MY DWC GROW Q? Thread- Please help- I have a new Q? daily

[Dustybowlz]

I am new here and new to growing.

I should have put my journal in here. If you have any questions of my set up please refer to my journal. I have asked a lot of questions over there and although people are reading my journal, Im not getting any questions answered. I would rather not make a bunch of threads. I am DWC so I believe my question should be in this sub-forum.



-MY SETUP-
*3g buckets for veg (Has own air pump)
*5g buckets for flower (has own air pump)
*No Rez
*Hydroton medium
*Well water ppm 200
*Advanced nutrients
*Cheap-0 dropper style ph meter ATM
*ph up and ph down
*hanna ppm meter (w/ calibration solution)



Here are my DWC bubbleponic questions.

Thes questions can be found on this thread
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/394853-going-overboard-first-grow-first.html

Trying to Decide on 18/6 or 24/0 for veg

Do you guys have any input on this SPECIFICALLY to DWC.

QUESTIONS

-My well water has a ppm of 200, should I use this with out nutes OR distilled with nutes. OR Does it matter? I dont quite think the "recomended" dosages I have been given are near full strength, probably around 1/4 strength and I have been using half that.
-Is a ppm of 200 too high (to start with) for hydroponics, specifically bouble buckets?

The origional thread said 230 ppm and for some reason it only read that with a friends ppm meter when I made the origional post. I got my own and calibrated it and its steady 200ppm, thats why I altered it for this thread. What sort of things am I looking for to be a negative side affect of using water with alreay 200ppm of "somthing" in it.

-CLONER-

-After I ran the cloner for about a week of testing I tore it apart and cleaned it VERY VERY WELL.
-I filled it with only (per everyones recomendation) my well water that is has 200ppm
-I phed my water to 6.3-6.5
-Water temp stays at 74-76 consistant
-Room temp is 75-78 consistant
-Light is 24/0
-I left the 2 clones I cut last week even though I dont think they will root (I tried my well water and 1/4 strength olivias liquid cloning solution and my ppm was 400 and they burned a little).
-I cut 4 clones off of GG1, I used the under water cut method 3/4" under a node and tore the node down to take some skin with it.
-I cut 2 small clones off of GG2 that didnt have exposed nodes to tear skin so I took a razor and cut/split the stem in half (as found in my new MARIJUANA HORTICULTURE BOOK), all was performed under water.
-Clones were then dipped in olivias cloning gell (not to completely cover the stems, but to pack rooting hormone into the wounds as I know this will get sprayed off and just cycle in my aero cloner)
-Clones were moved into cloner on 12/31/2010

Does this sound right? I know I know, its aeroponic, wrong subforum.

-JOURNAL ENTRY-

-TODAY WAS HUGE-

-I recieved 4 ROOTED clones today (2x grape god, 1x Pineapple Express, 1x OG Kush) from the same person I got my last clones from. These ones were cut on 12/14/2010
-They were rooted in root shooters and moved to party cups w/ (what looks to be) 50/50 perlite/soil.


-SOIL TO HYDRO TRANSPLANT-

-I filled a gallon bowl with luke warm water
-I removed party cup and sat clone/soil into bowl
-Using a pump I held an air hose to make bubbles under plant to gently loosen the soil around the roots.
-I was able to remove 100% of soil but the root shooter is still on there.
-I filled 1" in a net pot with hydroton
-I held the plant and filled around it w/ hydroton
-I watered the hydroton so it wasnt dry.
-I mixd up some nutes and tossed em in my veg room.

-NOW I HAVE-
-Grape god 1 (soil)
-Grape god 2 (soil)
-Grape god 3 (DWC)
-Grape god 4 (DWC)
-Pinaple Express (DWC)
-OG KUSH (DWC)

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At first I let my two soil clones get to big to feel comfortable transplanting them from soil to hydro (this is my first grow) so was going to use one for a mother and flower the other. NOW that I have the 2 grape god strain in DWC (its been just over 24 hours and roots are poking through net pots on GG 3 DWC and GG 4 DWC!) Im thinking I should flower thise over vegged GG's in soil asap and get on with my DWC business, What do u think?

