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Grow Mediums My family's recirculating deep water culture
- Thread starter trees4meandu
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Day 6 from recieving seeds in mail
The first picture is of this mornings findings of a half inch stretch over night. So another light nutrient solution was once again fed into the rock wool, but this time we did not lower the light 3", we doubled it. So total light height is 24" above the net pots. We figured since from 11pm last night to first thing this morning they stretched a half inch it was calling for the light to be closer. Is this correct??? Nothing worst than a tall spindly plant in our eyes lol. As you can see from the last picture, this is what we are use too. Mother nature at its finest, a nice 40" x 40" x 40" female with a ton of nice tops grown outdoors only to be sabotaged by "someone"(later found out bonus s weed and feed killed them in 24hr). So we have moved indoors! Help with light and nutes will be greatly appreciated and we'll show everyone a trick or too on scrogging and low low low stress training in days to come. Enjoy!!! And as always, thanks a ton AFN for the quick "likes" and feedback (positive or negative, we dont care just want to learn)
The first picture is of this mornings findings of a half inch stretch over night. So another light nutrient solution was once again fed into the rock wool, but this time we did not lower the light 3", we doubled it. So total light height is 24" above the net pots. We figured since from 11pm last night to first thing this morning they stretched a half inch it was calling for the light to be closer. Is this correct??? Nothing worst than a tall spindly plant in our eyes lol. As you can see from the last picture, this is what we are use too. Mother nature at its finest, a nice 40" x 40" x 40" female with a ton of nice tops grown outdoors only to be sabotaged by "someone"(later found out bonus s weed and feed killed them in 24hr). So we have moved indoors! Help with light and nutes will be greatly appreciated and we'll show everyone a trick or too on scrogging and low low low stress training in days to come. Enjoy!!! And as always, thanks a ton AFN for the quick "likes" and feedback (positive or negative, we dont care just want to learn)
I would not scrog this time round... Like I said, I'll be doing my first rdwc, so being the first time, lots to learn and lots can go wrong. If you scrog, once the plant develops you wont be able to pop open the lid to inspect to roots for any problems.
But an LST can be also quite effective! Check out Hazy's auto white widow cane method. You essentially train the plant to its base, being a pot or a bucket lid, so you will be able to still inspect the rez.
But an LST can be also quite effective! Check out Hazy's auto white widow cane method. You essentially train the plant to its base, being a pot or a bucket lid, so you will be able to still inspect the rez.
Sorry 4 the wait
Hey, what happened to the cute pink bucket??? There was only 37.5 gallons of water, pumps, 3 air curtains or 6 air stones at one point, all recirculating and working in combination.....what could go wrong??? I would have posted this a bit ago, but we had some issues. I'm posting this for those who are thinking about doing a DWC for the first time. Do it, I'm serious. Just like us, we had our heart set on this and there wasn't anything anybody could have said to steer us in another direction. If this is you, follow your heart. I'll get into what happened to ours here in a second, but first I wanted to simply say, go for it. What ever it is that inspires you to grow, follow it and learn. Marijuana is such a wonderful plant and has helped so many lives...even if it is just having fun and blowing off some steam.
As you can see our 4 kalishnikova autos are now in their own buckets, being drip fed. Once a day for 15 min, with one homemade drip ring. It is the night of the 43rd day and we have backed the light time to 16 hrs on/8 hrs off. The reason for this was we noticed that by the end of the normal day, usually by 8-9pm, the leaves and branches would start to fall slightly and the plants almost were trying to tell us it was bed time lol. We had a major issue with algae starting at week 2. We removed the plants, cleaned the whole system thoroughly, flushing and bleaching, flushing and bleaching, rinse and repeat. After the cleaning process we put it all back together, BAM 2 days later algae returns even stronger. The hardest thing with a DWC system is taking care of all that moving water, with all the added oxygen thats introduced, temperature of the room has to be higher than what the water temperature is, no chiller...you get the point. But we learned a ton of information. First, don't freak out (easier said than done). Since it was only like the beginning of the third week, and the roots were just starting to show out the bottom of the net pot, we simply placed a 2 in layer of rockwool cubes in the bottom of a 10 inch net pot, then placed the 6 inch pot in the 10 inch pot. We packed rockwool cubes around the 6 inch pot filling in the sides, then simply cut a circle out of shiny styrofoam and slipped it over the top. No shock to the plants, my guess is due to the same type of substrate (rockwool) used in the transplant.
