It’s also essential for producing trichome stalks which are composed of silica.
Your nutrient mix should include Hydroguard, Silica and Cal mag as none of this is present in base nutes. When mixing; Silica is always first, cal mag is always second. If you don’t mix in correct order it will precipitate out of solution, making it unavailable to the plants (plus makes a goopy mess).
Another reason PH drops at this point in the grow is some roots are dying which tends to acidify the solution.
My suggestion to you would be to increase bucket size by using yellow-topped totes. I use 29 gallon ones which increases the rez for stability, allows for leaving for a few days without attention, keeps liquid level at a more ideal level longer etc. Adding a rez to that allows you more freedom and stability as well as at some point likely needing a chiller (unless on a cold basement slab in Colorado, like me lol).
I would also use smaller net pots than the ones in the bucket system because they are not as deep. I use a 4" which is plenty to put up a larger plant. My last hydro grow used them and my average yield was 13 zips per plant, RDWC, GH Lucas Formula. I do support them with a SCROG when possible though which adds stability.
Thank you guys. I’ve got a lot to catch myself up on here and a lot of reading and research haha. Will chime back in soon. The tips and comments are appreciated.
Lucas formula looks pretty cool and easy. You guys generally like it and approve of that one along with including SI and hydroguard? I assume I’m too far in to switch my formulation now but not far off my next grow.
If i use a big tote, do I add extra air? Currently using one small air pump with 2 outlets - each going to 1 medium air stone per bucket.
You just put 1 plant in the big tote?
If I don’t go full RWDC, any recommendations on a water circulation pump inside the tote? I’m not sure I want to go through the plumbing hassle of a full recirculating yet. Especially since I don’t grasp it yet fully lol.
I don’t have to actually do full water changes ever? I can just keep adding nute water and never bother with a full emptying?
I like the idea of a big tote because with the summer coming it will be nice to go away without worrying. I worry that it will take up an enormous amount of space in my 4x4 tent and restrict me to one plant at a time.
I was considering for my next grow to do 4 buckets of purple haze but trigger them to flower at a small size each. For a fast and manageable grow. Does this idea make any sense? Or better to go with one big plant.
IMO, you can switch anytime you want as long as it’s in the same family… (GH family) Only if you were choosing a different brand like Jack’s 321 nutrients which is what a lot of folks here run including myself. It’s literally stupid proof. That’s why I like it… lol
The more air you have, the better off you’ll be. There are better proven air pumps and air stones some like one over the other. You’ll figure what works best for you.
I have three per tote.
There are lots of options. Depending on your flowering footprint and how you want to grow and depending on how and what you use as your vessel, you have tons of options.
All that will come in time from reading journals and bringing it all together to make your own setup.
You can get a tornado style water pump from Amazon that attaches to the inside of your tote/bucket. It’s one of the better options for circulation.
There are growers here presently that do that as we speak and some that have come and gone that have done that.
Depending on you engineering skills, your customizing skills are unlimited.
A good food for though is, if you’re unsure about something concerning growing, ask first before doing something or buying something. Chances are it’s already been though about or tried here.
There are a lot of folks here that run hydro in a lot of different ways. Lots of options. AutoPots might be an option or Ebb and Flow. Maybe just one or two large totes for your tent. Lots of folks that can help in lots of different ways. Good luck!
Reading along here and glad water volume was mentioned, there are other mechanisms that can lower ph like brown algae that ive spent lots of effort battling. For the most part though as plants drink and not uptake the nutes the nutes become more concentrated thus, water more acidic, ph goes down, plants eat more food than present in the solution, or you add back plain water, ph should go up as food is depleted and becomes less acidic.
If you have a large enough volume of water, chiller, and good filtration, you can read the plants, and instead of water, add plant food mix back in. My ppm fluxuates about 10 + or - unless i increase or decrease it with stronger or weaker top off solution depending on what i see. If the ppm stays the same, ph the same, and water went down, you hit the goldilocks zone for your environment, lights, co2, etc. PPMs drop, feed them more, go up, stay the same, dilute with water.
Goal is to somehow create an environment and size plants with the “least” amount of change over a manageable amount of time to maintain it perfectly.
Well I would answer questions and join in the discussion, but you have a few of the best hydro people guiding you that also helped me with my first rdwc .
If you would like I can tag my journal and you can see my build and all the questions I asked. I’m going to be staying my second grow in my rdwc system soon.
Good luck,
Having the extra water makes hydro way easier, so like others have suggested, I would recommend rdwc over dwc, nothing wrong with dwc but if you do go that route, a larger container that holds more water will make you grow easier/more stable.
My last rdwc grow I only switch water completely once, as I learn I hope to not have to change water/mix expect between grows, this will primarily depends on which nutrients you use.
I use jacks 321, but I also use extras like others have said armor si, hydrogaurd, ect
I’ve used several nutrient lines and currently using the Jack’s 3-2-1 program: very economical, high quality ingredients, easy mixing. To that I add silica (cal mag not necessary with Jack’s).
You could switch to that or any other line without hiccup.
