Can someone critique my dwc bucket and ppm issue

Aviatorshades

Aviatorshades

Well-Known Member
So I’m using 5gal dwc buckets with nice air stones. Anyways seems to be working fine but am confused.

I use RO water that is about 15ppm. I’ve been strict with how I’ve been doing the gh flora trio. Anyways the mix always comes out to around 600-700ppm including 2ml per gal of calimag.

Do I then just add RO until it gets down to let’s say 200ppm then put in new nutes. And also should I just add RO WITHOUT calmag or do I always add calmag?

Trying to figure out how to make this perfect and what my ppm swing should be? Thanks this is my second run at dwc and still getting things down. Pulled 16 dry with two 315s so I just not being too terrible at it. Just need to better myself
 
Renfro

Renfro

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't let the PPM drop more than 100 before bumping it with some nutes. When I did DWC I changed out my nutes every 5 - 7 days so it wasn't an issue with my systems capacity.
 
5BY5LEC

5BY5LEC

Well-Known Member
Another way to do it is just keep track of how much water you are adding. When you have added an equal amount to what your bucket holds, drain and mix a new batch.
When you add back, just shoot for your target ppm unless you see burn then just add ro.
I would always add SOME calmag, if nothing else to keep the ph of your ro stable. Alternatively, you could probably also mix half tap and half ro.
 
O

Octastich

Active Member
start with RO add about 150ppm cal mag add the rest of your nutrients to what ever ppm you want. adjust ph then change res once a week

i have been doing single bucket dwc for a while now and i question the need to top up and adjust ph or ppm though the week if you change your res weekly

the only time i see you need to adjust anything is if your seeing big swings in ph but if you are seeing that then then something else is a problem. if your plant is taking up water and nutrients at the same rate then ph and ppm should be stable enough to leave.

if you are not changing your res weekly and maybe every two- three weeks you'd add water when your ppm go up and add nutrient mix when ppm drops and adjust ph accordingly

once you have topped up 80% worth of your res its time to change it regardless of time or days
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Just keep bumping up your ppm to keep it where you want it or more to raise it higher.

There's no need to change your nutes before you want to flip to flower. I never changed until after the flip and then many times never changed nutes once the whole grow. I'd dilute the ppm the last couple of weeks if they weren't eating it down on their own.

For the first month at least you're just tossing out perfectly good nutes like the makers want you to so you have to go buy more sooner.

I used rubbermaid tubs and would top up every 3 days then check ppm and add nutes as needed. RO water with pH Perfect nutes so never bothered checking that. Before the pH Perfect the pH would rise to about 6.3 and I'd knock it back with a few drops of conc. sulfuric acid and it would be anywhere from 5.2 - 5.6 then rise slowly again. Was so regular I rarely checked on the pH then either.

I started doing it that way mainly 'cause I was broke and lazy and found it worked just as good and after 50 or so DWC grows tried damn near everything just to see what happens.

:peace:
 
O

Octastich

Active Member
OldMedUser said:
Just keep bumping up your ppm to keep it where you want it or more to raise it higher.

There's no need to change your nutes before you want to flip to flower. I never changed until after the flip and then many times never changed nutes once the whole grow. I'd dilute the ppm the last couple of weeks if they weren't eating it down on their own.

For the first month at least you're just tossing out perfectly good nutes like the makers want you to so you have to go buy more sooner.

I used rubbermaid tubs and would top up every 3 days then check ppm and add nutes as needed. RO water with pH Perfect nutes so never bothered checking that. Before the pH Perfect the pH would rise to about 6.3 and I'd knock it back with a few drops of conc. sulfuric acid and it would be anywhere from 5.2 - 5.6 then rise slowly again. Was so regular I rarely checked on the pH then either.

I started doing it that way mainly 'cause I was broke and lazy and found it worked just as good and after 50 or so DWC grows tried damn near everything just to see what happens.

:peace:
Click to expand...
much agree on the
For the first month at least you're just tossing out perfectly good nutes like the makers want you to so you have to go buy more sooner.
id change it more often then not mainly to keep everything fresh and clean. res size will also play a big part in when you really need to change it
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Octastich said:
much agree on the
For the first month at least you're just tossing out perfectly good nutes like the makers want you to so you have to go buy more sooner.
id change it more often then not mainly to keep everything fresh and clean. res size will also play a big part in when you really need to change it
Click to expand...
I wouldn't want to use pails for stand alone DWC and used tubs since the first back in '01. Pails are fine for RDWC tho but I've never done one of those. I just put more plants in a tub. :)

Made this lid for SoG type DWC. Inspection hole for getting stuff in and out comes in handy. No holes below the waterline makes for zero leaks.

12hole.jpg
16 plants in each tub.

2Tubs02.jpg
Nice healthy roots and lots of them.

20dayslater.jpg

Was a jungle in there! :D

2Tubs01.jpg

:peace:
 
5BY5LEC

5BY5LEC

Well-Known Member
Some damn good advice from some pretty experienced growers. (Myself not included lol)
Don't forget to post some pics!
 
D

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
Question, why are you using RO water?

