Grow Mediums EC advise and dc, many advices needed! Please have a look and try to help ;)

[andryszz]

Hi evrybody, I'm quite new here, I didn't post anything yet, but I was reading here a lot. Will be doing think different in dwc and led. I'm completley new to hydroponich, tried once to grow outdoors it grew, but I want better resusls, thats why I want to do led and dwc. I tried to contact seymour, but his inbox to full so might ask it here and will get an answer I thought. So the questions, Ec how to prepare it because water ec is already like 0.4 where I live, and everywhere in the posts I see ec 0.8 for veg, then 1.2 flowering etc.. but it's not clear to me how to prepare it add 0.8 nutes ec on that 0.4 origibnally in water, or just to reach 0.8 from 0.4 by adding water? I hope you understand what I mean, as well water change in dwc, I'll be using 4+ mani system dwc, witch will be arround 60liters of solution in system, how often would you suggest to change it? Germination, change veg change flowering change and meanwhile every stage just to top up before changing it to different nutes for veg and flowering, or do it more often like every 10 days (witch might be very expensive and require a lot of work to prepare 60 lters of solution, what do you suggest guys? I never did it before, just want to make sure I will be doing everything correct, I don't like mistakes, neither learning from em, I like knowing before mistake can occur (even quit job to prepare myself for this project, because I will need a lot of time doing it) Look forward to hear from anybody knowing and willing to help. Sorry for my English I'm form not english background..

 

[BobbyGrow]

Fill two 20 liter buckets half way. Make one a solid water phed only. The other make a full strength as listed on the manufactures website. What are you using? You will generally arrive close to the target PPM and EC. If not dilute with the phed water or vice versa, add more feed until your ec is reached.

When topping up reservoir, I check the ppm, and based on that I add phed water or feed. To maintain my ppm through the week. Then flush the system weekly and change the supplements.

Yes I change from vedge to bloom nutes. Yes its pricey. Yes I change more often then ten days. Yes its a lot of work. Hope it goes well and I answered most of your questions, good luck and always ask first! A lot o people are shy to ask and make their own experiments. :hug:

 

[andryszz]

Cool, thanks for answer, I will be using canna aqua a+b vega and flora, I'll start with formulex and rhizotonic silica for first 10 - 14 days, then I'm thinking to change all solution to vega a+b as well as bit of formulex rhizotonic and silica, then I'm thinking to top up until I change flora nutes with cal mag, carbo load super potash pk 13/14. At the moment I;m only thinkin g abuot it, but I want to be prepared if anything unexpoected happens, I will try to look at plants needs and react acordingly to their needs, if possible I'm thinking to change solution three times during grow, from start to vega then to flora, at the end flush it with plain water not phed. meanwhile during grow I will see if plants need changing it to be refreshed, if they will seem ok I'll try just to top up. Thats my plan, but hey, any information is valuable for me as it will be my first grow and I want to be prepared, I only have 250 mls ph up and 250 mls ph down, not sure if it will last me long, can toy tell me anything about ph normalizing proicedure, can I use lemon juce / viniger if I run out of phup/down?? because where I live I will not have a chance to get supplements during grow. To start I have 1 liter formulex, 1 l rhizotonic, 1 l superior potash, 1 l carbo load, 1 l silica, 1 l pk13/14 and 5liter canna aqua a as well 5 leters canna aqua b for veg and for flowering, what do you think will I need more, plan is to use both 4 bucket systems, each will use 60 liters of solution, so I will be growing 8 plants do you think it will be enough of nutes for whole grow?

 

[BobbyGrow]

Do you know how big a plan can grow in a good dwc system. 8 plants is a lot. this is a auto northern lights in a 3x3 and its like 25 days old.

 

[andryszz]

I'm not sure I never done it before, but I will be using 2meters x 2 meters x 2 meters tent and 4 300wat led panels, 2 for each 4 plants, If I have to I will take it out of tent, but I don't expect monsters to be honest, It will be my first grow, and meanwhile I was growing outdoors I got like from 8 plants poor 300grams, witch didn't last long, as well I'm hoping to grow big buds, not big plants, but basically the time will show whats gonna happen, and when I get a chance I will show to people on this forum whats happened "AFN smoke out"

 

[pop22]