I don’t know about the cheap part, but the buckets that I use (and that Gary at PA Hydro uses in the kits) is a square black food-safe bucket with a lid like you’re looking for. They come in 8 and 13 gal sizes … I have the 13, but if I did it again, I might go to 8.
This certainly isn’t the best price available (shipping empty buckets in small quantity is not cheap, I suppose), but these: Amazon.com
As a bonus, it’s much easier to use in a RDWC system because you don’t have any trouble installing bulkheads.
I have a pretty decent amount of the GH I already bought so I’ll stick with it for now bc god knows I already have spent way too much on my grows lol. But at some point I’ll try the Jacks 3-2-1. I do like the idea of the Lucas formula for GH though and only using micro and bloom.
With all of your comments and help, I am getting pretty psyched up about making a RDWC setup for my next grow.
Now to keep researching and to start ordering parts! It’s so easy to fall down the rabbit hole of this stuff.
My biggest concern is having less room in my 4x4 tent because Im a big guy and already struggle clumsily when doing plant maintenance in there but it looks like i could focus less on interior maintenance then and just let the plants do their thang. Wish I had a 5x5 though.
I had to shorten my scrog because I have two plants tucked into a corner of a 5’x10’ room.
My arms are only so long and can only reach so far. 36” is max.
If you have any concern about which way to grow, I would highly recommend checking out other journals of folks that run hydro.
If you’d like, I can tag you in to others hydro grow so you can have a look at all the different ways. Whatever you decide, good luck!
@HappyHydroGrower yeah man that would be great! It took me like 45 min to scroll to the top of yours and it keeps losing its place but it planted the seed for me on how it could be much better and long term easier than what I have.
I did begin pricing some materials though and this looks like it could be a wallop lol. I give away all my weed to my workers and have been using it as a hobby to keep sane during the pandemic and that has paid for itself but for myself I could make a dime bag last a month😅. (A very happy giggly month). But I’m 3 tents in, multiples of lights and fans and all the doo-dads lol. In my tiny NYC apt.
SO I DID A WATER CHANGE TODAY:
I mixed the nutes early. Adjusted PH. Kept checking that pH was stable. It was at 6.1 and I decided to go with it since I’m having pH drop issues. Added hydroguard. Mixed/waited. Rechecked ph and TDS. TDS was 650. Little lower than my goal but ran with it.
Now about 5 hours later I have some weird figures.
So initial:
pH: 6.1
TDS: 650
5 hours later:
Plant1(tall gangly yellowing leaves, low trichomes):
pH: 5.1
TDS: 1050
Roots look good. But def a decent amount of dead bits fall off and mix in the water.
Plant2(short bushy green nice trichomes):
pH: 5.7
TDS: 1050
Roots bright white and happy-go-lucky.
So that threw me off bc it’s such a fast drastic pH drop. And such rapid TDS rises.
My theories:. Old root decay creating acidic environment.
Do roots sometimes need like a rinse out or something? Perhaps a couple dunks in another bucket of water?
Theory 2: I forget…I lost my train of thought I know I had another theory or 2.
Are they drinking water?
How much?
More than normal or less than normal?
How far into flower are you?
When did you first see bud sites?
Are your roots still white-ish?
Do you mix everything up in a separate bucket, pH, and then pour it in?
Mine right now are drinking 2 gal a day and that’s for two plants. My ppm’s are about 1030 and pH 6.0. It will stay that way till the water runs low or needs changing. I can go 5 days without having to do anything. It stays right on the numbers without having to adjust anything.
So if I go in there tomorrow and the pH is low and the nutes have risen, and they are still drinking the same amount of water, that’s telling me that I need to feed more. If the same with nutes and pH but yet they’re not drinking, then I need to lower the nutes.
I work my nute numbers based off the pH. In other words, depending on how they are drinking depends on what to do.
That’s why I said you need to know,
How much they are drinking every day and what are the nutes and pH doing.
If they are drinking like normal, I would raise the tds to about 1100 and the pH to about 6.5 going in.
Bottom line is you may very well continue to fight pH problems as long as your in 5 gal buckets. That’s why so many folks have tried to run hydro buckets, get discouraged, and give up. Just keep plugging along! You got this!
I’ll tag you in some folks grow tomorrow.
BTW, my journal is short compared to some forlks. Sometimes it helps to go through a journal and look for post by the author of that journal. That way you might can skip some of the chit chat. Good luck!
If you go to a journal and you want a quicker recap, scroll all the way to the first post
The easiest way to do this is to click on the post counter in the bottoms right
Once you clicked it you can scroll through the full article you are on.
If you make it to the first post there is a summarize button, this will take large journals with over 100 individual post and summarize to the top 100 making it much easier to quickly go through and see the most important stuff quickly.
Hope this helps you with your research here, I know it helped me.
When my girls started flowering they started drinking water and nuets like crazy. You got this! Keeping those water levels in check and keeping that pH and ppm numbers balanced in range.
but it planted the seed for me on how it could be much better and long term easier than what I have.
I know I had another theory or 2.
