1st hydro grow Dinafem Roadrunner (auto)

Hi all,

this is my first hydro grow and third grow ever. I'll do a Roadrunner autoflowering from Dinafem (lowryder 1 x dinafem 1) which I got as a freebie from the attitude. I've been keeping a journal offline for about a week and I'll be posting it here entry by entry. Hopefully someone else will find this helpful. All comments welcome!

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Basics:

Drip system - General Hydroponics waterfarm standalone, 2 gal reservoir

Nutes - FloraMicro, FloraGro and FloraBloom combo. They came with the system

Light - CFL for the first week or so, then 400W hps

Water - unless otherwise specified distilled water from CVS pharmacy

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I don't have any pictures from the germination, so I'll just go over it briefly - I used jiffy substrate, the seed sprouted on the second day, I transplanted it on the 6th day.

It was about an inch and a half tall and had two real leafs starting.

The root of the plant was about 2.5 inches long. I hope I haven’t damaged it.

I put two gallons of distilled water and put in 5 ml of each nutrient. Initially the pH came in at something like 4.5. I poured over the pebbles and let it circulate for about 3 hours. Now the pH is closer to 6.

I think I managed to transplant the seedling properly. It is now on the balcony getting some sun with its new system. I plan to leave the pumps on all the time for now.

Pictures of the setup are attached.

here are the pics, sorry

Leave the pumps on all the time.Try and get your ph down to 5.8 and watch for slime growing in the bucket.They are not that light proof.

things are looking ok. The setup spent the night under the 25W CFL. There is miniscule growth - the true leafs are slightly bigger, there seems to be a small budding of second set of true leafs.

I have been pouring water from the drip right around the seedling. The root isn’t long enough to reach under the drip, although I have no idea how moisture spreads inside the pebbles.

ph last night was a little higher. Maybe 6.5 sharp. I need to see exactly how much work adjusting pH is going to be. This week is also not very informative as I am still using the very small concentrations for the “seedling” phase.

I also noticed that the water level has gone down an inch. I need to read up on exactly how that affects pH and stuff and how to replenish it.

Chances are I’ll have to bite the bullet and order pH up, down and PPM meter. bleh.

pH this morning is flat 6.5, water level is down easily an inch, it is a cloudy day with sunlight meter reading of 5.5-6 compared to 4.5-5 under the CFL bulb.


I noticed that the pump causes a lot of small droplets of water to end up on the leafs. I know that would be damaging in the sun. Today is a fully indoor day because its raining outside, but nevertheless I turned the pump off. Will turn it back on in a few hours.

I'm also noticing white residue on the pebbles. Looks like dried nutrients. Turning pumps back on.

Tonight pH is definitely over 7. Still less than 7.5. I’m concerned about letting this go overnight as it could easily end up at 8. Pharmacy is closed, so I have two options:

a) add some tap water to the reservoir.

b) add lemon juice to tap water before pouring in.

I’ll start with some amount of brita filtered tap water and lemon juice. I will let it sit for 30 minutes before re-measuring. Better to start with more juice and then dilute further. I will try to achieve 6.0 pH before pouring water in.

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Started with filtered water. pH is 6-6.5

Straight lemon juice pH is below 3

a few drops of lemon juice in 1 qt of filtered water - pH is upper 3s

pour away 75% of the filtered water, refill with filtered - pH is low 6

will wait at least 10 minutes and re-test

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Still in the low 6’s although slightly lower than before. Poured it into the plant at the corner that’s farthest from the root. Also added another quart of filtered water. The reservoir is now at the recommended 2 gallon level. Will retest in 15 minutes or so? Maybe more.

There is definitely nutrient burn on one of the leafs. However, the growth appears insanely vigorous. liquid keeps splashing on top of the leafs, so the pumps go off for a while.

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Final test for the night - pH as coming from the drip is 6.5-7 closer to 7

Today pH is about 7. There’s definite nutrient burn on both leafs. It doesn’t show very clearly in the picture but its there.

I emptied half of the container and replaced it with a gallon of distilled water. That should cut the nute concentration in half. I moved the setup outside in the sun and the leafs have perked up.


Will test pH shortly and update.

I turned the CFL light off and left it off overnight. I’m hoping that will slow down the absorption of nutrients and alleviate the burn.

This morning I noticed the water from the drip is getting the leafs very wet. They were hanging very low and the plant looked like it was dying. I dried them out with a paper towel and turned the pumps off for a few hours. Also, I emptied half of the reservoir and filled it up with filtered tap water. I poured the water over the pebbles to give a chance to the plant to drink some water w/o nutrients for a while. The reservoir should not contain 1/4th of the original nutrient strength.

