Ebb and Grow buckets converted into 36 site recirculating DWC.

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SilverIce9

Active Member
I think it mights have been caused by a burn, or nutrient imbalance in the buckets themselves.
I pulled an all nighter last night observing the plants and watching the nightly "drain" cycle closely.

I had the drain setting on my ebb/gro system set to drain for 30 minutes, pushing all the water from the buckets into my 105gallon rez.
This is what "recirculates" my DWC system, and it only happens once a day during the night cycle.

Keep in mind my Bluelab meter sits permanently in my brain.

Well, 30 minutes of drain only drained half my system, so the water in each bucket is not getting properly mixed ever day.
This means that my meter reading in the brain is not very accurate, and doesn't properly reflect pH or PPM throughout the system.

After changing my "drain" setting to 1 hour, my PPM read 1050, and my pH was unchanged at 5.9.

I think I might have been looking a early stage nute-burn, or a imbalance cause a lockout of cal or mag.

After my foliar feed last night of epsom salts + tap water (my poor man's cal+mag), the problem doesn't seem to have progressed much at all.
I noticed my leaf tips curling down on fan leaves. Pretty sure that is a sure sign of nute-burn/lockout.

I dropped my PPM (.5) to 950 last night while all the water was drained into my 105 gallon rez. I'll monitor closely and add pics daily.

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Penyajo

Penyajo

Well-Known Member
Sounds like you are figuring things out pretty well. The tap water will def help with some micro nutrients. I think you will be just fine through out this grow. Just keep a close eye on everything. STAY HIGH!!!
 
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SilverIce9

Active Member
Day 11

I guess the rez change is my backup option at this point. It's hard to tell if the problem has progressed or not. Especially since I just did my first big bottom trim. Took off about a contractor trash bag worth of green stuff.

Hopefull all is well though. Here are pics from today, including some macro shots a affected leaf.
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SilverIce9

Active Member
Day 12

Here are pics from today. Looks like the problem isn't spreading much. I'm going to take daily pics of an individual affected leaf so it's easier to track.

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SilverIce9

Active Member
Day 15
Came in and did more supercropping. Lowered my PPM to 860 after reading about lucas DWC's last a few nights ago. All problems have seemingly vanished. Also read that 2ml/gallon is a safe dose for 30% H202. So I began adding that today. Going to add every 48 hours.

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computergroove

Active Member
I have 2 ebb and grow systems and I too want to switch to DWC. I wanted to convert my stuff as well but I decided on making one from scratch. I actually wanted to switch to UDWC and I came to the conclusion that I could not convert the ebb and grow units to facilitate the design. I couldn't believe how cheap it was to make. A word of caution for anyone - water temperature is critical. Do not let the water get the same temp as the room or your roots will rot / algae will take over and kill everything. I was going to do what you are doing but I have concluded that I am better off selling the equipment and making a DIY system. Good work though from what I have read so far.
 
jtmx23

jtmx23

Active Member
I like the setup, looks very clean. Plants look great, only thing I might suggest is to find something to cover the rockwool cubes. I recently stumbled upon Cube Caps, they make different sizes depending on what you're using and even have a cap that you can incorporate drip lines into. I haven't used them yet but I'll be ordering in the next week, fairly cheap too only $1-$2 a per top. Everything looks great keep up the good work!
 
Taviddude

Taviddude

Well-Known Member
SilverIce9 said:
Day 4 flowering. Dropped ppm.

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Beautiful system!
You can bypass that Calcium deficiency by running your PH lower during Veg.
5.5 with a drift to 5.8 keeps it away for me.
I ran 5.8 on the dot on my first couple grows and always had that. (Yielded like MoFo's still)
Once I relaxed, lowered the PH, and let it drift a little my plants were a lot happier.

Tav.
 
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SilverIce9

Active Member
Thanks for all the input guys. I actually found that the "deficiency" was actually just a design flaw in my conversion. Without undercurrent running, you have to ebb/flow more than just once during the night cycle. Once I changed it to flood/drain 5 times during the day cycle, the problem went away the same day and stayed away.

ComputerGroove:
Def cheaper to sell brain bucket system and build from scratch. However, it is less work to convert, and you end up with a unique (though not necessarily better) system. I plan on doing UCRDWC at another location to decide which I like better.
 
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SilverIce9

Active Member
Day 7 Flowering.


Mysterious drop in pH. from 5.7 to 4.5 in 2 days. Water is clear and roots are white. Came out of the blue. Had to add like 500 ml of GH pH up... Unbelievable. Caibrated 2 pH meters. Wouldn't have believed it otherwise. Brought pH back to 6.0 We'll see what happens when I go over there today...

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SilverIce9

Active Member
Day 9 Flowering

pH is still dropping, albeit a lot slower. Dropped from 6.0 2 days ago to it's current pH of 5.8.

ppm is pretty steady. Going to err on the low side of lucas formula this grow and keep ppm 800-900. I know this makes it technically not lucas formula, but so be it. Addbacks are now calculated to bring my rez back to between 800-900. I keep seeing "the claw" on some older fan leaves. Nothing very serious, but I''d rather undernute than overnute.

Overall, I would say everything looks stellar though so far in my prototype system.


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SilverIce9

Active Member
Day 14 Flowering

Everything is still looking good. Planning on upping my PPM to true Lucas formula levels ([email protected]) in the next couple days.

PH did the same thing it did last week... As follows...
Day 1 - 5.8
Day 2- 5.7
Day 3 - 5.6
Day 4 - 5.4
Day 5 - 4.8

So this is the second time the pH has swung just like that in as many weeks.
I added a ton of pH up today to bring it back to 6.0-ish.
I added more pH up after snapping the picture of my meter.

Any input from others would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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