Nutrients

hi
so I've been struggling for a year after switching over to RDWC with root issues, I've tried live and sterile res. I've had crops but been a struggle, then two back to back fails, early on in veg, the second one i seemed to have pulled back from the dead and now white roots appearing. I'm gonna pull the plants anyway as i have some healthier baby clones good to go.

Changes i made, RO and UV filtered water, my water quality is for shit, x2 size chiller so my water temps sit at 18c/65f
sterile res using Pyfhoff which i believe is chloramine
nutes: plant magic A+B
vitalink fulvic acid
calmag
Silicon

I dropped the enzyme as this bred brown slime and I also dropped the plant magic root stim as its gloopy organics kelp and such like which didn't help at all, replaced it with just fulvic acid. I saw somewhere that fulvic isnt great with chlorine, is this the same with chloramine? seems ok so far. Would I be ok without anything just A+B? Or has anyone got any recommendations for a mineral root stim?

Going into the flower, I'm also cautious to use any bloom additives for the same organic sludge producing reasons, I have tons of canna boost to use up, maybe quarter strength? or just use a PK?

I'm not convinced by the plant magic considering going back to canna, doesn't seem like theres any reviews out there.

Any recommendations/advice welcome, I'm UK based so not all products are available to me

PEACE

Stick to the basics and ditch anything organic related.

Not sure about that type tho. I use jacks tap and would recommend it if you can get it.

Stick with just a and b till you get a solid great harvest. Then you can start to tinker. You don't need a bloom booster to get great smoke and taste.

Seems like that pyfhoff stuff is basically bleach. If you are having problems with rot use more of that stuff. I add bleach almost every day to my res. Just a lil.

Don't go by anything the bottle says. They usually have you feed way to hi. Jacks feed chart would have me at 2.1 ec but I keep it at 1ec.

do your nutes have any organics in them? im not familiar with that brand.

and like failmore said, i'd skip the fulvic and the Si too until you get some good harvests. then add 1 of them and see what happens. then try the other one. then try them both.

i use fulvic and Si now but i started out with just base nutes and went from there

@Failmore and @rkymtnman thank you both for replying.

I cant get Jacks here in the Uk, I think plant magic maybe UK based so probably u dont get it stateside.
the A and B is formulated for DWC and seems organic free, but the root stim is kelp and allsorts of organics that sludge up. I'm guessing the canna boost will be the same with the sugars.

The girls that are in at the moment seem to be responding well to the Si and fulvic, roots are looking good considering they were like mush, I just pulled most of them out, and they grew back white. I"ll add a photo, seems a shame to pull them up, but I just think they are so stunted the yield won't be great.

Yes pythoff just an expensive form of bleach, I did try pool shock but this stuff seems better for now, but there were other organic and temp factors involved so I may go back to the pool shock. better value for sure

Also calmag? seems ok so far and im using 100% RO so it seems a good idea.

Using half or less than recommended amounts
This is how they looking but this is like week 4 of veg so really far behind and still another week of recovery needed I'm guessing.

If you run DWC on a small scale without a chiller you need to implement an oxidizer correctly and ditch all the organics.

I recommend 3-5ppm in DWC and always used regular bleach (sodium hypochlorite). If you didn't have success with running sterile you must have done something wrong.

I never had much success with Pool Shock(calcium hypochlorite) when I switched to Jacks, went back to bleach after 4 weeks of veg and random problems. Worked well with Dyna Gro though.

You probably didn't get the strength right and still had organics in the tank. Here's the calculator I've always used for calculating residual chlorine:
Chlorine dilution calculator

Thanks for your reply @Wastei
I hear you, the organics were still causing problems, when I tried Hisensbergs tea recipe I had better results, but found it far too involved I seemed to practically live in my grow room. I want a simpler solution.
I am running chiller, the previous was too small so temps going over 70 now I'm down to a constant 65 with a later model.

Thank you for the calculator, I used something similar with pool shock maybe I'll experiment with just bleach

they look like they have a Mg deficiency to me.

what pH are you running? and is your meter accurate?

