Grow Mediums Preparing for an Alien RDWC invasion...
- Thread starter Groff
- Start date
Please refer to next post :Stones slap:
Hows it going Groff ?
Today I am SUPER !! thank you :smokebuds:
Had the worse, most freaky and frustrating week in my growing entire canna growing career!
"They" were certainly not kidding when they said hydro was unforgiving. Luckily I payed my penitence to the canna gods, and they made an exception this time.
Stay tuned for a little freak show photo update in a while, later today.
Nothing like the white shine of feeder roots to let a man smile and have some proper rest ... "Sleep Tight"
What a week. Disaster knocked on the door.
Day 19 - Sunday Nov 3rd. I was prepping for the rez change, filling up the aquatank to bubble out a few days, went to check on the roots, noticed a slight discoloration, which kind of worried me but I didn’t give it much thought. EC started dropping and pH rising, just very slightly. All looking normal, as expected
Rez change was marked for next Tuesday. Didn’t look in much on Monday, but on Tuesday I immediately saw lower fan leaves in distress. They are drooping because I took pics lights-off. My heart sunk!
Day 21 - Tuesday
Went into immediate red alert emergency mode. Even though I was read up on what to do, I kind of panic’ed. But got it together, dumped about 500ml 3% h202 every 3 hours for the rest of the day while I prepped everything to remove the plants and scrub. Got them out into my tub with the roots on the floor, shower at the other end flooding cold chlorinated tap water directly to the roots.
Before draining the system, I dumped 2 litres of bleach in and let it circ for an hour. Then gloves on and started scrubbing while draining out. Nothing major to report, no gunk or anything. Filter was clean… weird.
Anyway, I know perfectly well this seldom works as intended, but no harm in trying I suppose. Refilled the system twice to rinse out the bleach properly. Topped up from the aquatank (EC = cal mag silicon = 0.55)
Mixed up the soup to 1.6, pH 5.8, went to log the recipe and I had a major facepalm moment. With all the heat issues I was having, I forgot to mix in Cannazym. I don’t feed enzymes until the roots and readily established, but I got distracted I guess (lousy excuse…) and eventually forgot about it.
All done... The only thing to do now is hope for the best and start looking quickly into bennies.
Day 19 - Sunday Nov 3rd. I was prepping for the rez change, filling up the aquatank to bubble out a few days, went to check on the roots, noticed a slight discoloration, which kind of worried me but I didn’t give it much thought. EC started dropping and pH rising, just very slightly. All looking normal, as expected
Rez change was marked for next Tuesday. Didn’t look in much on Monday, but on Tuesday I immediately saw lower fan leaves in distress. They are drooping because I took pics lights-off. My heart sunk!
Day 21 - Tuesday
Went into immediate red alert emergency mode. Even though I was read up on what to do, I kind of panic’ed. But got it together, dumped about 500ml 3% h202 every 3 hours for the rest of the day while I prepped everything to remove the plants and scrub. Got them out into my tub with the roots on the floor, shower at the other end flooding cold chlorinated tap water directly to the roots.
Before draining the system, I dumped 2 litres of bleach in and let it circ for an hour. Then gloves on and started scrubbing while draining out. Nothing major to report, no gunk or anything. Filter was clean… weird.
Anyway, I know perfectly well this seldom works as intended, but no harm in trying I suppose. Refilled the system twice to rinse out the bleach properly. Topped up from the aquatank (EC = cal mag silicon = 0.55)
Mixed up the soup to 1.6, pH 5.8, went to log the recipe and I had a major facepalm moment. With all the heat issues I was having, I forgot to mix in Cannazym. I don’t feed enzymes until the roots and readily established, but I got distracted I guess (lousy excuse…) and eventually forgot about it.
All done... The only thing to do now is hope for the best and start looking quickly into bennies.
Forgot to mention, I also rigged the airpump that came with the XL system for extra oxygen. Anything to kill whatever hit. yuk.
Spent the rest of the week hooked onto the now famous Heisenberg Tea thread (google it). What a course in microbiology that is, highly recommended. Success stories are constant.
Ordered some glomus, bacilus and mycos and some premium earth worm casting online, and kept reading, 2 years worth of magic info that is... I was almost scared to go in a check on the roots...
