I am back at it working on a new grow. I skipped all the setup pictures as far as germination goes because I used the same method as I feature in detail in my second grow log.
Check it out here!
The big change this grow is I am taking my first tentative steps into DWC, with a second plant in soil setup I used previously. I also will be making a step into a larger tent this weekend and adding some new features to speed up watering. So check back next week to see that progress!
I will try to always update on Wednesdays with pictures, ppm levels, and current feeding schedule and some pictures of my progress.
My only concern atm is the water level in the DWC bucket, seem advice varies from setting the water level 1’’ from the bottom of the net basket to letting just the bottom touch. I feel like once my roots make it to the water I will feel a lot better about it.
I am always looking to learn and improve my grow so please leave your comments and suggestions, I am still very new to this but and excited about trying new things and honing my method.
Alright guys not normally my update day but I wanted to share the progress. Moved into the new much larger 48’x48’80’. The extra headroom will be so nice in bloom.
I’ve also coded up a new database for the Pi to include a water temperature probe that will check it hourly and record it to my website for easy access to the data.
Didn’t do an update last week because, to be honest after the move into their larger pots it took a few days for them to recover and they just did not show a lot of growth last week.
This week, however, has been amazing! My first attempt at DWC has been going great though I do think in the future I will let the root system get a little longer before moving into the bucket as it was a few nervous days before the root system made it into the water.
The new technology to monitor the bucket water temperature has been working out great and my root zone is staying between 66-68 degrees. I do need to make a slight alteration to the code so it drops temperature readings over 24 hours old.
Really impressed with how easy it was for a noobie to get started with DWC and the control over the plant it offers is really nice compared to soil.
Happy Hump day all! It’s been a pretty slow week around here. The soil-plant is growing great and looks bigger daily. I am having some trouble with the DWC setup not thriving like I would like to see. I made a post just about that and I welcome anyone with hydroponics experience to jump in and tell me how to get it back on track.
I have almost the same DWC setup. First time growing. My little ones dont look so hot compared to how yours did. Did you water the grow medium or let the water hit the bottom of the basket?
The time up until yesterday the water was set 1’’ below the bottom of the net pot, I felt like it was growing slow compared to the soil so I moved it up to just touch the bottom of the pot. Overall the plant color looks great and its doubled in size compared to last week.
I did top water a few times early with just ph water but the system did a good job keeping my rapid rooter moist.
Ok, thanks! I may have been over watering them. I’ll try lowering the level a bit. I heard DWC will seem slow compared to soil but will take off past them later.
yea I think a lot of my worry is more just being overly paranoid with a first time system. Feel like the DWC is doing more root building to the water and less surface growth.
For me growing in general is still a learning process so I expect to make mistakes etc. Luckily the forum here has kept me from making a mistake I could not recover from with a little help.
It has been a busy week for me in the grow. Making some mistakes learning the DWC setup. My 100 GPH air pump just was not moving the amount of air I wanted so I upgraded to a larger 332 GPH air pump and a larger circular air stone for the bucket. These both went in on Monday 4/29/19.
My first major mistake was trusting the pH perfect formula that AN advertises. My water out of the tap is 7.1 mixing using the bottle prescribed amount put my bucket ph at 5.0. So for the first 2.5 weeks of the plant’s life, the ph was not correct.
My second mistake was not spending the money to buy a proper ph digital meter. I was using a kit that requires a water sample and 4 drops of the chemical to observe the proper ph by watercolor. I am sure this works great if you are using it for a pool but in my experice, it is just too much guesswork for plants that I have a fair amount of money tied up in. Today once I got in calibrated I was able to dial the water quickly into 5.8 bang on, no guessing.
The third mistake sorta was not buying a product like hydroguard from the start even though my water temperature has been bang on I hope that adding this in today will help the lady recover from my noobish mistakes.
With all that said I hope to report signs of recovery in the coming week as the adjustments, I have made start to come into play.
As for the soil girl, she is looking great! I topped her and cleaned up some undergrowth.
The DWC plant is sad looking lets hope for improvement! Cause if not… I have no idea where to go at this point.
DWC starts slower but gets MUCH bigger than soil so don’t get discouraged. The drooping may because your rockwool is waterlogged and growing nasties hopefully your new air volume will help. How close is the level of nutes to the basket? It should not splash up onto the pot and keep the rockwool constantly wet (BAD).
From the consensus from the forum said I should be at approximately 1’’ below the bottom of the pot. The pot extends 4 1/2’’ into the bucket. So I set my water level 5 1/2’’ from the lip of the bucket.
Understood. I use 3”nets so I only lose a gallon. Once the plant gets larger and crushes the rockwool you will be able to raise the level to the cup and get more volume out of the bucket, but at an early stage the plant is susceptible to damping off so try to keep that wool as dry as possible. I have also found that taking the lid/plant out and fast running water through the cup to flush the rockwool helps with the nasties.
This has been a great week for progress in the grow. The DWC plant has really shown amazing growth. Adjusting the pH with a proper gauge and introducing Hydroguard. Roots out of the pot look amazing and the plant looks great.
I’ve made an adjustment to my light by moving it up just a bit just give it a little better throw on the plants. Temperatures in the DWC stay between 66-68.
Excited about this coming week, fairly sure this will be the one when the DWC plant pulls ahead. Until next Weed Wednesday stay green friends!
What a week! Landed a new job so I will have some cash flow to pump into this baby. It’s looking good, both are growing well. Pruned a few of the Larger fan leaves, Planning on moving into 12/12 Bloom at this time next week. Stay Green my dudes
What are your nutes? Probably nothing wrong but roots just seem brown. Some nutes stain the roots. For 28 days since previous roots picture they havent progressed very far though.
