Grow Mediums New grower-Hydro-600w LED-few questions

[CapnKrash]

I think Your light is way to low.

The light is a 600w LED. Currently its hanging 24" away, but I just took the photos for the forum, that's not what it'll all look like when they're actually growing. I plan on lifting the buckets about a foot so I can drain them easily, since my back sucks and bending over hurts. The manufacturer suggests 2' - 4' away from seedlings. I'll be watching carefully for bleaching.

The water is pretty nasty here, we don't drink the tap unless we absolutely have to. It usually sets my IBS off pretty badly. Even with an inline filter it doesn't go down when I test it. I've tried Pur, brita and a few others. The only ones that work so far are Zero Water filters.. but they don't last long and cost $15 each. So we get our drinking water from the stores =/

 

[pop22]

400ppm is crazy. I think 500 is the EPA's limit here in the states. You could probably run that sh!t through a dirty pair of boxers and it would come out better...

:roflcry:

 

[CapnKrash]

Well, its been a little while since my last post. I had some trouble getting my other seeds to grow, or even germinate. I found the best way is to just stick them in a rockwool cube and be done with it till they poke their little heads out. I tried the water to peat, paper towel etc. So far the only thing that worked was the rockwool.

I have a Diesel berry that managed to get to the seedling stage and I stuck it into the bucket as soon as it had the first set of leaves past the cotyledons.

Added to rockwool on.........1/24/14
Sprouted from rockwool......1/28/14
Added to DWC...................2/6/14

The solution I started it on was the Technaflora recipe for success kit, which came out to:
02/06/14
1t..........Boost
1/2t.......Grow
1/8t.......Thrive alive B1 Red
1/8........MagiCal
1/2........Sugar Daddy
PPM.......198
PH.........5.6
3.5 gal or 13.2ltr
Humidity runs around 25-35% with a humidifier I had to buy. Before that it was around 5-16%
Temps are around 80-85 during the day and 70-75 at night (its the desert, putting up my A/C soon to help with the day temps)
Light is 24/7 600w LED with UV

A day later I started seeing the next set of leaves coming up, but one of them was yellow and a little twisted. And the plant was growing very slowly. Knowing that its usually calmag deficiency I whipped up a weak solution of MagiCal and started foliar spraying. It didn't work at all. Now, at this point I had the flu and was pretty sick, so I wasn't thinking straight and was being lazy. So I just kept spraying it down every couple hours. Well, it didn't work at all. Coming out of the flu, I realized I hadn't checked the PH or PPM in a few days. I check it on the 10th and its 50ppm with 7.5 ph..whoops, no wonder. So, lesson learned: Check PH and PPM DAILY. I'll be doing twice daily, since I have to be in there to switch out the humidifier water twice daily anyhow.

2/10/12 Solution:
Complete change of water. Using RO water with a ph of 6.9 and ppm of 20.
Advanced Nutrients Jungle Juice grow micro bloom
13.2ltr
Grow...................................13 ml
micro...................................13ml
bloom..................................2.5ml
Aquashield............................24ml
Technaflora Sugar Daddy........24ml
Technaflora MagiCal...............15ml
Technaflora Thrive alive B1.....26ml
PH.......................................5.3
PPM.....................................645
Temp/Humidity/light is the same.

Also added a Co2 'bottle' to the room. I took my custom strain of yeast and stuck it in a gallon of a sugar solution that read 1.1 on my hydrometer. Ran a line from the jug to the plant. Not sure how much good it'll do, but doesn't cost anything more than the TONS of brewing materials I already possess.
Anyhow, after checking it this morning, the smaller leaf that was twisted and yellow, is now green and straightening, and the other leaves exploded with growth overnight. Its even showing another set of leaves coming in. Though its not stretching up at all, so 24" above the plant with my particular light is too low. I'll give it a couple more days to see before lifting, since I had the other issues.

4 days after being stuck in the bucket(this is the morning after the solution switch). Sorry, I didn't take earlier pics, flu and all. But yesterday it was LITERALLY half the size it is this morning.

All of the Candy Kush died or didn't germ, save for the very last of 5 seeds. It just put a taproot down through the bottom of the rockwool, but it hasn't popped out yet. So pretty much $30 gone with those seeds save the last one. Upsetting =/ Since my budget is pretty shoestring. Though I splurged on a few things when I sold off some of my brewing equipment. Like the LED lamp, the tent, new buckets and pumps and jungle juice. But I figure those expenditures will come back to me over time with money saved from buying vs growing =) Since I can't brew beer anymore, I may as well have a new hobby to take up all my time and extra resources :smoke:

 

[DWCocha]

Hey bud :Sharing One:sorry to hear you have had a few die on you ,its never easy at the start but if you learn from the mistakes you will only get better .

sounds like she was underfed & PH neglected for a few days but the new res has helped a lot .

