Newbie DWC Question

I'm doing a soil grow right now (first grow) but I'm playing with a basil plant in a very simple DWC to get my feet wet. So far, so good, especially considering the cutting was half dead when I put it in the DWC (I had it in a vial of water rooting and kind of neglected it).

I have a ph meter and an EC stick so I can control my environment and am using Fox Farm nutes. My DWC is the most basic of setups. Just a plastic container (solid color so no light can get in), an air pump with an airstone at the bottom (bubbling 24 hours a day) and the container filled with expanded clay pellets (all the way top to bottom, no net basket). I just moved the clay pellets around and put the clipping in which was rooted in the hole and covered it up. I keep the water level just below the pellets and top it off daily watching my ppm and ph and adjust accordingly with just water when the counts start to rise (keeping it at 1200 ppm and a ph of 6.3 to 6.7)

Am I lucky the plant is even growing or is this OK for a basic simple newbie setup? It looks really good, nice and deep green but not as fast as I thought it would grow in a hydro setup.

I know I can do flow and ebb, NFT and more but just want to start simple and may try using this for my first hydro clone (I'll clone in soil too until I get this down). Just want to know if I am doing anything wrong and that this is just not dumb luck I am succeeding (I always thought the damn thing would drown submerged in all that water but I guess the air bubbles really do prevent it huh)?

Thanks

Overall, very nice job starting. I would recommend you cut a hole in a lid and put a netpot in the top so you dont have to fill the whole container with clay pellets. This will make it easier to change the water, which you wont have to do too much while the plant is small (2 weeks or so) but more often when it is large (up to every 4 days). Also, lower your ppm's to 1/4 your current load. The plant is small and preferrs less nutes. it will develop a better root system as well. Lower your ph. your ph is good if you were growing in soil. you want to maintain your ph between 5.5 and 6. 5.7 is perfect. good luck- you will see rapid growth once you make these simple chanes

Thanks. I'll make those changes today. Guess my high ppm and ph explains why I haven't seen the growth I was expecting. I just recently kicked up the ppm (was keeping it at 600) due to the slow growth but if I had the ph all wrong, I had a poor foundation for the nutrient take up defeating myself from the get go.

I'll drop my ppm to 300 and hit the ph mark precisely at 5.7 and let you know how it goes.