First Dwc Grow From Seed

looking good bro

Smokin: I'd say you're on the right track. Just watch your pH closely with seedlings and keep your nutes at about half strength for about the first couple of weeks. We see more complaints of nutes burning seedlings than probably anything else.

I hope your tap water is better than mine. The crap that comes out of my tap isn't fit to wash your car with. It's usually in the high 8's and 9's most of the year with a starting ppm of around 600! This forces me to buy my water from the R/O station at the market. I hope that helps. HSA

hey everyone ..... thanks for the replys and advice....I was hoping i was on the right track with these seedlings...being a newbie when it comes to this seedling thing is a panicky job , always paranoid i did something wrong and watching over them every five minites...hahaha...Well, i did a quick check on the roots and the roots from the 2nd pic are expanding somewhat but i could defintly tell that more little roots are for sure forming...My concern is with the plant in the first picture of rootz... I mean, the plant is looking good up top but the little root poking out the bottom still has no growth, well maybe a tad bit longer but i kant tell just by a simple eye exam...My concern in the beggining was that i positioned the cubes too far from the bottom of the netcup but wen i checked today , both cubes are very moist from the splashiing....So is this normal or should my roots in picture one be sppeding through growth already????If so , what are some causes of slow root growth in seedlings???....If you all think im fine and should wait it out, dont even answer that cuz ill just get paranoid...hahahaha

Smokin: if there's a lot of bubbling going on at the bottom of your net pot your babies will get all the irrigation they need. They'll eventually grow down to into the nutes. I usually don't transplant my seedlings until they're a lot bigger because I'm so damn clumsy. I'm 70 years old and I shake like dog shittin' peach seeds.

I initially put my seedlings about a half inch deep below the top lip of my net pot so they're well covered with Hydroton to keep mold from forming on the top of the grow plugs. I set the nutrients level to right around the bottom of the net pot to start but I have two hefty air stones bubbling under them because their roots need lots of oxygen and it encourages them to grow down. Hydrozyme and a little hydrogen peroxide are useful too. You might want to talk to the folks at your local hydro store.

I do one other thing that may seem peculiar, but it works well. I put a small pond pump in the bottom of my bubble tub and run a feed line up to near the top of the net pot to feed from the top for the first couple of weeks as well. If you take a look at Stealth Hydro's video at their web site you'll see what I'm talking about. I burn a tight hole in the side of my net pot so the feed line is dripping directly onto the top of my grow plug. What you need to understand is that I'm an Aerogarden retread, the self contained table top active hydroponic growing system and when I saw Stealth doing essentially the same thing A/G does I decided to copy it.

As far as your paranoia is concerned, relax, we all have it until we see that our seedlings have safely sprouted and are well established. Enjoy the process and that will come after a few more grows. I read that Ganja has survived on their own for the last couple of million years so the odds are definitely in your favor. Be sure and document everything you see so you can look back on it on your next grow and grow with a little more confidence. Please keep us posted on your success. Good luck. HSA

HSA thanks for the input...As u could tell Im pretty new to this whole Hydro thing so any and all advice is appreciated....You brought up the fact of using your tube for top feeding the plants....So i was wondering,,,Even though the bottoms of my cubes are getting an adequate amount of bubble action, should I still make it a daily or even every other day habit of top feeding until the roots are better established??? If so, how often and how many much water do I top feed with????

Nice set up. What kind/brand of sponges are those?

Those r just some good old regular dish sponges from walmart.......Careful with those though...Ill give u the scoop on the sponge on my next update........

lookin fine good luck check out my dwc they were from seed also

anyone?????

i read after second nodeyou can give them 1/4 strenght nutes but im a noob i would wait for confirmation on that

Smokinfire420 said:

Today is day 12 from seed popping above ground and not only am i updating but its time for this newbie to post a few questions I have for the pros.....
1) K, Now since I started this plant from a bag of weed i had , I still dont know whether its male or female...Now Im not too big on closet space so im trying to avoid the whole 3-4 week veg until preflowers to see sex....I Was wondering , what will be the best and quickest way to determine sex without having to grow it too tall to show preflowers on its own?????