You can tell the different phenotype from plant to plant. Our tallest, 27 inches at day 43, really has the sativa from the ak-47 side of the genes. Two shorties, 16 and 17 inches each, and one that we wish all of them had turned out to be. It is 23 inches, the node spacing is less than an inch apart, and the white hairs are like a half inch in length. I dont have my good cam, soon to come, but at day 43 all the leaflets coming from the bud sites are already shiny white with small small small resin glands. They are suppose to be 70 day plants from seed, but the tall one is giving signs of being behind in the flower stage almost a full week. Over all Greenhouse Seed Co came through again. We will update you in another couple of days and try to keep up. Time flys when your having fun!!
We are still using Dyna Gro and it is amazing considering the fact that when we do a water change all we add to the ro water is 1 tsp of pro-tek per gallon of water, and 2-3 tsp of bloom per gallon of water. Very good, especially when price is involved. We have been keeping our ph around 5.5, and the plants seem to love it. The leaves are such a deep green color they almost look fake at times, they are so healthy.
Hey, what happened to the cute pink bucket??? There was only 37.5 gallons of water, pumps, 3 air curtains or 6 air stones at one point, all recirculating and working in combination.....what could go wrong??? I would have posted this a bit ago, but we had some issues. I'm posting this for those who are thinking about doing a DWC for the first time. Do it, I'm serious. Just like us, we had our heart set on this and there wasn't anything anybody could have said to steer us in another direction. If this is you, follow your heart. I'll get into what happened to ours here in a second, but first I wanted to simply say, go for it. What ever it is that inspires you to grow, follow it and learn. Marijuana is such a wonderful plant and has helped so many lives...even if it is just having fun and blowing off some steam.
As you can see our 4 kalishnikova autos are now in their own buckets, being drip fed. Once a day for 15 min, with one homemade drip ring. It is the night of the 43rd day and we have backed the light time to 16 hrs on/8 hrs off. The reason for this was we noticed that by the end of the normal day, usually by 8-9pm, the leaves and branches would start to fall slightly and the plants almost were trying to tell us it was bed time lol. We had a major issue with algae starting at week 2. We removed the plants, cleaned the whole system thoroughly, flushing and bleaching, flushing and bleaching, rinse and repeat. After the cleaning process we put it all back together, BAM 2 days later algae returns even stronger. The hardest thing with a DWC system is taking care of all that moving water, with all the added oxygen thats introduced, temperature of the room has to be higher than what the water temperature is, no chiller...you get the point. But we learned a ton of information. First, don't freak out (easier said than done). Since it was only like the beginning of the third week, and the roots were just starting to show out the bottom of the net pot, we simply placed a 2 in layer of rockwool cubes in the bottom of a 10 inch net pot, then placed the 6 inch pot in the 10 inch pot. We packed rockwool cubes around the 6 inch pot filling in the sides, then simply cut a circle out of shiny styrofoam and slipped it over the top. No shock to the plants, my guess is due to the same type of substrate (rockwool) used in the transplant.
You can tell the different phenotype from plant to plant. Our tallest, 27 inches at day 43, really has the sativa from the ak-47 side of the genes. Two shorties, 16 and 17 inches each, and one that we wish all of them had turned out to be. It is 23 inches, the node spacing is less than an inch apart, and the white hairs are like a half inch in length. I dont have my good cam, soon to come, but at day 43 all the leaflets coming from the bud sites are already shiny white with small small small resin glands. They are suppose to be 70 day plants from seed, but the tall one is giving signs of being behind in the flower stage almost a full week. Over all Greenhouse Seed Co came through again. We will update you in another couple of days and try to keep up. Time flys when your having fun!!
