Grow Mediums Think different in DWC with LED lighting - a few teething problems to start my grow diary

[teedeeree]

Hi Folks,

This will be my first proper grow.
2 Think Different in 15 litre buckets, each getting 30lpm of air from 2 large air stones in each bucket. Water level is about an inch above the bottom of the net pots.
Lighting is 2 400w LED units, only one in use at the mo (the cheap white rectangle ones you see on ebay, each has 400W worth of LED's and draws 230ish watts)
Water is RO, nutes are GH flora series, rhizotonic, calmag, silicon for the time being.

So onto the story, the 2 plants you see here are quite different ages, the one thats got skinny leaves and going yellow is around 2 weeks old - she had a rough start, the other is about 3 days old and doing wonderfully.

The older one had a rough start as I didn't have an EC meter (it was in the post) and as I was jsut starting seedlings with plain water I didn't worry too much and started everything off, the EC meter turned up about 5 days later and it turns out my taps are reading 650ish straight off, suffice to say most of my babies suffered too much and barely made it past cracking their shells, those that did seem to be doing a little better got an immediate flushing in some water I bought from the shop. The younger one is the result of getting an RO system in to sort out my problems and she seems to be loving life!

Now to my eye, the older one, who's growth has been glacial seems to be suffering more from Nitrogen deficiency than nute burn, I've just changed her res to a new one with a slight favouring towards the N heavy micro and grow portions of the GH flora system, a full dose of rhizotonic, calmag and silicon. PPM is at around 950. Hopefully this should get him growing! I can see quite a few roots if I pluck some hydroton away but nothing is showing through the net pot yet.

The youngling got a little less rhizo, calmag and silicon and the recommended 2.5ml/10L of the GH series, PPM at 800ish.

Let me know what you think guys and whether you can rediagnose the slow grower! I had some delicious - la diva seeds aswell, but all 3 of them failed to crack, let alone become a plant

 

[Albert Eimstoned]

Those are excellent pictures. Good luck, fellow LED Think Different grower.

 

[teedeeree]

Thanks dude
being a photographer, ridiculously purple/orange photos hurt my brain and eyes, so I made them normal colours.
I've also got a rather nifty way of photographing trichs, when it's time...

Anyone got any insight into my sick plant?

And with a little bit of good news, one seedling that I thought had perished from my tap water/damping off has miraculously come back to life! I had plucked him from the propogator in his RW cube about a week earlier all shrivelled and dry and he was just being used as a little wedge to keep one of the humidity hats in place, today I noticed 2 tiny little bright green shoots so he's now back in the propogator, not expecting much but I have spare buckets and lights so he may as well be given a shot.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Hey teedeeree, I moved your thread down to the Hydro forum for you. The New Growers Forum is great for newbies; but when it comes to DWC and the like, I think you'd be better served having these guys looking at your stuff. Some amazing growers in this forum; they'll be able to answer your questions faster and more specifically with your setup so you're not sitting there in the dark waiting for responses.

You can also check out the AFN 24/7 Live Help Thread, in case you need a quick answer to a quick question. It doesn't replace a grow diary and the questions to ask in there, but if you feel like you REALLY need an immediate answer, there are mods and Live Help staff in there pretty much at all hours of the day and they'll make sure you get taken care of one way or another!

Hope that helps out bro! :Sharing One:

 

[teedeeree]

Thanks man, just posted to the help thread, awesome idea that one

 

[DWCocha]

Hi Tdr :Sharing One:you need to do a res change asap & drop the silicon until they need it & then only use it in tiny amounts .... also start the cal mag of with a really low dose & only get to full strength near the end of ,or half way through the grow & your looking at a fully developed plant .Plus your PPM is way to high for baby auto's dude .... severe nute toxicity will most prob be the problem mate .Full silicon & cal mag will cook these babies real fast :no:

as your on RO you should put some cal mag in 1st to buffer the water ...up to about 50 PPM ,Then full rhizo for the 1st week (half each week after that) & finally add you GH Micro ratio up to around 400 PPM ...set PH to 5.7 & things should look up for them ?.

 

[Gloomshade]

Good luck with the grow mate. If you're new to growing/DWC you should look into EC rather than PPM. More of a universal language imo.

 

[teedeeree]

Thanks Gloom, your setup is looking tight!
after some trial and error at the local grow shop my meter actually seems to be reading in micro siemens (PHEW!)
and now my babies are on a half dose of calmag & silicon, full dose of rhizo and the EC was brought up to 1.1 by flora nutes.
Have some photos.
1. the growroom

2. bubbles in my bucket

3. the baby

4. The hard done by

5. The please lord let me survive crew in their little diy dwc propogator

6. propogator showing bubbles in action, I normally have the water line set to half an inch below the bottom of the RW cubes, seems to keep them moist but not wet. If either of the 2 plants in it survive they will probably live out their life in here as I'm curious as to the possibilities of getting 9 or 12 of these bottles and doing a sea of green with a very fast strain.

 

[Bamba]

Good luck and enjoy the ride with your babies be there for them!!
Seems like a good setup you have there.
I am arround the same days with you in my first hydro grow too lets do our best to grow them big!!
:Sharing One:

 

[teedeeree]

Time for an update!
Older plant is loving life, loads of roots now showing through the basket, leaves are appearing every day, seems to be getting bigger every hour! Loads of growth around all the first nodes and a healthy stem showing already.
Younger plant is on track, seen very little growth up top but the first tap root suddenly shot 6 inches out the bottom of the basket over night and hopefully I should see it start to really explode over the next couple of days.

nutes are reasonably unchanged. EC is around 1.1 for the older plant and 1.0 for the younger one, I will probably up the nutes quite heavily on the older plant as shes a bit behind schedule, the younger one will get a boost as soon as I see it's new root getting to action and some proper leaves trying to form.

pics