton with mylar except for the center where the plant comes thru and my PH problem stopped instantly. You might give it a try.

hey what seed bank WW are you guys growing?? seems to be a nute hater!!! didnt know that about the WW

Day 31:

oxide said:

hey madhat, nice journal.
Im growing a white widow with the same hydro setup but Im about a week behind you. I too have noticed https://www.rollitup.org/images/smiles/kiss.gifissues with nutes. In my case i have never gone over about 200 ppm but still saw signs of burn.
I have one question and one comment for you.....Did adding the extra hydroton improve the plant growth at all, or just cut down on the splashing? Also, I had many of the same PH issues you mention until I noticed some algea growth on the hydroton. Then I covered up all the hydroton with mylar except for the center where the plant comes thru and my PH problem stopped instantly. You might give it a try.

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Hey Oxide, thanks for stopping by and checking out my journal! Adding the extra hydroton, so that it was flushed against my drip-ring cut back on the splashing and as a result, improved growth! Since the nutrient splash-up that was getting on the lower leaves was causing them to burn up and die.

I've seen people use Mylar to cover the tops of their WF units but does that mean you turn off the drip-ring? How does nutrient get thru the Mylar and down thru the hydroton? I'm using an airstone which I added to my reservoir to further oxygenate my nutrient solution. Also, are you using tap water or an RO system/Distill ? I'm using tap water, which gives an approx. PH of 7.4 and PPM of 70

Mr. Bitti said:

hey what seed bank WW are you guys growing?? seems to be a nute hater!!! didnt know that about the WW

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3 feminized White Widow seeds - Ordered from The Attitude Seed Bank Co. (These are Seedsman seeds - which is the actual Seed supplier).

So does White Widow in general not need nutes? Or is it that at this early stage they do not need them yet. I figure that since I've started flowering, the need to add nutrients will increase. In fact, when I checked on my plants last night, I noticed that my PPM levels had dropped from 190ppm to 130ppm. PH had risen from 5.8 approx to 6.4. Also, about an 8th of the nutrient solution was used up.
SO in response, I topped off with plain tap water. Adjusted PH and added a few drops of Drip-Clean. My biggest plant saw a drop of PPM levels from 190 to 120. I added back 1ml each of FloraGro, FloraMicro, FloraBloom - PPM went up to 190 again.

Some pics of how they looked last night

it definitely needs nutes, but i guess not very much at least seedsman WW. just keep doing what your doing man, if they are using up the ppm then bring it back up. If theyr not sucking up the nutes don't feed. I think you got it down pretty good man, cant wait for the buds to show up!!

and btw try putting the mylar over the ring, it loos like you might be able to do it w/o covering any foilage