We are still using Dyna Gro and it is amazing considering the fact that when we do a water change all we add to the ro water is 1 tsp of pro-tek per gallon of water, and 2-3 tsp of bloom per gallon of water. Very good, especially when price is involved. We have been keeping our ph around 5.5, and the plants seem to love it. The leaves are such a deep green color they almost look fake at times, they are so healthy.
I also have a question for the autoflower.net family. Is it safe to pull off the small leaves at the bottom of the plant? This has been a common practice for us with normal photoperiod strains. Anything around the under carraige of the plant we usually strip. And we do this to the leaves only, and only the leaves that are small and that doesnt get good light. This usually helps with air movement and helps the plant breathe a little better. We have been so scared to mess with them, because there is only four of them, that we havent touched them at all. Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
It would be better to avoid any clipping , cutting but tucking leaves. If stressed she has not time to recover...
Auto's generally do not llike it, LST is best wtih them....
Peace!
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Just a couple of quick observations. I'm not crazy about the added rock wool in the bottom of the net pots. Rock wool should be above the water line, not sitting in water. If it's sitting in water you could end up rotting the bottom of your stalks. You would be better off using some hydroton, hydrocorn or lava rocks in the bottom instead. I also see some up curl along the edges of your leaves. That, along with the wilting, suggest you're temperature is a bit high. Measure it at the canopy top and make sure it doesn't exceed 85 with 80 optimum. Regarding the algae, make sure there are absolutely no openings in your buckets, or in your res. You want to block all light from reaching your water. Regarding the trimming of the bottom leaves, yes, go ahead and take them off. Just do it a bit at a time over a few days. It's likely they will become shaded and die off anyway.
Update
DAY 45 OF 77
I wanted to give all a good glimpse of the gorgeous foxtail that will soon fill in full, hard, and dense god willing. :Cool: We have a thermostat at the top of the canopy (outdoor temp on the monitor), The room temp overall and humidity is also measured (inside temp and humidity measurement on the monitor). We had an inspection a few days ago and unfortunately my buddies girlfriend decides to shut off the air conditioner but not the lights for a 2 hour period. For those new to growing, not a good idea as the admin described in the above post. There was a small amount of heat stress to a few amount of leaves, but they seem to be doing swell. To clarify things the rockwool cubes are not soaking in water, it is simply in the net pot and nutrients are drip fed through the net pot and then returned back to the reservoir. They get fed for 15 min, one hour after lights on in the morning. The rest of the day the net pots dry out and oxygen is induced to the roots.
Thank you all for the comments about the removal of leaves on the lower half of the plant. I was almost sure that I would get mixed ideas on whether or not to remove them. Some say do it, some don't. I understand, and it would be nothing if I had ten or twenty plants to work with, then if I messed one up it would only be 5-10% loss on total harvest. But I don't, there is only 4 plants and I can't afford a 25% loss if I were to simply screw up one plant. Any other input would be appreciated, until then....gonna leave em be! Happy growing and we'll see you soon.
DAY 45 OF 77
I wanted to give all a good glimpse of the gorgeous foxtail that will soon fill in full, hard, and dense god willing. :Cool: We have a thermostat at the top of the canopy (outdoor temp on the monitor), The room temp overall and humidity is also measured (inside temp and humidity measurement on the monitor). We had an inspection a few days ago and unfortunately my buddies girlfriend decides to shut off the air conditioner but not the lights for a 2 hour period. For those new to growing, not a good idea as the admin described in the above post. There was a small amount of heat stress to a few amount of leaves, but they seem to be doing swell. To clarify things the rockwool cubes are not soaking in water, it is simply in the net pot and nutrients are drip fed through the net pot and then returned back to the reservoir. They get fed for 15 min, one hour after lights on in the morning. The rest of the day the net pots dry out and oxygen is induced to the roots.
Thank you all for the comments about the removal of leaves on the lower half of the plant. I was almost sure that I would get mixed ideas on whether or not to remove them. Some say do it, some don't. I understand, and it would be nothing if I had ten or twenty plants to work with, then if I messed one up it would only be 5-10% loss on total harvest. But I don't, there is only 4 plants and I can't afford a 25% loss if I were to simply screw up one plant. Any other input would be appreciated, until then....gonna leave em be! Happy growing and we'll see you soon.
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