Originally Posted by Common0ne
Nice journal you have here so far Dustybowlz

I love your setup; very clean, everything looks well built, and this is definitely going to last you for the years to come. Thanks! It was alot of work

Few questions for you- why do you cut the leaves from your clones..? I believe this will just further the amount of stress being given out, decrease foliage and resulting with light over less leaves which would only slow down growth..but I guess you might have your reasoning... I read two books recently, The cannabis grow bible and marijuana horticulture. When I recieved my clones the leaves were trimmed (as u see in the photos). From what ive read, you WANT leave to intake sunlight but too large of leaves REQUIRE lots of water/energy. The book states if you trim the leaves you benefit from the intake of sunlight AND you lessen the amount of water and energy the plant uses to keep them healthy. I dont have enough experence either way, but I do know the clones can yellow durring the "rooting" process and this is normal. I can only guess this "yellowing" is the plant taking away its energy from the leaves and putting them to the rooting process.... Fight or flight. Ive also read you can slow this yellowing process down if you folliar feed. But this is bad, becuase you have to think, in fight or flight mode it searches for water/food where its been trained to, its roots. If you foliar feed, you slow that process down because its already getting food and isnt in a rush to look for more resources. BUT AGAIN, I have no experience to back any of it up.

Input- I am not much of a "active user" on this site but I do like to read lots and lots of information about cannabis so I believe that I have a moderate amount of knowledge under my belt; just not much experience yet, but im working on that atm! This is me exactly, I normally dont post in web forums because I dont need to, I gather the info and do alot of research. This hobby is a little different because it isnt exactly a "dinner conversation" and since there are many ways "not to fail" I like to do it right the first time, a little anal.... People tell me I am. Thanks again for contributing!!

1. Try not to get your nutrient/water solution on your leaves...this will cause your leaves to burn due to the low pH/ should b around 5.5-6, but if you have at least a nice breeze around the grow than a few drops is fine as it will dry up on it's own.
I actually already learned this the hard way. My wife and I assumed they would be more brancy (vs bushy) and we potted them too low in the pot. It is a PITA not to get nute solution on the leaves. We learned and changed our watering techniques to fix this. But if we do, I rince it by misting the crap out of the leaves. It dries fast as I have (what I think to be) proper ventilation.

2. DWC= hydroponics=lay off the NUTES!!! Usually use only 1/2 the recommended dose from the manufacture.. I started with my DWC yesterday so I started with 1/4 strength and it brings my well water up to 300 ppm. I feel this is low but I dont have roots out of the net pot yet and I figure I will change the water as soon as roots poke out? and b sure to maintain healthy ppm levels,I think I am going to start around 400-500ppm when I change my water? Then move to half strength on start of week 2? Or? Still not sure yet, must read plant. healthy pH levels; I have read to keep my bubble buckets in the 5.8-6.3? Does this sound about right? Is it really bad if it gets up to 6.5ish range for short amount of time? as I stated b4, empty your reservoir at least every week, Each individual bucket is its own individual rex at this moment. I know 2 people (although I dont want there help) very successfully using this method and LOVE the results. I have extra buckets and just swap them out when I change nutes. When I add I just add to the bucket. Maintenance is high on this grow but will change methods on next grow with more experience. good temp 75F-80F This sounds too high for water temps so you must mean air temps. I have soo much adjustment due to my oversized cfm fans that I can adjust it from 70-95 (yes co2 and ventilation timers/seal room setup will be later down the line), and RH doesn't make a big difference from what I have been reading; as long as it is like 20-25% your fine. I always stay around 40-49% RH in the veg room but havnet played in the flower room much yet but I dont see a problem. The only worry I have is low humidity due to the cold temps we have from dec-feb. It has lowered to 35% for the past 3 days.. I do have a heater on a tstat though. It keeps my temps from dropping to low at any point durring the day (yes I modded it and removed the "power on" led's AND bought one that doesnt emit any other light.