But thankfully, the canna gods forgave my offense! The tea recipe hadn't even arrived and was already getting spanking new roots! Go Cannazym!
The tea arrived on friday and I proceded to brew (takes total 48h + 24h de-chlorination). So today is the day the brew is ready. Seems I dont need it after all, but I added a little (250ml) to boost diversity and fridged the rest.
Today - Day 21
near asteroid collision gravitational anomaly
So all I can say for now is pppphhhhheeeeeeewwww.... I'm one lucky bastard.
Spent the rest of the week hooked onto the now famous Heisenberg Tea thread (google it). What a course in microbiology that is, highly recommended. Success stories are constant.
Ordered some glomus, bacilus and mycos and some premium earth worm casting online, and kept reading, 2 years worth of magic info that is... I was almost scared to go in a check on the roots...
But thankfully, the canna gods forgave my offense! The tea recipe hadn't even arrived and was already getting spanking new roots! Go Cannazym!
The tea arrived on friday and I proceded to brew (takes total 48h + 24h de-chlorination). So today is the day the brew is ready. Seems I dont need it after all, but I added a little (250ml) to boost diversity and fridged the rest.
Today - Day 21
near asteroid collision gravitational anomaly
So all I can say for now is pppphhhhheeeeeeewwww.... I'm one lucky bastard.
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DWCocha
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Wow ...Max rep for dealing with it mate ...thats some amazing new root growth .Id keep up with the tea for prevention Groff & you may get away with it this time :Cushty:
What was amazing was the speed at which it all went to flops, and the magical speed at which a rez change and enzymes brought them back up!
I do feel they stunted for a day or two... no biggy!
I was a seriously grumpy the whole last week! Yeah, at first I did go with running sterile as the system was brand new and no possibility of cross-crop infection. That heisenberg fellow sure seems to have "revolutionized" hydro slime safety. The number of success stories is overwhelming. Highly recommend everyone check out the sticky here in the hydro section.
On the upside, I'm clearing off my big tent this week, cleaning etc... so the XL should be set up soon!! Is it possible to OD on canna growing?
Hydro is def my fave game, no doubt. Love the tinkering, the excitement, the adrenalin :Holy Moly:
So soon a hydro junkie? Simply cant get enough of it...
"Munch"
seymour-buds
autoflowering scientist
now then groff........
fair play for jumping into the deep end but what are you dumping into your res so far ive read canna aqua, canna coco, rhizotonic, cal/mag, dwc teas, silicon, and beneficial bacteria ??
my advice would be to cut back on the nutrient overload as there is to much confliction and no harmony in your root zone and focus on res temps and the amount of oxygen flowing into those buckets, for 1 bucket I would flow 30lpm of air to stop any chance of my roots suffocating regardless of res temps which is what I think happened to your plants
in 1 of your pics you could see the plants leaves all sagging downwards which is a sign she is pissed off and the reason was because she couldn't get any food cause her roots were dying and the only thing that will kill roots in dwc is lack of oxygen, as the root ball gets bigger so does the need for increased oxygen but if your only pumping in a limited amount it will get used up pretty quickly
rhizotonic does stain your roots quite badly so its difficult to determine if you have dying roots or nutrient staining but in your pics its not the rhizo that's caused it
and for the nutrients I wouldn't go to high on the ec's , and on day 21 id go for 1.2ec ph 5.7 if you are using r/o if not take your water background into consideration and add this on but keep it simple ....
for veg
canna aqua vega
rhizo
cal/mag
for flower
canna aqua flores
cal/mag
pk 13/14
maybe carbo-load depending on growers flavour preference
and nuff respect for trying to do rdwc for your 1st hydro experience but I would have started with 1 bucket just to get an understand for individual plant potential, id much rather have 1 beautiful princess with me than a bunch of nasty looking raggedy hoes, 1 love
seymour
fair play for jumping into the deep end but what are you dumping into your res so far ive read canna aqua, canna coco, rhizotonic, cal/mag, dwc teas, silicon, and beneficial bacteria ??