@rkymtnman pH around 5.8-6.0 I do calibrate it. I put the spotting down to the fact they had no roots until a few days ago. It is pure RO maybe they need more calmag I'm running half strength.
A and b fairly low I'm at 400ppm.
I'm still probably going to pull them up, bleach system and put in clones, they just starting to show roots.

skanamax13 said:

@rkymtnman pH around 5.8-6.0 I do calibrate it. I put the spotting down to the fact they had no roots until a few days ago. It is pure RO maybe they need more calmag I'm running half strength.
A and b fairly low I'm at 400ppm.
I'm still probably going to pull them up, bleach system and put in clones, they just starting to show roots.

Click to expand...

I had one that I ended up pulling almost all roots off of. Literally like had 5 of the thick main roots and thats it. My problem was light leak one little ray of light. Fixed it and let her ride. She was small and stunted Like a month but came back and got ten z's dry off her. I didn't have nothing ready to replace her with so I didn't give up and was shocked at the end. I use General Hydroponics flora trio and tap water and thats it. No chiller. I would check, double check and triple check for light intrusion. Where your air hose goes in or maybe even going thru pvc pipes.

skanamax13 said:

@Failmore and @rkymtnman thank you both for replying.

I cant get Jacks here in the Uk, I think plant magic maybe UK based so probably u dont get it stateside.
the A and B is formulated for DWC and seems organic free, but the root stim is kelp and allsorts of organics that sludge up. I'm guessing the canna boost will be the same with the sugars.

The girls that are in at the moment seem to be responding well to the Si and fulvic, roots are looking good considering they were like mush, I just pulled most of them out, and they grew back white. I"ll add a photo, seems a shame to pull them up, but I just think they are so stunted the yield won't be great.

Yes pythoff just an expensive form of bleach, I did try pool shock but this stuff seems better for now, but there were other organic and temp factors involved so I may go back to the pool shock. better value for sure

Also calmag? seems ok so far and im using 100% RO so it seems a good idea.

Using half or less than recommended amounts
This is how they looking but this is like week 4 of veg so really far behind and still another week of recovery needed I'm guessing.


View attachment 5010657View attachment 5010662View attachment 5010657View attachment 5010662

Click to expand...

Those roots just look nute stained to me. Also light can and will get down thru hydroton. I put phone in tote with video running and was shocked to see light could wiggle its way thru hydroton.

Silica causes insane nute lock outs and ph fluctuations. When in contact with ph down it turns into another chemical that spells disaster for everything else.
Dwc is easy just don't remake the wheel. Decent environment, hydroponics specific nutes, low e.c/ppm

Bucsfan80 said:

I had one that I ended up pulling almost all roots off of. Literally like had 5 of the thick main roots and thats it. My problem was light leak one little ray of light. Fixed it and let her ride. She was small and stunted Like a month but came back and got ten z's dry off her. I didn't have nothing ready to replace her with so I didn't give up and was shocked at the end. I use General Hydroponics flora trio and tap water and thats it. No chiller. I would check, double check and triple check for light intrusion. Where your air hose goes in or maybe even going thru pvc pipes.

Click to expand...

Every grow so far with rdwc has been like that for me so far, just a battle. That's why I'm gonna pull them this time. Yes and light leaks, I'm gonna make some covers for over the pebbles just to be sure

Hobbitgoblin said:

Silica causes insane nute lock outs and ph fluctuations. When in contact with ph down it turns into another chemical that spells disaster for everything else.
Dwc is easy just don't remake the wheel. Decent environment, hydroponics specific nutes, low e.c/ppm

Click to expand...

Shall I skip the silica then?

I use it on foliar feeding just not in my rez.
I saw something about l light leaks. Light isn't a big an issue. I use random empty clear containers to experiment often. The issue I found is air gaps into the water. The rez can have light. What you don't want I'd dust and gnats/pest I'm your soup. At worst you'll algae work light. But is harmless unless its blue or blank algae that's toxic to very bad to breath breath in.

Examples. I use empty peanut butter jars or empty mayonnaise. Which are clear. it crazy how big they will get in such a small container. Constant refill though