shadyslater
Well-Known Member
can the gh flora se3ries be used with dwc as im thinking of switching
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.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
ContraptionatedWhen 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.