My 2nd Grow (Hydro/DWC) Is A Total Nightmare! Support Ticket/Pix Attached

After a successful harvest with Grow 1… you can see here:
First Harvest WW & GG
the past 11 days with Grow #2 has me stressed to tears :cry: (yes I’m a female). This round I can’t even get through ‘germination’. Unreal ! since doing 10 practice runs w/bagseed in both RR & Grodan…was a 10/10 success.

The only 3 changes made this time are as follows:

  1. Growing feminized 'Photo’s this time verses Auto’s. The grow was planned to be a C99 (Cinderella) & a Black Dog.
  2. Used 2" Grodan vs the 1.5" used last grow.
  3. Germinating in tent 3x3x6’ vs the kitchen due to fungus gnat infestation…
    36 hours after I hung it in my normal germ spot. There are no gnats in tent.

As always I soaked seeds in ph’d h202 no longer than 33 hrs. BD sank with manual push & had a tiny taproot …C99 stayed afloat. Both planted in RW… were placed into 3" netpots w/ hydroton & covered w/saran wrap… under a cheap 45 watt led 20" above. Next day temps were; 77-81F … Humidity 44-51 but the RW cubes were hot on bottom, esp the BD… moved lights to 36", replaced saran wrap w/domes & added wet towel to increase humidity as now cubes were cold to the touch. Day later saw movement under rw… cotyledons trying to emerge but were encased in shell like concrete. Fast forward–> found taproot/seed coiled on top of rw cube. Carefully removed and placed back into cube… seed still glued on… being very gentle I cracked shell to free the cotys and…

This Is What Happened! I culled BD on 8th day!!

And there’s hard/knotty pieces like this in my grodan cubes

C99 showed no signs of activity after 6 days (she never sank to begin with) so I gently popped her open & transplanted into a RR I cut open as to carefully place her… following day tap/cotys appear & looking green but coty’s never grew out of top. As of last night… the tap looks to be (J Hook). I’m trying everything to save her but…
She has been like this for 5 days

C99 On Left … Just planted Purple Haze last night…

The Germination Set-Up… light is currently @ 20" …

What am I doing wrong? Can’t wrap my brain around having such a nice 1st grow/harvest to this freaking horror show!!! Perhaps I was wrong in taking some measures I employed but matters were already in poor shape. I have all future grows planned and losing Black Dog really stings… looks like Cinderella is next :disappointed:

My apologies on the lengthy post… just trying to cover all bases as best possible to explain the situation. I’m beyond stressed!

Many Thanks For All Help and Guidance ~Key
Support Ticket Follows
Strain; Type, Bag seed, or NA: C99, Black Dog, Purple Haze

Soil in pots, Hydroponic, or Coco? Hydroponic

System type? DWC but @ present in rapid rooters in netpot with hydroton… Not in buckets yet.

PH of runoff or solution in reservoir? Solution in res.

What is strength of nutrient mix? EC, or TDS: No Nutes Yet…ph 5.8 h20

Indoor or Outdoor: Indoor

Light system, size? @ present using 45 watt led. During veg/bloom use 450 watt Meizhi reflector series.

Temps; Day, Night: 77-82

Humidity; Day, Night: 54-68

Ventilation system; Yes, No, Size Portable House Fan.

AC, Humidifier, De-humidifier, No

Co2; Yes, No: No

Your seeds drowned. Never leave seeds in water for more than 24 hours.

KISS is the best method. I have never used chemicals to germinate or grow seedlings. Wet paper towel in a vented container…keep it moist and two days the tap root shows. when tap root is 1/4"+ long… Remove and plant with head at ground level.
I plant in a un-fertilized soil and a clear plastic cup. Once I see the roots looking like a spider web, I plant to final location. Currently running DWC…2" pot with grodan pebbles. Roots shot out about 24 hrs later. Have two plants in a 5 gallon bucket…roots take up 60% of the bucket.

4 Likes

I have been starting all my seedlings in clear Solo cups with seedling soil then moving into hydro once roots established. I just rinse off the roots when ready to move into netpots, add hydroton

Poor girls drowned, but on the positive side you didn’t drown a plant 6 weeks into flower like I just did lol. I have germinated seeds in water and paper towel, but if water doesn’t make them pop in 24 hours, I put them into a paper towel. I also shake the seeds up in a glass to scuff the seed up and allow water and oxygen to enter the seed easier. Here is my last failure to brighten up your day and make you feel a little better!

