Seedling DWC Problem

[guitarguy10]

Ya gots lots of air bubbles? The bottom of net pot should drip a little from the splash.

Yeah, i'm using 2 of the round airstones in the attached pic per bin as well as a 12" strip type airstone. Attached is a gif of how the water flows.

Also attached is a pic of how the plants look now (not much different imo).

 

[Airwalker16]

Yeah, i'm using 2 of the round airstones in the attached pic per bin as well as a 12" strip type airstone. Attached is a gif of how the water flows.

Also attached is a pic of how the plants look now (not much different imo).

Oh ya, that's a nice bubbly, boiling, soup.

 

[PhatNuggz]

If RO was an option I would be using RO.

why is it not an option?

 

[PhatNuggz]

Yeah, i'm using 2 of the round airstones in the attached pic per bin as well as a 12" strip type airstone. Attached is a gif of how the water flows.

Also attached is a pic of how the plants look now (not much different imo).

Just make sure the water line is BELOW the net pot, or, that you have a good half inch of pebbles between it and the starter cube. If not, the starter cube can get soaked causing slow ugly growth and root rot

A quick fix it to double net pot for seedlings with ~ 0.5 inches of stones in the second pot

hth

 

[guitarguy10]

why is it not an option?

A RO system cost $150-$300CAD and I am disabled and unemployed. I have already spent more then my budget this month and an RO system is on my list but it will take me several months to save up that kind of money, it's a very tight squeeze to pay rent, bill, student debt etc,. off of a disability support cheque, and also why I want to grow my own medicine.

To get it from a store in those 5 gallon blue water jugs would take 4-5 trips back and forth to the store for each time I wanted to refill my bins.

Waterline was high when I started but it is like 1-2 inches below the net pot now and just splashed up to the bottom of the pot.

 

[rkymtnman]

why don't you grow in dirt until you can afford the RO unit? you'd have a harvest done by the time you have saved up enough.

and I hauled 4 of those blue bottles to walmart once a week. it can be done. it just sucks.

 

[Airwalker16]

why don't you grow in dirt until you can afford the RO unit? you'd have a harvest done by the time you have saved up enough.

and I hauled 4 of those blue bottles to walmart once a week. it can be done. it just sucks.

God it sucks.... 50gal container, with a float valve and a spigot is life changing

 

[guitarguy10]

why don't you grow in dirt until you can afford the RO unit? you'd have a harvest done by the time you have saved up enough.

and I hauled 4 of those blue bottles to walmart once a week. it can be done. it just sucks.

I have been growing in coco coir and like that medium. I just wanted to try DWC this time around and it's the winter time here so I don't have to really worry too much about water temps (because it's god awful cold here right now).

I will be going back to coco on my next grow I just wanted to see what this was all about. That and also I created an arduino garden controller on my last grow and I wanted to expand it so that I could monitor pH, EC and water level and eventually just use that data to automate. This grow was just supposed to be a fun experiment with my arduino cuz i had fun coding it for real time monitoring in my last grow.

 

[rkymtnman]

before you give up on dwc, if you could build a much smaller dwc for your seedlings and use RO/distilled for it, that would get you by.

get them about maybe 6" to 12" tall in that dwc, and transfer to your current dwc. then your issue of your water supply having a higher EC than what the seedlings need, would be gone.

 

[fragileassassin]

A RO system cost $150-$300CAD and I am disabled and unemployed. I have already spent more then my budget this month and an RO system is on my list but it will take me several months to save up that kind of money, it's a very tight squeeze to pay rent, bill, student debt etc,. off of a disability support cheque, and also why I want to grow my own medicine.

To get it from a store in those 5 gallon blue water jugs would take 4-5 trips back and forth to the store for each time I wanted to refill my bins.

Waterline was high when I started but it is like 1-2 inches below the net pot now and just splashed up to the bottom of the pot.

You dont need a huge one. Buy a 100/150 gallon per day and run it into a holding tank. A lot of places you can source a plastic 55 gallon drum for $20-30. You can put a float valve in you holding tank and just let the water run until it's full.
I ran a 120+ gallon system with a 100gpd ro setup by having it fill a 200gallon tank over a few days.