3) probably the most important question.....When can i start this baby on a regular feeding schedule...Im gunna be using Lucas formula and all this plant has seen since birth is pure water....When and how much????..

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1.The only way you can find sex is to put it in flower or wait until you can snip a clone off and put the clone under 12/12 light to sex. I would just wait until the roots are established and you have 3 or 4 nodes, then flower since its trial run. So give it another 7-10 days as long as nothing goes wrong and flip your light. No since in wasting veg time on bagseed if your gonna order some good genetics. If you order seeds soon you will have just enough time to finish flowering this bagseed before your new seeds are growing good. 3wks shipping-1 week germination-3 to 4wks veg = 7-8wks.

2.I been running Nirvana Ice and Master Kush, I would Def recommend Ice because its a forgiving strain, it clones easy and has decent yield. Stay away from Nirvana master Kush for Hydro.

3. I am not sure about GH line but I use Advance Nutrients sensi grow 2 part and I found a safe starting point is apprx. 1ml per gallon of A and B starting 7 - 10 days after germ or when the second set of leaves appear. Maintain PH 5.8 (let rise to 6.1-6.2 before bringing it back to 5. give it a couple days to adjust to the nutes and make sure roots stay white and growing and plant stays green. Remember less is more and dont start lucas formula until growth is strong or you burn the roots and have to start back at week 1 again which I have done many times. Another thing I have found is during the first 3 weeks of growth its important to let the plant adjust to the rez, meaning dont change PH and PPM everyday...let it go 2 to 3 days before adjusting anything, even longer if Ph stays stable.

If you havent purchased nutes yet I would go with the Flora Nova Bloom as a 1 part Nute. It appears to be the most simple to use with great results and start out using 2-2.5ml/gal. If I didnt have so much money wrapped up in Advance Nutrients line I would be using Flora Nova. A/N line is not for beginners and has a high potential for complicating things. Here is a link to a grow using Flora Nova Bloom only https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/344359-pineapple-express-g13-labs-seed.html

wapow1001 said:

i read after second nodeyou can give them 1/4 strenght nutes but im a noob i would wait for confirmation on that

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I give them 1/4 right off the bat when they go into their DWCs (sprouting outside of them before hand.) People that wait for a deficiency to show don't make any sense to me. It's harder to burn your seedlings than you might think.

Also a pro once told me this on the subject,

"fuck slow growth."

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May be a dumb question but what is 1/4 strength? Is it 1/4 of what the bottle says or 1/4 of max strength that the plant can handle in full veg..which how would you know unless you have already grown that strain out before.

So if I did 1/4 of 4ml per liter it would be 1ml/liter or 4ml/gal using A/N nutes and thats way to hot for my plants.

Now lets say we max out at EC 2.0 than 1/4 would be .5, that makes sense and is for me about 1.5ml/gal. which is 1/4 of the 1/4 recommended on the bottle.
To me its not as cut and dry as saying use 1/4 strength nutes. My kush is 4weeks in veg and I still cant go over an ec of .6 without burning it but I have a 2wk seedling next to it thats at .8 EC and thriving so I am really cautious because I have had alot of problems finding a good starting point for seedling.

1/4 of what the feeding chart says for week 1 veg

Thank you for all of your input....Well , to let all of u know , today is officially day 14 from sprout so I decided to finally hit this baby with a decent feeding to see how she (hopefully) takes it......Since Ill be using the full 0-8-16 recipe for feedings , i chose to give this baby a dose of the 0-5-10 to see if thatll work to start...so basically i went a lil more than half strenght.....do u think this was a bad idea to start with??? We'll see i guess...Hey , typically in hydro, how fast do plants show that theyve been overfed???Ill post pics later....

So my rez is 5 gallons, which in reality i use only 4 gallons of water....so at 0-5-10 , i used 20ml of micro to a 40ml of bloom....

ok ITS BEEN AROUND 7 hours since i added my nutes and I just checked on my seedling and the leaves are looking a bit droopy...I have no idea what it could be...I raised the light hrs ago thinking possible heat stress but nothing....Can anybody quickly help me decide whether i should flush tonite and put them back in pure water??? please someone help....