Attached below is a picture after about 3 hours with the pumps off, the leafs have perked up a little:


Turning the pumps back on just to get the pebbles wet. Will dry the plant again and turn them off again. pH is up to 7 again, and it won’t be a few days until my pH adjusters arrive so I’ll be improvising with lemon juice until then.

Question to anyone reading this - should I completely flush the system and put the plant on 100% water regime to get rid of this burn? If so, for how long?

I moved the pebbles around and built small mounds right under the drip holes. Now the water will not splash and get the leaves wet. I let it run for a few hours and it worked - the leaves are dry.

At the moment the plant seems to be doing slightly better. I am not adding any lemon juice and keeping the light off overnight. I am contemplating flushing the nutrient completely and just running water through the plant.

The setup is out in the sun and the leafs have perked up. Haven’t checked pH as there is absolutely nothing I can do about it for at least a few days.

why was there nutes this early?

grape swisha said:

why was there nutes this early?

Click to expand...

Well, I just wanted to follow the instructions that came with the nute package. They prescribed some feeding for the seedling stage. Also, its day 6 since transplanting, so its day 12 since germination. Is it not ok to use nutes at that time?

Kaban said:

Well, I just wanted to follow the instructions that came with the nute package. They prescribed some feeding for the seedling stage. Also, its day 6 since transplanting, so its day 12 since germination. Is it not ok to use nutes at that time?

Click to expand...

no nutes during seedling stage man. its cool just give it straight water for now. everybody makes mistakes.

No nutes for the first two weeks for a seedling. During this time you will notice very little change in the plant, just keep doing what you are doing. At week three you will probably be seeing the third set of leaves on the plant maturing--here you want to start to introduce nutrients at a very low level. If the instructions say 2 tsp per gallon, start with just 2 tsp in your entire reservoir and wait a day. Slowly tick this up and in week 4 you might be close to what the label says to add. Take it slow and easy in the early days. If the plants show any stress at all, remove some of the nutrient water and replace it with spring water.

Thanks for the responses. The plant is doing much better today. I haven't completely flushed, but the nutrient strength is something like 1/8th of what says on the bottle. Two days from now (beginning of 3rd week) I'll up it to 1/2.

I think apart from reducing the nutrient what made biggest difference was that the leafs are no longer getting wet. They used to get soaked from splashes from the drip system.

I'll be posting pictures every day.

startin to look better

grape swisha said:

startin to look better

Click to expand...

Yeah, looking better. The setup is out in the sun today. You can't see it with the resolution of this photo, but there are dried nutrient salts on the older set of leaves. The new leaves are also brighter shade of green. Probably cause there are no nutes in the system now.

Pic from today:

I got a freebie Dinafem Roadrunner seed as well. Threw it in some soil. Should be interesting to see how it does in a hydro setup... subscribed

subscribed! Gonna be fly-on-the-wall-ing

At T+0 I replaced the solution in the container with two gallons of distilled water, in which was mixed 5 ml of each nutrient. pH came in at 4.5 like the first time, but was easily adjusted with some ph Up.

T+4:00

I made ph down and up solutions. Each solution has a little less than 1 gal filtered tap water and 1 tsp of respective concentrate.

pH seems to have drifted up significantly to upper 6. I have already put 15 x 5ml dropfuls from the ph Down solution and it has not made a dent.

I should also note that pH measured different when tested in the drain tube. It was noticeably lower.

T+4:56 - hmm maybe there is a slight change of spectrum. I will wait 10 more minutes, retest and attempt with 16 droplets. The battle continues

T+5:12 - added 8 droplets instead of planned 16. There was definite improvement in the pH. Will wait 10 minutes.

T+5:34 - pH still nowhere near. Adding 75 ml as measured with a measuring cup instead of the dropper

T+5:50 - pH closer to 6.5 than to 7. Adding 150 ml

T+6:21 - pH very close 6.5 Adding 300 ml

T+6:28 I should test the pH in the drain tube. It was slightly over 6 before intervention.

T+6:50 pH in drain tube normal, ph on drip still high. 600 ml

T+7:09 pH finally 6.5 maybe slightly less

T+8:00 6.3-6.4ish. I’m feeling more confident, will monitor.

Total solution added to 2 gal tank is 1.2l = rufly 1/3 gal

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I’m contemplating taking the hydro system out of the equation and preparing 1 gal of solution and leaving it in the bottle, testing pH periodically. This way I can narrow the reason for pH drift.

Daily picture:
View attachment 499141

I doubled the amount of nutes today. There is now 5 ml/gal of each nutrient. pH initially went down to 4.5 but shortly after stabilized between 6-6.5. I suspect it will be slightly higher tomorrow.

The plant really took off today. I'm thinking about moving it under the HPS in the very near future.