Few things that may help out a bit mate ... the RH will go up if you can get the temps down a bit ... a couple of wet towels thrown in the tent is not great but will increase the RH a bit as well,which the plant will thank you for !

the PH could be a bit higher than 5.3 ...I recommend 5.5 - 5.7 for a while & then as close to 5.8 as you can keep it after the 1st few weeks like you say ... check as often as poss !...i'll be checking my girls after this post in fact !:smoke: keeping the PH right is probably the most important thing dude

Also seems like a hell of a lot of nutes in there for a baby bro ... autos are sensitive & less is definitely more for the early stages ... I literally run a weak baby feed & a full root stim in week one ...nothing else needed..(a root stimulator is a must for DWC grows really & the healthier they are they bigger the plant/yield ! )

My advice would be running just the magical @ 50 PPM first to buffer the RO water ,then the AN JJ range,with aqua-shield maybe & saving the rest for a bit later in the grow ? ...but the rest wont be helping much right now my friend .

Also have to mention res temps :thumbs:do you have a res temp gauge Captn ?... if your hitting 85oF in the tent then you could have res temps to high & that can cause problems that would ruin your grow just as you get going ... Anything over 70oF - 22oC is dangerous for roots in DWC & can cause major problems & you see nearly all DWC growers go to sometimes extream lengths to keep them in check !

good luck man :stylez rasta smoke:

 

[Soylent Green]

What the powerdraw of the led ?

 

[Happy Horticulturist]

Hello CapnKrash - I'm subscribing. Best wishes!

 

[DWCocha]

What the powerdraw of the led ?

600w bro:firedevil: 24" could be a bit close

 

[CapnKrash]

@DWCocha Hey thanks for the tips. I didn't have a thermo in the res, but I do now and found the temp was 81.. . So I just finished installing my A/C to the room the tent is in, hopefully that gets the temps down a lot. Thank you for that catch! :Sharing One:


@Soylent the light is a 600w LED with 9 band including UV. The power draw is about 450w. I bought it directly from the manufacturer that does the top end LED fixtures. I got it customized with Cree LEDs for another $50 on the $265 asking price. With a 3 year warrantee, I got quite the deal

@happy Thanks, I hope my grow does well. Hopefully its smooth sailing after these few bumps in the road. I learn pretty quick, and I've done my research, so we'll see.

 

[Soylent Green]

Hi some tips!

1 Don't cut leaves of the plants!
2 Easy way to get the temperature of your bucket down, bigger air pump that draws air from outside the tent ( cooler air,maybe from outside, plants that get more air blown trough their root systeme can take it a bit hotter!)
3 Place a bottle over the seedling and plant them imediatly in the dwc bucket!
4 use silica and rootsimulator in dwc,but don't get to fantsy pansy with additives unless you know what you are doing, keep it simple!
5 PH 5.6 as seedsling in veg 6.1 and bloom 5.8
6 humidity veg 75-55 bloom 55-35
7 Keep your place clean!
8 EC = see what your plant can take but don't push it to hard in the beginning start 0.6-0.7

: Like Weed:

 

[CapnKrash]

OK here's an odd one I can't find anything on. What would cause PH AND PPM go up? The PH yesterday was 5.3, today it's 6.3 and the ppm's were 645, and now 688... how does that work?

I got my A/C running and the room is now chilly as hell.. which sucks a little but the temp in the tent is holding steady at 75°F/24°C And the res temp is 75°f as well (it was 80!), though it's been slowly dropping all day. I imagine it'll take a day or two to get to a proper temp inside there with 3.5 gals of water plus black buckets. My inside thermometer is black on half the casing, so I had to put it halfway down the bucket just in some shade from the light, because it kept saying it was 110° in there. Now that its not directly under the light its reading temp right. The one I'm using for the res is an older one with a probe for outdoors. I ran the line into the tent and left the rest of it outside it so I can see without opening it. What would you guys suggest the best place for the tent temp thermometer to be? The one that's halfway down the bucket.

Also, what would you guys suggest for cheap yet good silica and root stimulators?