Seedling Day 10, and something is going wrong ?

DaveT

Member
I'm now wondering if I should lower the bucket water to keep the roots from submerging themselves, or let them continue to grow into the water in the larger net pot ?
 

futurebanjo

Well-Known Member
I'm now wondering if I should lower the bucket water to keep the roots from submerging themselves, or let them continue to grow into the water in the larger net pot ?

I'd do nothing for now... the roots will find the water and grow down into it by themselves, and take care of themselves and grow accordingly, all other things being equal.

The roots look full and a good colour, so keep a steady ship, dont' try to fix something that isn't broken.

Once the plants and roots get bigger and fatter, maybe...but my advice whilst they are still quite delicate would be "don't rock the boat" just now.
 

DaveT

Member
I'd do nothing for now... the roots will find the water and grow down into it by themselves, and take care of themselves and grow accordingly, all other things being equal.

The roots look full and a good colour, so keep a steady ship, dont' try to fix something that isn't broken.

Once the plants and roots get bigger and fatter, maybe...but my advice whilst they are still quite delicate would be "don't rock the boat" just now.
Yes, good advice, I am real good at "rocking the boat"... which pretty much killed my last three grows.
The only two things that I have in the plans right now are to introduce AC into the tent in order to raise my humidy without exhausting humidity as I exhaust heat. I am also planning on introduce CO2 into the chamber environment.
 

Griffon

Well-Known Member
I my opinion you should not try to fix the situation with a mixture of nutrients or other stuff, flush your water, change it, and clean your whole system, and then you should use ONLY PH Perfect A/B or G/M/B and rooting stuff for the whole VEG. The less stuff you use the better the plant will be. The water level should be always under the wooden part of the plant and you should train the plant to make ''dry'' roots in the net pot and couple inches before the water level. What kind of lamp do you use ??
 

DaveT

Member
I my opinion you should not try to fix the situation with a mixture of nutrients or other stuff, flush your water, change it, and clean your whole system, and then you should use ONLY PH Perfect A/B or G/M/B and rooting stuff for the whole VEG. The less stuff you use the better the plant will be. The water level should be always under the wooden part of the plant and you should train the plant to make ''dry'' roots in the net pot and couple inches before the water level. What kind of lamp do you use ??
So you would suggest lowering the water level as the plants root ball gets larger? I change the water weekly when I change the nutrients out. I Light 19 on, 5 off (Kind LED), set at 75% which is ~600 mmol, at top of plant. The roots in the picture are just touching the water level since they continue to grow. 95% of the roots are above the water level, so I guess they would be the "dry" or air roots you mention.
 

DaveT

Member
I still wonder... are the roots not wanting to grow down into the water because ultra-fine hair-like roots may get beat up by the air bubble agitation?? just wondering ??
 

Griffon

Well-Known Member
The roots really love the bubbles. I always put like 5 or 6 airstones for best result.
So you would suggest lowering the water level as the plants root ball gets larger? I change the water weekly when I change the nutrients out. I Light 19 on, 5 off (Kind LED), set at 75% which is ~600 mmol, at top of plant. The roots in the picture are just touching the water level since they continue to grow. 95% of the roots are above the water level, so I guess they would be the "dry" or air roots you mention.
The dry part will come with time at weeks 5-6-7, I use 6 inch net pot and i maintain the water level just under the net-pot to force the roots to grow down, inside the net-pot are the future ''dry part'' and the roots are invisible until 10-14 days, your setup is very different, because the plant have to struggle more at the first weeks to make roots in the direct water. what kind of ''net-pot'' do you use ??
 

smokey0418

Well-Known Member
The H2O2 level at ~25~75 ppm, would make it sterile to some degree.
Empty but not quite sterile.

You definitely have an odd one.

Your approach is quite different than mine so all I could do is give is just things I have seen in the past .

For the first couple weeks I would run 200ppfd and then once the roots hit water I would gradually 20 a day , work up to 300.

I run photos not autos and when I make my first planting I would have nutes at .8ec .

I run Ro water so .36 ec calmag and the rest a@b.

Too much bubbling will definitely make a plant shy of the water.
So that would be kept to a minimum, your dwc so you have no choice, me rdwc so I just do no stones for now and waterfalls and sprays do the rest.

I would run run into my pot maybe and inch under my planting.

Root and plant should seamlessly just keep growing into the water .

I know your plant looks, well let’s say good , but if I was a betting person I would say something is going on in that ball.
Good or bad, personally with no roots to the water that’s bad imho and would inoculate it in some way to make it start performing.

Enjoy your grow.
 

DaveT

Member
I moved the bubble disk to the side. Oxygen in the water is great, mainly due to 69 degrees, so moving the bubbler won't hurt anything, and I'll see if the roots like the water more. The root ball actually has the seedling pod engulfed which makes it appear much darker than the way the actually roots look.
 

Delps8

Well-Known Member
Plants grow roots to anchor the plant and to take up water, and are used to exchange chemicals with the grow medium. If roots are not in the grow medium, they are not able to function as roots.

I believe that was @Griffon is saying is that the water level should be a couple of inches below the net pot. I would not drop my water level that low since you have so few roots. Perhaps, if I weren't to keep my water levels "up", it would drop that low but I can't think of a reason to intentionally not have as much of the root ball in the water as possible.

My advice - raise the water level until it's about ½" below the net pot. That's the advice that I was given by the company from which I bought my tent and it seems sound.

From my most recent grow:

First day in the res - 11/15/23

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Day 8 in the res - 11/23/23. The plant on the right was culled a few days later because of poor growth.

1723318115219.jpeg

Left
1723318038496.jpeg

Right
1723318139642.jpeg
 

DaveT

Member
If I was to consider the small seedling pot my "net pot", then keeping it ~ 1/2" above the water level is what I have been doing. At the beginning of this post the consensus was that I was essentially drowning the plant because I had the water level higher. The root ball has continued to grow and thicken over the past two weeks, but they just aren't wanting to dive into the water and continue to grow vigorously. I figured the agitation of the air stone bubble, being directly under the plant may have kept the roots at bay, so I move the air stone disk to the side of the pail yesterday.
 

Griffon

Well-Known Member
The training must be done when the roots are fully developed. At this point even if the water level drop to 20% the plant is okay. With early roots the level must be higher everyday all day but under the wooden part of the plant/seeds.

20 dayz in flower : ( the roots look brownish because of the flash of the camera ) the top is totally dry, at this point in DWC the perfect water level is under the dry roots or 75% of the 5GAL bucket, the popping bubble will maintain a perfect environment. The 2gal bucket are very efficient for the roots build up in veg, if you start your plants directly in 5Gal the roots will be stretchy and weak for all the grow.

DSCF3282.JPG
 
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DaveT

Member
So when you fill the bucket above, do you put the water level totally covering all the grow pot windows,, or even higher.
 

Griffon

Well-Known Member
So when you fill the bucket above, do you put the water level totally covering all the grow pot windows,, or even higher.
When i water the water is on the netpot level, the plant drink the whole bucket in 24 hours or so, so the level is never the same.
 
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