Love's First Grow - 600w MH/HPS - 3 Juicy Fruit

Well after an experimental foray into a DWC cloner, lots of reading DWC grow journals, and looking at amazing root porn,.... I took the plunge.

My grow is now 100% DWC.

So new equipment is:
3 x 3 watt 7.8L/min
6 x 8" airstones
3 x 5 gallon buckets w/10" net pot lids
medium:hydroton

That's all for now, time to sit back and and see how they adapt to a hydro lifestyle!!

Here's some pics!

WOW! Lookin tite! More questions later.

Very nice, I'll be following along. Now that you've gone hydro, are you sticking with the FF lineup? It'll work fine as long as you can put up with the brown slimy roots but just a heads-up...

SickSadLittleWorld said:

Very nice, I'll be following along. Now that you've gone hydro, are you sticking with the FF lineup? It'll work fine as long as you can put up with the brown slimy roots but just a heads-up...

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Hadn't thought about it. I knew my nutrients would work cause they have a hydro application recipe and a soil application recipe. I guess I can handle brown slimy roots as long as the girls are getting the nutes they need. I know there are "better" and definitely more expensive nutrient lineups out there, but are there any drawbacks to sticking with the FF?

ColoradoLove said:

Hadn't thought about it. I knew my nutrients would work cause they have a hydro application recipe and a soil application recipe. I guess I can handle brown slimy roots as long as the girls are getting the nutes they need. I know there are "better" and definitely more expensive nutrient lineups out there, but are there any drawbacks to sticking with the FF?

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So you have the hydro specific 3-2-6 grow big I assume? The 6-4-4 stuff for soil won't work.

Not sure what the other drawbacks are but I'd think the reservoir would be more susceptible to pH swings while the organic sewage soup is being broken down by the bacteria. Can't really comment further since I switched a few weeks into my grow. Couldn't handle the nasty roots and water.

Damn I've got the 6-4-4 soil stuff. Will my Tiger Bloom and Big Bloom still work? What nutrient line are you using? If none of my stuff works I'm up for switching to something new. Not trying to get crazy expensive, but I'm willing to spend a little bit. Let me know what you're using and how much it was. Thanks dude!

I suppose my Grow Big is going to go to the house plants now, that should be interesting!

ColoradoLove said:

Damn I've got the 6-4-4 soil stuff. Will my Tiger Bloom and Big Bloom still work? What nutrient line are you using? If none of my stuff works I'm up for switching to something new. Not trying to get crazy expensive, but I'm willing to spend a little bit. Let me know what you're using and how much it was. Thanks dude!

I suppose my Grow Big is going to go to the house plants now, that should be interesting!

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Yeah, the BB and TB work in both soil and hydro. The GB is the only one that is soil or hydro specific. BB is the biggest cause of the nasty water, so I wouldn't use that if you are sticking with the FF lineup. Just use the hydro specific GB and TB.

I'm using Humboldt's Master A&B nutes. Two part base fertilizer with Ginormous added during flowering. Super easy feeding schedule and the results are good so far. They also don't mess much with the pH. TB is super acidic and will always require you to adjust the pH after adding it. Semi-complete lineup cost me around $90 total for a quart each of A, B, Ginormous, and Calmag.

Sounds good. I just called the local hydro store and it sounds like they've got everything I need and at fairly competitive prices. I was worried at first that I was going to get gouged at a specialty store (especially in the mountains) but so far I've been really pleased. Going to wait til I get paid on Thursday probably to pick up the nutes, but $90 doesn't seem bad at all. How many grows you think that'll last?

So you use the MasterA&B throughout both veg and flower? Then add the Ginormous for flower only? CalMag would just be added in along the way? Is there any value in the Honey and BigUp? Or did you just choose to keep it simpler?

I'm almost out of the Master A/B since I used way too much and I have a lot of water to add nutes to...60 gallons. I'm pretty sure a small setup like yours could get through multiple grows on a quart of each.

All the other questions I answered in my thread. We're kind of skipping back and forth. lol. I use the recirculating hydro schedule that I linked you to in my thread, so I have no need for the bigup or honey nonsense. Very simple feeding chart.

Yea I finally found the schedule on Humbolt's website.(I'll check your link too) I think the only thing I'm going to add is the Verde. The schedule also cleared up all my questions I asked you earlier too. This has been an excellent morning knowledge-wise! Ha no more skipping back and forth! I promise.

So grow update: ditching the FF I guess.

The GF will be pleased, her house plants are about to get hooked up!

ColoradoLove said:

Yea I finally found the schedule on Humbolt's website.(I'll check your link too) I think the only thing I'm going to add is the Verde. The schedule also cleared up all my questions I asked you earlier too. This has been an excellent morning knowledge-wise! Ha no more skipping back and forth! I promise.

So grow update: ditching the FF I guess.

The GF will be pleased, her house plants are about to get hooked up!

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I think you are looking at the wrong feeding chart. The recirculating hydro schedule doesn't use Verde and actually recommends against using it in that type of system. The schedule you are looking at is for a drain-to-waste setup like soil, coco, or hempy. I know of people using the drain-to-waste schedule in their recirculating systems but why would you? The other schedule is much easier to follow and uses less of their products and = less $$$.