Cool, thanks for answer, I will be using canna aqua a+b vega and flora, I'll start with formulex and rhizotonic silica for first 10 - 14 days, then I'm thinking to change all solution to vega a+b as well as bit of formulex rhizotonic and silica, then I'm thinking to top up until I change flora nutes with cal mag, carbo load super potash pk 13/14. At the moment I;m only thinkin g abuot it, but I want to be prepared if anything unexpoected happens, I will try to look at plants needs and react acordingly to their needs, if possible I'm thinking to change solution three times during grow, from start to vega then to flora, at the end flush it with plain water not phed. meanwhile during grow I will see if plants need changing it to be refreshed, if they will seem ok I'll try just to top up. Thats my plan, but hey, any information is valuable for me as it will be my first grow and I want to be prepared, I only have 250 mls ph up and 250 mls ph down, not sure if it will last me long, can toy tell me anything about ph normalizing proicedure, can I use lemon juce / viniger if I run out of phup/down?? because where I live I will not have a chance to get supplements during grow. To start I have 1 liter formulex, 1 l rhizotonic, 1 l superior potash, 1 l carbo load, 1 l silica, 1 l pk13/14 and 5liter canna aqua a as well 5 leters canna aqua b for veg and for flowering, what do you think will I need more, plan is to use both 4 bucket systems, each will use 60 liters of solution, so I will be growing 8 plants do you think it will be enough of nutes for whole grow?

8 buckets? in what size room/tent? what will you use for lighting and how many lights? How much spacing between buckets? My guess is tom run 8 buckets you would need a 4'x8' room with a minimum of 2 400 watt HID lights, 600 - 1000 would likely be better. or four, 300 watt LED grow lights. Most DWC users change their reservoirs every 7 days, more often if you have trouble maintaining the res temps below 70F (21.1C ).
I made the mistake of growing 2 plants in one res. Even though it was a 16 gallon res, with a 10" netpot, it was NOT big enough for 2 plants. And those 2 plants grew big enough that they filled an area about 4' by 2.5'! Also, running that many buckets you would want pumps to pump old water out and the fresh in, hauling that much water be hand is a huge amount of work. I kept a separate 22 gallon res that i pumped full of water a day before res change to let the chlorine evaporate. On the res change day, I placed a pump with a garden hose adapter on it, in the plant res, and pumped it out. I then put the pump in the bathtub with some water to flush out any remaining traces of the used water. After I ph the water in the tempering res, I mixed in the nutes. I then placed the pump in the solution and pumped it into the res. When done, I again flushed the pump with clean water, so that nothing would grow in the pump because of traces of nutes being left behind to contaminate the res next time.

Sounds like a lot of work? its not if you think and plan ahead of time. All this took me maybe 30 minutes once a week. If your a beginner, I would very highly recommend that you start with one or two buckets, unless you have a room capable of running all the electrical needs of such a large system, especially if running multiple high power lights, ballasts, pumps, airpumps, etc.

 

[Johney]

I'd start with 4, one for each light and see how big they get. See how big other peoples think different grew in DWC.

 

[andryszz]

My biggest concer is how to prepare 60 liters of solution for each aeros system, I will need quite a few buckets, as well as normalizing ph for such amount of solution is my concers, it will be recirculating system, maybe any more advices?

 

[BobbyGrow]

Yeh. K.I.S.S!

 

[andryszz]

Where I live we use metric system so my tent will be 2meters x 2meters x 2 meters, one aeros 4 dwc system requires 1square meter, so I will use them both for each square meter in tent, otherwise If I have to I will take them out of tent if they get too big, but I don't expect that as it will be my first grow. heh, I quit job and everything, I have all the time in my life now, so I'm prepared to work on this grow it will be my new job now besides it's summer time and I want my holidays as well I'm quite concerned abuot water change, do I really have to change whole 60 liters of the system every 10 days? I will try to get out with top up only, I will have constant water thermometers, I will be using Frozen water in plastic bottels to lower down the res teperature, if it gets too high because my system will have 4 grow buckets and 1 main bucket, so I candchill water in main bucket and it will be recirculated into these 4. I'm hoping to change whole water in system only 3 times during grow (aftyer initial start like 15 days) then whole medium will be changet to vega medium, then after vega medium I will change whole water into flowering medium, after that I just top up with plain water to flush.. This is my hopes and thoughts only as I havent started yet, but it' is a matter of days now. AGAIN Any information about how everybody is doing your own grows will be highly appreciated! because now I only have expectations, but when I start grow I will need to know how to react according to situation.