shadyslater
Well-Known Member
can the gh flora se3ries be used with dwc as im thinking of switching
dwc vs gh flora series
- Thread starter shadyslater
- Start date
Going off topic but if You have the knowledge of both DWC and GH Flora I think you can help me out. Ok, 2 days ago i cleaned out my five gal bucket and refreshed neuts following GH's online feeding schedual, and to day my roots are very brown. I am in wk 4 of veg. and was planning on transitioning into wk 5. any help would be much appreciated thanks
PattyWagon
Well-Known Member
Hell yes it can. That lines rocks especially for the price. And dude above me, the soup mixture is brown and at high concentrations it can stain roots.
contraptionated
New Member
When I first began my 20 gallon rubbermaid dwc grows I used GH flora series and in the first few weeks my clones took off and the roots were shimmering white. I was happy. All was going according to plan. Somewhere around week 5 or 6 (might have even been a little later) I inspected was now a mega root ball and noticed brown roots. I was a sad panda. The nutrient couldn't be the problem. I was certain that the non-organic GH Flora series was well suited for this hydroponic method. Than I remembered Heath Robinsons advice on how to use a waterfarm for a dwc tree grow. He too used non-organics but his roots were always in top notch condition no matter what stage the plant was in. Then it dawned on me that I forgot to add copious amounts of dissolved oxygen into the mix . You see, Heath would use a 4000 lph pump to circulate water between just one auxiliary reservoir and just one waterfarm. To have the full outflow of that pump dumping back into just one waterfarm container created a tremendous amount of agitation at the air/water interface of the root ball containing waterfarm. I was not creating as much agitation in my dwc containers. That's why the roots were great in the early stages when the plant was small and didn't demand as much oxygen in the root zone as it did when it started to become a monster tree. I was using some terribly small airstones at the time that didn't agitate as well as Heaths method with the water pump. Although, I did find later on that you could bring in tremendous amounts of dissolved oxygen (and more efficiently) with a Danner Pondmaster AP-100 (or smaller) air pump and 8" diameter round aluminum oxide airstones. It is only this particular size round airstone (there are cylindrical sized stones made of this material but of all the round type only the 8" will be reliable)that will not dissolve (they are used in fish farms because of their reliability) and they are capable of .71 cfm. You can valve them up to a full blast wave pool or valve them down according to what a smaller container would demand. GH flora is great stuff (especially when you add a little extra Monopotassium Phosphate but that's for another thread) . Don't change the nutes, rather increase your aeration.
Contraptionated
thanks for the advice. i had another air pump lying around that i hooked 2 small airstones to in addition to the original airstone i had it in there. so now i have to airpumps, 1 is running a airstone about the size of a redbull can and the other smaller pump is running 2 airstones the size of your thumb. if you think this is the wrong approach let me know. also how much water would you recommend i use in my five gal bucket. i currnetly have been useing 4 gals so the net pot is about a half inch above the water line. Plant with the roots issuse is doing great just concerned it could take a turn if these brown roots are and issue. thanks ill be intouch to give u an update on your advice.
contraptionated
New Member
Your very welcome and I'm glad I can share my past mistakes to better your experience. Tell me, does this group of stones cause a nice rolling type of deep fryer "boiling" appearance at the surface of the water when the root ball is in its place?? If you can take a peek by just lifting the lid enough to see if the surface is being briskly agitated . If there is visible surface agitation underneath and around the root ball, than I would say you're good for now. If you feel that you would like to create more agitation and your limited to the 5 gallon container, I would suggest the cylinder version of the blue aluminum oxide air stone. You can check out more info on the 5 or 6 varieties that would help at wonbrothers dot com. They don't sell retail so it's not a hidden advert. They just have a small section of info on them. Also remember that almost all these air stones are blue but you have to read their fine print (on the aforementioned site ) to check the specs on the Al Ox variety.