Question about silica

Thanks for all the responses, I ended up buying localy some dutch master gold silica 1ltr for $30, added it into my water change with the first lot of flowering nutes.
Although I do feel im over doing things a bit, I thought with dwc less is more.

This is what goes into my buckets 15ltr
2ml tap conditioner
10ml cal mag
2ml silica
40ml canna flores a & b
20ml canna boost
1.5ml pond zyme

What are people's thoughts on this? Less is more? Seems like alot of nutes and additives required.

Sounds good to me.. How do you find the pondzyme? What are your roots like? What temps are your res? I seem to have more in mine..fulvic, amino,rhizotonic, budlink, dutch fest grow,dynagrow bloom..

I'm sure you've heard of pythium, your really going to need the silica and pond zyme during these hot summer months...don't forget 2 freeze large ice blocks ready to add to rez on those extreme days..it'll inhibit the reproduction of bad bacteria/pathogens?

Yeah the pondzyme works well as a cheap beneficial bacteria. Roots aren't completely white a little yellow staining from the nutes.
Temps are around 22 degrees (70f-73f) a little high but I don't want to invest in a chiller just yet. I'll see how my first dwc goes before splurging more cash.

I did follow rumbles dwc bucket grows where he had an average temp of 80f deg. With no chiller.
If you have seen his grows he gets some monster buds and no root rot with those temps. So we'll see how we go.

Good to hear, I've ordered some powdered pond zyme from the states.. What's the yellowing midway? Brief cal/mg deficiency? What ppm you sitting on? Could probably push the nitrogen a little harder?
22 is pretty good at this time of year..with single buckets your not going to need a chiller...just freeze cups or liter bottles if ice the night before... Helps the canopy be more resistant to high temps ...

Oh yeah powdered pomdzyme has added barley yeah? I found some here locally from "clear pond pomdzyme".
I had mg cal deficiency early on so started adding cal/mag to the mix. I'm pretty sure the yellowing started when I started foliar feeding with canna boost and rhizotonic. I could only manage to feed this way a couple of days until I saw some negative effects.
Fair to say I ditched foilar feeding after that.
I haven't used frozen bottles yet.
Ppm through veg was 700-800 now in flower 800-900 give or take.

I wasn't sure on the effects to the roots touching the ice. My buckets are pretty well insulated so keeping the temp low isn't too hard esp when you're topping off buckets every second day.

my guy from the shop has university degree in biology, he recommended it...I've done it for a few summers and havnt had any problems...the Ice melts down fairly quickly..better than risking a potential pythium outbreak...

Mate, you sound like you don't need any help, hope you run a journal to follow... Good luck!

Yeah cool whatever works for you. This is my first run in dwc after 10 years on and off in soil.
I'm not missing the fungus gnats and the runoff leaking through my tent, thats for sure!
It's been a bit of a learning curve/process getting used to changing/washing out buckets every week.
Being able to give your plants what they need when they need it is the biggest benefit of growing in hydroponics.
I'm loving it.

I'll try the ice bottles if the temperature creeps to high.
Sounds like they can take it.

Keep on growing

I2icho said:

Thanks for all the responses, I ended up buying localy some dutch master gold silica 1ltr for $30, added it into my water change with the first lot of flowering nutes.
Although I do feel im over doing things a bit, I thought with dwc less is more.

This is what goes into my buckets 15ltr
2ml tap conditioner
10ml cal mag
2ml silica
40ml canna flores a & b
20ml canna boost
1.5ml pond zyme

What are people's thoughts on this? Less is more? Seems like alot of nutes and additives required.

Click to expand...

I don't think you should really need a pk booster. With Dyna-Gro, you could most likely cut out the ca/mg, boost, and part B. If you decide to stick with hydro you could even mix up your own salts; quite a few growers around here do so, I'm sure it's pretty easy. Isn't most of that shit mined in Australia anyway?

I did the frozen water bottle thing on my last grow but I didn't like how the roots were exposed to that floating ice brick inside the buckets.

Now I put the 5 gallon buckets into 15 gallon totes filled halfway with water. I use 2 500ml frozen water bottles and change them about every 8-10 hours. It keeps my temps from 64.5 - 68`. Very rarely the temps go above 69.
I'm only running 3 buckets at a time so this makes sense.

"Let it be"

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"Let it be"

Why do you guys buy water + potassium silicate? Why not just buy potassium silicate?

Don't you all realize that water comes out of the faucet for basically free? It's not worth paying so much for.

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I have used the pondzyme for a few years now and it does great. As for adding ice, ice bottles made fine but i would never add anything that would change the makeup of the res.

I2icho said:

Yeah the pondzyme works well as a cheap beneficial bacteria. Roots aren't completely white a little yellow staining from the nutes.
Temps are around 22 degrees (70f-73f) a little high but I don't want to invest in a chiller just yet. I'll see how my first dwc goes before splurging more cash.

I did follow rumbles dwc bucket grows where he had an average temp of 80f deg. With no chiller.
If you have seen his grows he gets some monster buds and no root rot with those temps. So we'll see how we go.

Click to expand...

Looks like you are doing better now with the pondzyme!

Your mate?