3 Likes

Hi tanlover… thanks for taking time to reply… although I must respectfully agree to disagree with you on drowning them via the water soak method… Robert Bergman states in his teachings that a seed can be left in h20 up to 7 days (for extra tough skinned seeds) without drowning them. Actually, I’ve left seeds in for 48 hrs with great results. The soak method is actually safer than paper towels as you have less chance of damaging the taproot when planting into your medium.

I’m more inclined to think I got an inferior batch of rockwool cubes as there’s very hard clumps with sharp edges throughout the cubes… prior to this ordeal I was 12 for 12 success using my germination process… 2 of those seeds gave me an awesome harvest… the others were just practice runs w/bagseeds. The Purple Haze I germed the other day is ready to pop through a rapid rooter already… after only 22 hours.

The only chemical I used was ph down for the rockwool as it much be at a ph 5.5 but I’ve always done that without having issues. Something is amiss here for sure … the support team here is awesome so am hoping they can spot what I’m overlooking in this situation.

Thanks again for your input and… Happy Growing!!! :seedling::smiley::leaves:

1 Like

Oh no! I’m very sorry for your misfortune Vexer… that had to be heartbreaking :broken_heart: I haven’t seen your grow journal (but will look for it)… I’m a new grower… this is only my 2nd… my first was great even through lots of ups n downs… but one thing I do know is with dwc you must leave at least a 2" gap between the bottom of netpot and water level… so sorry this happened to you… but don’t you give up… keep growing … happy grows from here on out :wink:

1 Like

I didn’t do a grow journal for this grow but I will have the ILGM Blue Pack being put into a new RDWC system later this week. Luckily I was able to save the buds I had so it wasn’t a total loss. I also agree that seeds can be in water for quite some time. I leave them in water sometimes and the tail comes out with 36 hours usually. Hope the next round of seeds works better for you.

2 Likes

Question…
You say never leave seeds in water more than 24 hrs… What if seeds don’t crack within 24?
After 24 do you go to the paper towel method??
I float my ILGM beans in 68°f and 6.0 (from Claire’s instructions :ok_hand:)
I’m having some of my older seeds not crack in 24.,…
Thanks…
DirtBud… :v:

@Dirt4Bud…You asked, " what do you do after 24 hours, to germinate seeds"?

Actually I don’t use the soaking seeds method. I go straight to seeds in a folded wet paper towel…in a container with small air flow, a cracked lid,…and pour off excess water after 1 hour. Important to keep towel moist, not sopping wet. Too much wetness makes for moldy or drowned seeds. Check babies every 6 hrs or so…fold the blanket back to check how far along the tap root is. If straight, let it grow till 1/4" + long…then plant with head at ground level. If a curly tap root, plant as quick as possible.
If you have a gentle steady hand, it is possible to “lift off” the seed shell…and importantly the membrane enclosing the seeds head. If you be gentle, it works good. Get shaky and the seedling will be ruined. Bury baby till head is at ground level.

Thanks…I’ll try that on older seeds, see if I can jump start the girls…

I figured my own problem out! It boils down to the rockwool… an inferior batch loaded with hard, stem like chunks running throughout entire batch… very sharp pieces of it (Grodan brand name!!)… have not run into this before with rw.
Here’s the crap in my rw

And yes, I’m :rage: af over losing my C99 & Black Dog but a new baby is born :grin: Purple Haze (fem photo)… I used a Rapid Rooter for her, soaked 30 hours and tada’ 23 hrs after planting… She’s born!!! Which has been norm for me with germing. Next, am dropping a Red Diesel tonight.
Welcome To The World Babygirl :seedling::heart_eyes::leaves:

@Hogmaster I don’t want to delete my post but could you pretty please remove the ‘support ticket’ so it’s not cluttering anyone’s desk. I’m really sorry for freaking out but damn this was a nightmare! Thank you so much :blush: ~Key

3 Likes

It’s ALIVE!!! Great to see a successful sprout. Now on to the next one lol.

1 Like

Thank you Vexer!!! I just dropped a Red Diesel into the shot glass few minutes ago … so excited… I’m a Mama LOL :heart_eyes: Raising the two together throws my schedule off by 2 weeks but it’s cool cause I rather harvest one at a time… it’s a lot for me to harvest two at once :leaves:

Hey Tanlover., Thanks for the advice, tried your method and Bingo :+1::+1:
Much Appreciated :ok_hand:
:v::sunglasses:

1 Like

@Dirt4Bud…glad to help. Good luck

2 Likes

I always use rapid rooters and I do 24 hrs soak with h2o and h202 charged with 1ml of sensi grow a & b per liter of h20, then 24 hrs in papertowel, then straight into rapid rooter and usually within 16 hrs I got sprouts

These just hit the rapid rooters last night at 6 and 15 hrs later this is them