 

[rkymtnman]

You dont need a huge one. Buy a 100/150 gallon per day and run it into a holding tank. A lot of places you can source a plastic 55 gallon drum for $20-30. You can put a float valve in you holding tank and just let the water run until it's full.
I ran a 120+ gallon system with a 100gpd ro setup by having it fill a 200gallon tank over a few days.

what i noticed about an RO system is that the smaller the unit, the less they cost (obvious) but the more you'll end up spending on filter replaceements

 

[OldMedUser]

it's a very tight squeeze to pay rent, bill, student debt etc,. off of a disability support cheque, and also why I want to grow my own medicine.

I went back to school in my 30s and graduated 29 years ago with $14,500 in student debt. Became a single dad shortly after and never paid it back. they took any tax refunds I made but it still got up to over 30G. I had a judgement against me but it didn't hurt my credit. Just never answered the calls from the many collection agencies or paid a dime. Once collections are after you and you pay even a bit it starts a 2 year clock going again and they can take legal action but are toothless until you cave in and pay anything. At least here in Alberta it works that way.

A couple years ago the calls and letters stopped. Turns out Trudeau did two batches of loan forgiving and I guess I was one of the lucky ones. Never got a letter about it or anything but the judgement is gone off my credit rating and I have a pretty good score now.

Tell 'em to take a hike. They can't garnishee a disability cheque.

 

[OldMedUser]

what i noticed about an RO system is that the smaller the unit, the less they cost (obvious) but the more you'll end up spending on filter replaceements

I did a lot of research into that as I want to build my own system from parts to deal with my dugout water and if you don't need a lot you get lower cost per gallon using a much smaller RO filter. They are more efficient if they can run continiously so I want the smallest I can find which is around 16gal/day. I can use my old brine tank to hold 150L for the plants and we have lots of 5gal water jugs to fill for drinking.

All the systems I see have 5micron as their finest filter and we already filter down to that and still have sediment if you fill a 5gal pail and leave it sit for a day. I want a large 1micron feeding into two charcoal filters with the 2nd being a 0.5micron then the RO then a de-ionizing filter. Need to buy those good carbon filters by the case of 6 online.

Priciest bit will be a UV sterilizer unit for the drinking water part. $250 when Canadian Tire has them on sale.

 

[guitarguy10]

I went back to school in my 30s and graduated 29 years ago with $14,500 in student debt. Became a single dad shortly after and never paid it back. they took any tax refunds I made but it still got up to over 30G. I had a judgement against me but it didn't hurt my credit. Just never answered the calls from the many collection agencies or paid a dime. Once collections are after you and you pay even a bit it starts a 2 year clock going again and they can take legal action but are toothless until you cave in and pay anything. At least here in Alberta it works that way.

A couple years ago the calls and letters stopped. Turns out Trudeau did two batches of loan forgiving and I guess I was one of the lucky ones. Never got a letter about it or anything but the judgement is gone off my credit rating and I have a pretty good score now.

Tell 'em to take a hike. They can't garnishee a disability cheque.

Yeah I was in a strange situation where OSAP wouldn't lend to me in my first year (one of my parents made 'too much' even though the other was not employed), so I had to get student lines of credits with 2 banks.

I was able to get OSAP in my 2-4th years and funny thing OSAP was never the problem cuz I paid that off a few years ago cuz they allowed the payment ammoratization to weigh heavily on principle whereas these bank loans charge so much interest. Can't really ignore the banks sadly since I have other assets with them.

Anyways, smaller RO units are cheaper yes but still like $150 minimum CAD, or am I wrong?

 

[fragileassassin]

I used a hydro logic stealth 150 and it comes out 0 ppm. I have fairly clean tap water to start with and had to get the filter that works better with cold cold water.
I actually stopped using it and went to straight tap water.
But the uv filter is over kill unless you're on a well imo, dont see too many home operations using them. The chlorine or chloramine they put in the city water will kill that stuff.