Final words: dude man..your fine, for the amount of effort you put in it's almost impossible 4 u 2 fail..as long as you don't do anything irrational to hurt your plants; your golden. peace Im getting really confident in almost everything right now except cloning and mixing nutes/what water to use. I really want to use my well water with no issues but I need to figure out if it has too high of levels of sodium.

n if u still wana learn Plant Moisture Stress - symptoms and solutions read ur plants n know what they want..not every single one is the same, some will want more n sum less..
sub'd+ good luck!
Both this and reading journals were the origional things that brought me to RIU, it works great but I really like having my two books The cannabis grow bible and marijuana Horticulture on hand to go over things. I can honestly say I learned more from reading them then hours and hours of the internet.

New Grower, Common0ne

Anyone want to touch on anything here?

I made a new thread for this question
https://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubbleponics/397224-first-week-veg-dwc-top.html

I am new to DWC and there are a lot of conflicting information. After you pull your rooted clones out and put into hydroton/net pot.

How do you feed them for the first week of Veg?

TOP FEED through net pot

OR

RAISE WATER LEVEL to bottom of net pot and adjust acordingly?

I chose to raise the water level (although I have only 24 hours experience with DWC at this point) but now I cant control my ph? It was at about 5.5-6 and in an hour it rased to 7. I adjusted it and let it set 3 hours, it was back at 7. It doesnt matter how much ph down I add it goes right back to 7, doesnt go higher? @ 6:00 tonight I was thinking of changing out the water in all the buckets and lowering the level to about 1/4" under the net pot and let the air stone splash water up in the net pot. Three questions, 1) Does this sound right or do what do I do? I didnt pre soak my hydroton in water ph'ed to 5-5.5 over night (didnt ever read it was required) and 2) Do I still need to "top feed" untill roots are poking out OR will bubbles+ humidity be sufficient? 3) What is the CORRECT water level for the first week of veg?

So I phed some regualr water and tossed it in to raise my level.

I checked my ph and it was 6-6.5

I checked it an hour later and its at 7.....Is this to be expected? Or does it depend on my water/mineral content/buffer abilities?

This goes back on an earlier question about my 200ppm well water.

Going back to questions on my journal

-JOURNAL ENTRY-

-I raised the water level to 1/4" into the net pots
-Before and after the soil to hydro transplant they never one time looked stressed or droopy. Makes me happy!
-I noticed GG#3 has roots already poking out! thats like 15 hours!
-I noticed the two clones I cut 7 days ago looking really unhappy so I looked down below. The smaller one has two roots and the bigger one has 3x white nubs. SWEET! I really didnt think after what I put them through they would do anything.


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Roots are popping out of both GG in DWC now but there out of the sides of the pot, NOT the bottom yet. Should this be sign for "change in water level"? or am I looking for roots out of the bottom of net pot?





In closing I would like to add if you made it through this list I greatly thank you, I am a noob and my cuttings wer all $20ea and I dont want to just throw money away. I thought my prior testing was sufficient but as the real world goes you always have issues your first time around.

Will REP for help

 

[Dustybowlz]

@ 6:00 tonight I was thinking of changing out the water in all the buckets and lowering the level to about 1/4" under the net pot and let the air stone splash water up in the net pot. Three questions, 1) Does this sound right or do what do I do? I didnt pre soak my hydroton in water ph'ed to 5-5.5 over night (didnt ever read it was required) and 2) Do I still need to "top feed" untill roots are poking out OR will bubbles+ humidity be sufficient? 3) What is the CORRECT water level for the first week of veg?

Will REP for help

This is my most time sensitive question, 6:00 is 4 hours away

 

[Dustybowlz]

-NEW INFORMATION-
*Straight out of the tap my well water is 6.8-7.0r
*If I let my well water sit over night it stays at 6.8-7.0
*If I let my well water sit for 3 days stale it stays at 6.8-7.0
*My well water has been in my cloner for a few days now, Its make up is well water+ph down+any run off of cloning gell from stems of cuttings, At first the ph was set to 6.0 and its about 6.3-6.5 now. This leads me to believe that neither my well water(alone) or wellwater+airation are causing my ph fluctuation issues in my DWC buckets. Now It may not be causing it, but it could still potentially cause issues to my buffer in any nutes I have right?

Is it bad to top off with different water?
Like since I have well water in there is it bad to top off with somthing like distilled or RO so I dont change the ppm too much?