DWC really that easy?

Not drinking…non-potable usage only. Not only do you need to worry about live organisms but also toxins. Dumping toxins into the lawn is ok, but not for drinking.

@WickedAle I know they get a lot of DRINKING water from Lake Lanier. I also know they dump millions of gallons of sewage in the same lake, but they say it’s “TREATED”

Eeewwww that’s just wrong :face_vomiting: We have a reservoir lake that the nearby city water comes from. No swimming is allowed because it’s the city’s drinking water. Great musky fishing lake/ reservoir…still glad I have a good well.

I agree. Gross. Think of all of the heavy metals being dumped in from the waste streams. I’m sure they remove the sludge but nasty.

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I totally agree. Love my well

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Back to the question at hand, I’ve never done soil, but I’m an old man that don’t want any more work than necessary. I run RDWC, and I think it’s pretty darn easy. Once you’re set up CORRECTLY, it pretty much runs itself. I have a drain on my system, and I refill with a garden hose. On mine, the most work is tying them down on the Scrog and keeping them trimmed.

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That’s one plant in a 4x4 Scrog net

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Dang, that’s one plant! Great job, I’m working on getting that good. Just started my dwc journey. Also have 2 in soil. :v::green_heart:

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@boardsbird what nutes do you use?
@Grandaddy013 I believe you use MaxiBloom, but do you use any other boosters in flower?

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I’m late to the discussion, I’m using soil. I looked into hydro, but new to growing, I decided against it. Some people just get hydro and others struggle. Saying that ill try hydro in the future I’m sure. Looks hella fun.

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I use Liquid Kool Bloom and Dry Kool Bloom

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The flora series, I buy gals so it’s cheap for me to use

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So both use just the basics…
I use GH flora and a bit of ArmorSL during flower to stiffen up the branches. Been experimenting with Morebloom 0-10-10 in flower. But I like to keep it simple.
Thanx.

I’m still very much a noob(1st time germinating was mid-January), and I can say that when I tried to grow in soil I wrecked almost everything. Overfertilized big time… may as well have dumped salt on everything and chucked it all into a microwave.

Doing hydro now in a box, 17 quart DWC, 600 watt LED. Very conservative on nutrients. Did have one WW AF that survived my previous soil stupidity due to a flush and a transplant. It all seemed good, but then I transplanted it into the hydro system and now it’s shrunk in on itself; still green, but I think I may have put it through too much mayhem to get much out of it…

In contrast, I added 2 new AFWW’s and germinated early February, and they are already passing it by. Not to say that hydro is that much better; pretty sure I made a strong plant into a mediocre one with all my soil tampering. But so far, hydro seems to be ridiculously easy, so long as you stop screwing with it. I keep the PH right, check the PPM, use conservative amounts of fertilizer from this site and things are looking pretty good, so far. I think I’ll hold off on the micromanagement until I have some useful experience.

If you’ve read to this point, thanks for reading! If you have any advice, I welcome it!

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Keep PH around 5.8, feed at 1/2-2/3 and give them air air and more air to the roots

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The one thing I have noted with DWC is the plants are very sensitive to microbial growth in the beginning. The rockwool and clay stones harbor a lot of nasties and chew away on the young plants. Once you have a good root base they grow like “weeds”. You don’t need huge containers. I change weekly and top up with water between dump/refers. If the plant gets infected they never really totally recover, but can yield just fine. There is always some residual nasties that seem to hang around the roots.

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That’s about where I am, and pumping out the bubbles…

I’m around 280 PPM at the moment. I see PPM on Bergman’s feeding schedule, and other places, of course. Is that an upper limit, or is it what I should strive for? After my blustertruck with soil, I’m very leery of adding nutrients…

I take my plants in their baskets and just run water through them to wash off any bacterial growth/algae that may be affecting the plants at the stem and roots. Had a gold leaf recover just fine. just keep it light on the nutes until it starts peeking up again.

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Hey buddy! I’m actually a huge fan of Ebb N’ Flow (Flood and Drain Systems) Some of the nicer ones run about 260-500 and those are bucket from reservoir setups with a controller bucket (if you have the know how to build your own controller bucket you can build a system for about $200), and I’m not sure on retail prices but the Flood and Drain tables (Reservoir is underneath the table which is filled by a pump and then gravity drains back out, this system is actually very easy to build and suitable to a newcomer) are nice as well.

I actually find Hydro to be way easier than soil because I have complete control over everything in a much easier, at least to me, manner than soil.

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