As somebody said above, the 100% add back style is safe, once you add as much as you started with start over.

I personally like to just top off daily and keep a constant ppm until the pH drifts out of range then change. Never chase pH
 
O

Octastich

Active Member
DaFreak said:
Question, why are you using RO water?

As somebody said above, the 100% add back style is safe, once you add as much as you started with start over.

I personally like to just top off daily and keep a constant ppm until the pH drifts out of range then change. Never chase pH
Click to expand...
Question, why are you using RO water? lol = don't listen to this poster. why wouldn't you use it if its an option. you use it to start with a clean slate to build off

you dont want 200 plus parts of crap in your water before adding nutrients to it

on saying that i dont use RO so i can agree not using RO does work its just not as good
 
D

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
Depends on how good your tap water is. Mine is under 100. Also if you use RO then you have to add cal-mag. For the majority of growers RO is not needed. And if you don’t use RO and are so quick to say “don’t listen to this guy” then are you just repeating what you think you understand?

The net is full of people with problems using RO and cal-mag. But what the fck do I know, only been growing 20 years.
 
O

Octastich

Active Member
DaFreak said:
Depends on how good your tap water is. Mine is under 100. Also if you use RO then you have to add cal-mag. For the majority of growers RO is not needed. And if you don’t use RO and are so quick to say “don’t listen to this guy” then are you just repeating what you think you understand?

The net is full of people with problems using RO and cal-mag. But what the fck do I know, only been growing 20 years.
Click to expand...
i am not going to disagree with that because its correct that its not a must to have RO but i will argue it because staring with a clean slate is still much better then starting with unknown stuff in your water

ive grow outdoor for the past 20 plus years indoors 2 yrs

most people with them problems using RO and cal mag dont mix correctly.
if your tap is @ 100 parts i see no need to use RO.

i will apologize though as it was a cock head thing to say
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
DaFreak said:
Question, why are you using RO water?

As somebody said above, the 100% add back style is safe, once you add as much as you started with start over.

I personally like to just top off daily and keep a constant ppm until the pH drifts out of range then change. Never chase pH
Click to expand...
Must be nice to have decent water but our tap water comes out of a dugout on my property and sits around 400ppm and pH 8+. It's only filtered down to 5 micron and has no sterilization so I sure DaFug don't want it in my DWC but do use a bit in my soilless with organics growing to add some beneificials.

I use barely half the recommended amount of CalMag and never ran into issues before I started using it about 7 years ago. I've only been growing pot since '78 so don't know everything yet like some people but it works for me.

For people using high ppm tap water then changing once you've added back as much as the plants use is a very good strategy but weekly changes are just not needed especially in the first few weeks when they are barely drinking any.
 
D

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
It's super nice for real. But again, I was asking because there are a lot of new growers who do their research and learn RO is "The Best" and go that route when they might have perfectly good tap water. Like you said, bad water it's essential.
 
Bearijuana

Bearijuana

Well-Known Member
I've only grown in DWC buckets and then graduated to a RDWC in a 4x4 tent. I start off with RO water for the seedlings and young plants just to I have maximum control of the nutrients. Once the plants are using over 500PPM I gradually move to tap water and save the RO for drinking though my tap water is typical good quality Canadian tap water.

I monitor PPM and ph daily and will adjust the ph daily if not every few days. I like to make my nutrient solution a slightly stronger (+100 or so) than what the plants are using and then add water daily until I find the sweet spot where the PPM remains constant and the water volume decreases. I will let the reservoir go down to 1/4 while doing this and then fill it with new nutrient solution.

I've never changed out any water from my buckets in the RDWC but will run the reservoir empty to clean it once or twice in the grow.

My last grow, 4 plants, 16oz cured!
 
70's natureboy

70's natureboy

Well-Known Member
Lots of advice and opinions and the OP doesn't even have a problem. It sounds like he is pretty closet to dialed in. At 7-800 ppm the ppm's should stay pretty steady as the plant drinks. I would use RO if it wasn't so wasteful. I do ok with 200 ppm tap water.
 
Renfro

Renfro

Well-Known Member
Aviatorshades said:
My tap water is 250. Is that too high? I just thought RO was better?
Click to expand...
Too high for sure unless you are making adjustments in the feed to compensate. Calcium and Magnesium are commonly the lions share of the tap water PPM. Thing is it varies sometimes depending on your supply source. My PPM out here varies from 150 - 280 PPM depending on the time of year and sometimes we get a spike in Magnesium. RO filters eliminate all the guess work and let you start with a consistently clean slate.
 
O

Octastich

Active Member
Aviatorshades said:
My tap water is 250. Is that too high? I just thought RO was better?
Click to expand...
Renfro said:
Too high for sure unless you are making adjustments in the feed to compensate. Calcium and Magnesium are commonly the lions share of the tap water PPM. Thing is it varies sometimes depending on your supply source. My PPM out here varies from 150 - 280 PPM depending on the time of year and sometimes we get a spike in Magnesium. RO filters eliminate all the guess work and let you start with a consistently clean slate.[/QUOT

listen to him i was about to say much the same
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top