my advice would be to cut back on the nutrient overload as there is to much confliction and no harmony in your root zone and focus on res temps and the amount of oxygen flowing into those buckets, for 1 bucket I would flow 30lpm of air to stop any chance of my roots suffocating regardless of res temps which is what I think happened to your plants
in 1 of your pics you could see the plants leaves all sagging downwards which is a sign she is pissed off and the reason was because she couldn't get any food cause her roots were dying and the only thing that will kill roots in dwc is lack of oxygen, as the root ball gets bigger so does the need for increased oxygen but if your only pumping in a limited amount it will get used up pretty quickly
rhizotonic does stain your roots quite badly so its difficult to determine if you have dying roots or nutrient staining but in your pics its not the rhizo that's caused it
and for the nutrients I wouldn't go to high on the ec's , and on day 21 id go for 1.2ec ph 5.7 if you are using r/o if not take your water background into consideration and add this on but keep it simple ....
for veg
canna aqua vega
rhizo
cal/mag
for flower
canna aqua flores
cal/mag
pk 13/14
maybe carbo-load depending on growers flavour preference
and nuff respect for trying to do rdwc for your 1st hydro experience but I would have started with 1 bucket just to get an understand for individual plant potential, id much rather have 1 beautiful princess with me than a bunch of nasty looking raggedy hoes, 1 love
seymour
Looks like seymour hit it on the head again, but seriously well done for saving them, when I aw that first pic of the roots my heart actually sank like you said so I feel your pain. I'm on my first dwc attempt and it's already my favourite growing methos - gets very addictive fast 
: Will be checking in from time to time to see how it's all going, gonna give you a little slap for your efforts too - i feel it's well deserved! 
: Will be checking in from time to time to see how it's all going, gonna give you a little slap for your efforts too - i feel it's well deserved! Update on the rez change this past Monday, day 34
Roots are much better. Growth was stunted for 2 or 3 days, but then got back on track. Top growth didn't really stop, just slowed down a bit. But as expected, off they went into stretch. They look droopy because I did the rez change during sleep time.
New bloom rez consists of
Cal mag 0.5ml/L
Silicon 1.135 ml/L
Aqua Flores 2.66 ml/L
Rhizotonic 2ml/L
Cannazym 2.5ml/L
CannaBoost 1.33 ml/L
EC - base 0.2 + cal/mag/silicon = 0.7 + feed 1.3 = 2.0
pH - 6.0
Temp max/min - 24/16
Water max min - 20/18
Ambient temperature dipped significantly these past two weeks, no more need for water bottles
Now, its been a few days and I am experiencing the same thing other fellow testers are getting.... they still look hungry! Not so evident in these pics, but today the green seem paler. I'll post some pics of how they look today later on. Others do not have root issues like I'm having, so I suspect this is not caused by disease... fingers crossed !
Roots are much better. Growth was stunted for 2 or 3 days, but then got back on track. Top growth didn't really stop, just slowed down a bit. But as expected, off they went into stretch. They look droopy because I did the rez change during sleep time.
New bloom rez consists of
Cal mag 0.5ml/L
Silicon 1.135 ml/L
Aqua Flores 2.66 ml/L
Rhizotonic 2ml/L
Cannazym 2.5ml/L
CannaBoost 1.33 ml/L
EC - base 0.2 + cal/mag/silicon = 0.7 + feed 1.3 = 2.0
pH - 6.0
Temp max/min - 24/16
Water max min - 20/18
Ambient temperature dipped significantly these past two weeks, no more need for water bottles
Now, its been a few days and I am experiencing the same thing other fellow testers are getting.... they still look hungry! Not so evident in these pics, but today the green seem paler. I'll post some pics of how they look today later on. Others do not have root issues like I'm having, so I suspect this is not caused by disease... fingers crossed !
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Hey SB, not at all, sorry for the confusion. I have a little DIY dwc bucket with the 5th seed, had some left over coco nutes, and I love doing off-balls things so I gave it a shot. Here is a link, have to update but will see it through.. looking good btw lol... https://www.autoflower.org/f119/dwc-using-canna-coco-nutes-yup-you-read-right-26467.html -
I ended up not using the beneficial tea once I saw cannazym work magic. But I did brew in my emergency mode, and looks solid ! Used it my salad garden and the tomatoes loved it.
Hope my new updates are a bit more clear! Thanks for popping in!
