Blue widow, DWC (hydro cherry poppin'!!)

Good evening, gentlemen, colleagues. I am about +22 days into my first hydro foray. My only other marijuana growing experience was conducted in soil, and ended abruptly (read pissed off girlfriend). I must say, first impressions are astounding; the speed and ease are blowing my damn socks off, akin to growing with rocket boosters.

A little about my setup...

My governing themes were: simple, basic, cheep. I'm rocking a home depot (hence forth to be known as HD) 5 gallon bucket, light proofed with foil tape, a 6in air stone, aquarium pump... and... well that's it!

I started out with a 70 G/hr pump to promote root growth, but I pulled it once roots-hit-water. I corked the end of the hose and poked 2 or 3 holes in it to limit the water flow.

I'm using 2 23W 65K CFLs in HD clamp reflectors for lighting.

As far as nutrients go, I'm just using fox farm grow big.

For PH and nutrient monitoring I use a Hanna instruments combo PH/EC/PPM pen.

The plant itself is a feminized "blue widow" from attitude. It was the bonus seed from my last order. I believe it to have a mutation, but we'll get into that later...

Here are some excerpts from my journal to, "catch a nigga up" as they say:

Aug 19 - Germination begins with seed soaking, and later the ol' paper-towel-on-a-pate trick.

Aug 21 - Seed kicks open. Placed in watered (phed to ~6) 1X1 rock wool cube. Cube on plate with small amount of PHed water.

Aug 23 - Seeds pops 24hr light cycle begins.

Aug 24 - Tap root through bottom of cube.

Aug 25 - Threw her in the bucket. 18/6 cycle starts

Aug 29 - Roots show through net pot.

Aug 31- Roots hit water.

Sept 1 - Kaboom!

Sept 2 - Toped off res with 1/2 gallon

blah blah blah

Sept 6 - Fuckin' algae... suspect res light proofing wasn't sufficient. Plant pulled, roots lightly sprayed to remove buildup.

Sept 7 - More fuckin' algae. Washed the roots, changed the res. ph 5.77 ppm 1010 (water from the tap at 200ppm)

Sept 8 - Respect level for algae increases with the size of it's colony...added hydrogen peroxide, and got serious about light proofing.

Sept 9 - Killed that shit. Some residue (apparently dead algae) clings to the roots. Light rinsing will not remove it. Attempted topping.

Lingering questions:

My main concern(s) has to do with checking ph/ppm levels. I've only got the one hole in the bucket lid, so when I do my checking, I pull the plant out, dip a cup in, check/adjust, pour it back in, and return the plant. That means my plant is out of the bay ~2 times daily. Am I freakin' her out?

Also, I, as per Roseman's advice, have not been riding the "PH roller coster". I let it get as high as 6.7 before nocking it down to 5.5-8. When I added the hydrogen peroxide, shit went ballistic for about a day, and I had to slap it around some. How much can/should I adjust the PH daily?

When topping, are you supposed to remove all the fan leaves above the node, or just the brand spanking new baby development?

I've got three fan leaves shooting out of one node (evident in the pictures). Is she a mutant?

I'm only feeding her FF grow big. Should I be including something else?

Picture time!

Apologies for the piss poor photographs. I'm using the camera on my macbook. Cumbersome to say the least. Don't be afraid to say hello...

very nice, i've never done hydro befor but seems good, i'll get around to it one day... but great job man

looks like your off and runnin. you should try not to adjust your ph more than .5 every 8 hours or so much more than that and you could shock the roots. and as far as taking your plant out of the bucket to check things just try not to have them out of water for more than 10-15min. its actually a good thing to give them an airbath like that it stimulates a growth spurt. that thing already looks like its gonna be dank. so far it looks like your off to a good start hopefully you got the algae taken care of. just stick around here and learn as much as you can from the bubbleheads, read up on stuff from Roseman, mostly crazy, and purpdaddy. thats how I started and we are willing to help we wont let you fail.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I guess the initial excitement of, "holy shit, I'm growing marijuana!" still hasn't worn off yet. Consiquently I really want to brag to a whole mess of people. I'm hoping talking to you cats will help curb that very dangerous notion.

I added a second air pump/stone to the res, as well as another bulb/reflector. She seems to appreciate it. PH was up around 6.23 so I brought it back down to 5.57. PPM holding steady at ~1330 (tap water reads ~200).

She still isn't keeping very symmetrical node development. I can't really highlight the areas until I have access to a better camera. Such is life.