first DWC grow

[myke]

Ok so don’t get to fussy about ph at this point.
Have the net pot just above water line let the bubbles splash the bottom layer of hydroton. Don’t need to be checking ph all the time give it 3–4 days let roots come out and hang into the water.
Here’s my system let’s call it pre school. Once clones rooted I put them in a small net pot into a tote with bubbles and leave them alone. Food is low ph about 6.4 whatever not really concerned. About a week from now I’ll have a lot more roots then I’ll watch ph a little more. Now since your just in a 5 gallon. Ph is going to be hard to control so no need in changing water every day.
someone mentioned already having a spare bucket. This is good. This way you can mix up some nutes ph it put an air stone in it and watch it for a day or two no plant. Once your happy with it just change the lid over and it’s done easy. The other bucket can now easily be dumped and cleaned.

 

[Cwrighty9420]

Ok so don’t get to fussy about ph at this point.
Have the net pot just above water line let the bubbles splash the bottom layer of hydroton. Don’t need to be checking ph all the time give it 3–4 days let roots come out and hang into the water.
Here’s my system let’s call it pre school. Once clones rooted I put them in a small net pot into a tote with bubbles and leave them alone. Food is low ph about 6.4 whatever not really concerned. About a week from now I’ll have a lot more roots then I’ll watch ph a little more. Now since your just in a 5 gallon. Ph is going to be hard to control so no need in changing water every day.
someone mentioned already having a spare bucket. This is good. This way you can mix up some nutes ph it put an air stone in it and watch it for a day or two no plant. Once your happy with it just change the lid over and it’s done easy. The other bucket can now easily be dumped and cleaned.

So I just checked it and it’s shot back up to 6.4,,, I’m just gonna leave it to settle in for a while as myke said, I never ph the water in my cloner so that’s sitting at around 7.2 and the clones seem happy enough in that water, I’ll keep my eye on it and see what happens, the roots aren’t in the water yet but it’s just poking out of the bottom of the net pot by about a cm or 2 max

 

[OldMedUser]

Some nutes like to run a little higher tho having it swing around between top ups is good for the plants. Makes sure that all of the various nutrients have some time at their peak pH range. A drop or two to much acid would sometimes have it low as 5.2 but it would creep back up to 6.2 in 3 days. Then I topped up with RO, gave it 15 min to mix up[ good then would test pH and ppm. Adding a little acid after adding some nutes if the plant/s had eaten it down as they usually did when growing fast.

During the stretch daily dropping of ppm could be 4x as fast as when the plant was in vigorous veg then go back to regular feeding right after the stretch. Watch for that later.

I doubt that tap water from the balls is causing your pH swing. Best to leave her in there and watch her grow. I used a turkey baster to suck up some of the nutes and water from the top until they got roots growing out of the net pots then they are fine on their own.

 

[Cwrighty9420]

Some nutes like to run a little higher tho having it swing around between top ups is good for the plants. Makes sure that all of the various nutrients have some time at their peak pH range. A drop or two to much acid would sometimes have it low as 5.2 but it would creep back up to 6.2 in 3 days. Then I topped up with RO, gave it 15 min to mix up[ good then would test pH and ppm. Adding a little acid after adding some nutes if the plant/s had eaten it down as they usually did when growing fast.

During the stretch daily dropping of ppm could be 4x as fast as when the plant was in vigorous veg then go back to regular feeding right after the stretch. Watch for that later.

I doubt that tap water from the balls is causing your pH swing. Best to leave her in there and watch her grow. I used a turkey baster to suck up some of the nutes and water from the top until they got roots growing out of the net pots then they are fine on their own.

I love me a good turkey baster lol

 

[OldMedUser]

I love me a good turkey baster lol

For the nute transfer I actually use a 60cc syringe with a foot of clear tubing on the end. For the tubs I always cut an extra, smaller hole around 2" in diameter to add water, nutes and easy access for taking samples or sticking in the hose from my drill pump to empty the tub if it's doing the ScroG thing and I can't remove the lid. $12 for a drill pump and it'll empty a 50L tub in about 3min. Piece of window screen tied on the end with a SS hose clamp so I don't suck up any roots.



