flyingsteve
Well-Known Member
I'm really looking for some advice here so please read the whole post before you vote or comment.
I've been having trouble with growing in DWC for a good 8mo now. Every time I make an attempt at it either the rapid rooter plug gets too wet or I have pathogen problems, plus the damn containers leak from around the lid and overall this experience has been rather frustrating. Every time a plant wasn't gonna make it or was growing for weeks with little or no development, I would switch it in to soil. What I would get then is a day or two tops of stagnation, then the plant begins to grow crazy fast and I end up with a decent albeit small harvest. I use mostly fish/kelp fert with cal-mag, Great White Myco, SuperThrive, Pure Blend Organic Tea, etc in the soil grows with great results... I keep the DWC sterile with bleach (cal hypo) and DM Zone. Yet, I keep having problems with shitty plant development or pathogens or both. I use FloraNova Grow, Superthrive, and that's pretty much it. I keep it between 5.6-6ph and I use either RO water or a mix of RO/Tap and a chiller set to 70 +-1F. Don't say it's my temp or I'll digitally slap you. I've set the temp as low as 64 +-1f and still the same shit. well no shit, I had massive light leaks that I was unaware of. A few days ago I went out and bought new reservoir totes, this time I picked the Rubbermaid Roughneck's and I painted the SOB's with a few coats of spray paint and a bunch of coats on the lid, including 2 coats of navy blue followed by 2 thicker coats of flat white. This solution fixed the leaky lid problem from the other cheap ass totes and I thought it fixed the light leak issue but after a few days this past week of not much growth I thought wtf is going on? I popped out one of the air lines as this was the only place I could visibly see in to the reservoir with the lid completely on, and I noticed FUCKING LIGHT LEAKS AND THE LID HAD A NICE GLOW!!!!
OK, fuck it, I'm switching these plants to soil and doing all soil until I've in a better situation to solve this issue by using 5g buckets or something rather than stupid ass storage totes! But wait, if it's from light leaks, then maybe if I got rid of them the plants would start to grow? So since I had little time during the work week to do a soil transplant, I decided to get crazy and I took some Panda film (visqueen plastic sheeting...) that was pretty much the same size of my table so the plastic would completely over the lid and the edges and I cut the plant site holes out and put that down along with cutting out some over sized net pot covers from the plastic as well. I took a look back in the air line hole and saw no mahfucking (thanks JROC) light!! Yes, fuck, finally. This was on Wednesday night and now I see the 5 clones are looking nicer with new roots coming out and even the same is happening with the older veg'ing plant.
That's the history and here is the current situation...
I was going to start my soil transplant tonight and then turn that room in to a flowering room in about a week and just fill my table tent (6x3') with plants in 1.5g 8" tall pots, so about 18 plants. I know that this will be a reliable way of growing, which has given me good results before. However, I'm kinda like, eh, maybe I should keep the DWC with it's 6 plants going now and see this through? They're growing but will they keep growing? Or will I run in to another fucking problem, like if the chiller fails or some other crazy shit? I don't know, I guess I'm just feeling gun shy about the DWC and it's in a time when I really need my fucking plants to grow and come to fruition.
Or should I keep the DWC going? I've seen other people with soil grows with 1+gpw harvests and the plants seem to respond very well to the organics and beneficial's in soil.
Question: Should I stay the course of DWC in hopes of a larger yield, or should I go with the smaller but safe pretty much guaranteed method of soil? Which one may result in a more potent/flavorful yield?
Thanks for reading the long story! I'm stoned typing lol.
I've been having trouble with growing in DWC for a good 8mo now. Every time I make an attempt at it either the rapid rooter plug gets too wet or I have pathogen problems, plus the damn containers leak from around the lid and overall this experience has been rather frustrating. Every time a plant wasn't gonna make it or was growing for weeks with little or no development, I would switch it in to soil. What I would get then is a day or two tops of stagnation, then the plant begins to grow crazy fast and I end up with a decent albeit small harvest. I use mostly fish/kelp fert with cal-mag, Great White Myco, SuperThrive, Pure Blend Organic Tea, etc in the soil grows with great results... I keep the DWC sterile with bleach (cal hypo) and DM Zone. Yet, I keep having problems with shitty plant development or pathogens or both. I use FloraNova Grow, Superthrive, and that's pretty much it. I keep it between 5.6-6ph and I use either RO water or a mix of RO/Tap and a chiller set to 70 +-1F. Don't say it's my temp or I'll digitally slap you. I've set the temp as low as 64 +-1f and still the same shit. well no shit, I had massive light leaks that I was unaware of. A few days ago I went out and bought new reservoir totes, this time I picked the Rubbermaid Roughneck's and I painted the SOB's with a few coats of spray paint and a bunch of coats on the lid, including 2 coats of navy blue followed by 2 thicker coats of flat white. This solution fixed the leaky lid problem from the other cheap ass totes and I thought it fixed the light leak issue but after a few days this past week of not much growth I thought wtf is going on? I popped out one of the air lines as this was the only place I could visibly see in to the reservoir with the lid completely on, and I noticed FUCKING LIGHT LEAKS AND THE LID HAD A NICE GLOW!!!!
OK, fuck it, I'm switching these plants to soil and doing all soil until I've in a better situation to solve this issue by using 5g buckets or something rather than stupid ass storage totes! But wait, if it's from light leaks, then maybe if I got rid of them the plants would start to grow? So since I had little time during the work week to do a soil transplant, I decided to get crazy and I took some Panda film (visqueen plastic sheeting...) that was pretty much the same size of my table so the plastic would completely over the lid and the edges and I cut the plant site holes out and put that down along with cutting out some over sized net pot covers from the plastic as well. I took a look back in the air line hole and saw no mahfucking (thanks JROC) light!! Yes, fuck, finally. This was on Wednesday night and now I see the 5 clones are looking nicer with new roots coming out and even the same is happening with the older veg'ing plant.
That's the history and here is the current situation...
I was going to start my soil transplant tonight and then turn that room in to a flowering room in about a week and just fill my table tent (6x3') with plants in 1.5g 8" tall pots, so about 18 plants. I know that this will be a reliable way of growing, which has given me good results before. However, I'm kinda like, eh, maybe I should keep the DWC with it's 6 plants going now and see this through? They're growing but will they keep growing? Or will I run in to another fucking problem, like if the chiller fails or some other crazy shit? I don't know, I guess I'm just feeling gun shy about the DWC and it's in a time when I really need my fucking plants to grow and come to fruition.
Or should I keep the DWC going? I've seen other people with soil grows with 1+gpw harvests and the plants seem to respond very well to the organics and beneficial's in soil.
Question: Should I stay the course of DWC in hopes of a larger yield, or should I go with the smaller but safe pretty much guaranteed method of soil? Which one may result in a more potent/flavorful yield?
Thanks for reading the long story! I'm stoned typing lol.