Yea I actually called Humbolt about the Verde. After posting that and doing some more reading I saw the disclaimer about the using Verde with re-circulating systems. I wasn't sure technically where DWC fell as far as hydro categories go hence my calling Humbolt. The drain and waste one was actually just the first one I clicked on. (I thought it was the same just different intensities, ha my bad) Humbolt hasn't gotten back to me yet to answer my Verde questions either. Guess I'm gonna ditch that idea.

I'm gonna stop tweaking and just follow yours since you said it's easy and it's obvious it works. I'm just getting ahead of myself with my enthusiasm. Thanks for the schedule

ColoradoLove said:

Yea I actually called Humbolt about the Verde. After posting that and doing some more reading I saw the disclaimer about the using Verde with re-circulating systems. I wasn't sure technically where DWC fell as far as hydro categories go hence my calling Humbolt. The drain and waste one was actually just the first one I clicked on. (I thought it was the same just different intensities, ha my bad) Humbolt hasn't gotten back to me yet to answer my Verde questions either. Guess I'm gonna ditch that idea.

I'm gonna stop tweaking and just follow yours since you said it's easy and it's obvious it works. I'm just getting ahead of myself with my enthusiasm. Thanks for the schedule

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Yes, that should clear up any confusion. I'm pretty sure you want to be using the recirculating feeding schedule (at least I hope because otherwise I've been doing it wrong for 6 weeks, lol). If they give you any good tips, let me know. I want to be sure I'm doing this right.

Yea I'm getting the nutes today once I get back from skiing @ A-Basin. Montezuma Bowl opens today!

My girls are looking a little wilty which I'm hoping is a little left over shock from the transplant from soil to hydro on Monday. They're also looking a little yellow which I'm hoping is due to the lack of nutrients they're getting. There's a bit of FF running through the system but it's like 1/8 or maybe even 1/16 strength. I originally mixed it at 1/4 in a gallon but that got mixed in with 14 other gallons of straight pH balanced water. So they're basically running on straight water. Hopefully my assumptions are correct and that when they wake up they feel less wilty and when they get their food this afternoon they feel stronger and greener! I'll post pics once they wake up and see what you guys think

So I got Humbolt's line of nutrients as recommended to me by SickSad (thanks dude) and it's occurred to me that we now have nearly identical setups. Buckets vs tubs is the biggest difference I guess.

So FF is out and this is what's in:
Master A
Master B
SeaCal
SeaMag
Ginormous

I fed them today as soon as the lights came on and also snapped these pictures of the discolorations of the leaves. I've seen similar looking leaves here on RIU and everyone always seems to say they are nutrient deprived when they look like this. This would make sense considering they've been running in basically pure pH balanced water since their transplant from soil on Monday. Didn't have the new stuff and didn't want to use the FF.

Anyway here are the pics. Yellowing with some reddish purple showing up in the leaves would be a fairly accurate description I think. The fact I'm getting different colors (and other threads on RIU) are what makes me think it's lack of nutrients, but that problem is now solved. Let me know if I'm way off base here though.

Oh and quick question about water height... is it too high in the 1st pic? All 3 of my buckets are at different heights just trying to see what they like best. Should the Hydroton be saturated in it like in the 1st pic? Or just barely bubbling through the top Hydroton? Or should the top layer of Hydroton be dry with no bubbles visible?

Good shit. I hope those nutes work out for you. I guess we have almost identical setups because I have a couple buckets too.

The discolored leaves looks like a deficiency to me. The plants just look hungry, so give them some food. Do you have a EC/TDS meter? I really suggest getting one if not.

Your water level is way too high. I keep mine about an inch or so below the bottom of netpot before it has roots and 3 inches once the roots get long enough. Do you have roots popping out of the bottom of the netpot? The popping of the bubbles in the res should keep the roots and bottom of the hydroton wet. Have you read this yet? If not, give it a read and it'll answer any questions you have about the water level and bubble action.

No roots popping out yet cause my net pots are f'ing deep. Probably also cause I haven't been making them work for the water either.

Also having problems getting my pH down. I added 2ml on 2 ocassions and it's sitting around 7.5. I'm feeling like my aquarium pH up and pH down aren't heavy duty enough. It says 2ml to lower pH for 25 gallons but it doesn't say how much it lowers it. It also cautions that some fish are sensitive to pH changes of .2 or greater so use caution. That last part is what makes me think it isn't designed for moving pH by 1.5 points. I thought up was up and down was down when I got it. Could this stuff be less concentrated than what the hydro store has? I've used what they recommend for 25 gallons for each bucket, twice. (so 4ml in so far) The pH hasn't changed really at all overnight so I added 5ml to each bucket right after I just measured the pH so we'll see what it does in 20 minutes. If it doesn't do anything then it looks like I'm back to the hydro store. Bahhhhh

Here's some shots of my pots and the last one is some bubble action!

Yeah, drop the water level. You have tons of bubble action, so you should see roots within a few days looking for the water. They grow super fast.

Not sure what to tell you about the pH stuff. It does take a lot more than 2ml of pH down to drop 20 gals of water in my res into a reasonable range. I usually have to put in about 20ml to drop it from 6.5 to 5.7. Try adding more of the fish stuff to see if you get results?

Cool I appreciate the info. It sounds like the directions on the bottle are for small aquarium changes. Looks like I just need to add more to get my desired results. Gonna go try it now. Water level has been dropped as well!

Well I got that pH to drop.... all the way down to 3.5

Broke out the pH up and we'll see what we got in 20 minutes. Well at least I know it works...