Turkey baster is handy to remove runoff from the drip tray but if there's lots then a shop vac is quicker but a towel sucks it up pretty quick and can be wrung out into another tray/pan.

 

[Cwrighty9420]

Just dumped the Rez again and made a fresh one at ph4.8 once I put it in the air stone bumped it up to 5.2 so gonna leave her at that and see if it rises, noticed a new root poking out the bottom already, it’s only been 24 hours lol

 

[iceman2494]

My experience I use General hydroponics trio , garden friendly fungicide, ph up or down . 950 gph water pump . 2 air stone per bucket . No res change ever . That’s a waste . Can’t go wrong .

 

[Cwrighty9420]

Just checked ph again and it’s now sitting at 5.6 ... finally lol

 

[Cwrighty9420]

my ppm reader should be here tomorrow, theres one root just dangling into the water and i was just wondering what a decent ppm should be for her to be sitting in as of now?

 

[OldMedUser]

my ppm reader should be here tomorrow, theres one root just dangling into the water and i was just wondering what a decent ppm should be for her to be sitting in as of now?

Started all mine around 300ppm. That was 1ml/L each of my 3-part AN nutes with a bit of CalMag. Up to 500ppm it should be OK but if higher than that I'd remove some of the nute water and top up with RO to reduce ppm. Like if it's 600 remove 1/3 of the nutes and top up with RO to get to around 400. Don't save what you remove to put back later as it goes bad after a few days if not sooner.

 

[Cwrighty9420]

Started all mine around 300ppm. That was 1ml/L each of my 3-part AN nutes with a bit of CalMag. Up to 500ppm it should be OK but if higher than that I'd remove some of the nute water and top up with RO to reduce ppm. Like if it's 600 remove 1/3 of the nutes and top up with RO to get to around 400. Don't save what you remove to put back later as it goes bad after a few days if not sooner.

well its a 30l bucket and when i filled her up i threw in some root stuff, some atami a + b i threw in 15ml of root stuff and 10ml of a and 10 ml of b so hopefully my ppm is pretty low, need to get some cal mag to throw in there too

 

[OldMedUser]

well its a 30l bucket and when i filled her up i threw in some root stuff, some atami a + b i threw in 15ml of root stuff and 10ml of a and 10 ml of b so hopefully my ppm is pretty low, need to get some cal mag to throw in there too

Pretty vague there so I'd wait until you can actually test the ppm before adding anything else. No huge panic to get CalMag in there as the nutes will have that built in.

Get them walking well before trying to make them run.

 

[iceman2494]

Take account for your water ppm if your using tap .

 

[Cwrighty9420]

Take account for your water ppm if your using tap .

I am using tap water

 

[Cwrighty9420]

So I checked my tap water
236ppm
Checked the Rez water
467ppm
23 degrees c water temp
5.8 ph

 

[myke]

Thats boarderline ppms and temps,can you get some RO water?Maybe a frozen bottle into the res once the light turns on.

 

[Cwrighty9420]

Thats boarderline ppms and temps,can you get some RO water?Maybe a frozen bottle into the res once the light turns on.

I can probs do the frozen bottle in the res, RO water I’m gonna have to look for, never seen it before

 

[Cwrighty9420]

Thats boarderline ppms and temps,can you get some RO water?Maybe a frozen bottle into the res once the light turns on.

Worst case I’ll just have to get myself a chiller

 

[myke]

Most big chain stores will sell it like Walmart. They have a large RO machine. You just buy the big plastic bottles and refill as you need.

 

[myke]

Most of us here run rdwc for this reason.Get a large tote that sits outside the room somewhere cooler,then pump water between.More watrr helps keep pH stable.So two bulkheads and some hose 27 G tote and your set.Small 1~200 gph pump.Or you need to cool the lower part of your room ,hopefully your on cement.