My First DWC Grow w/ Short Rider from Nirvana

I currently have 10 seeds germinating in a small rockwool cube going on day 2 1/2. So far only 5 have sprouted. The other 5 show no signs of life just yet. Already have the signs of two small leaves. ( not the first two that grow but the actual leaf, if that makes sense) So I will be putting those in tomorrow.

I was unable to do it today, and hope it is not going to hurt the chances of surviving. because I had silicone ( used for aquariums, which is fish safe) applied for the drainage valve I installed on the bottom. That way come time to change water it be so easy.

I will supply pics as soon as I get a decent camera.

OK I got some pics but now I cant get the dam site to upload them.. Its stalling when it says uploading pics...for a very long time.

Ok these are the pics of my container in which I will be using for DWC method. I have (2) 10 gallon totes. at the bottom, as pic shows, I have installed a drain valve for easy drainage.

I spray painted these using flat black and doing 2-3 coats. Then I wrapped heavy duty aluminium foil wrapped around secured using foil like tape ( AC tape) I also covered the lids as well so that no light be able to go thru container.

So I cleaned out the closet, removed all the old skeletons. I applied some home defense to keep the bugs away.

I then used a adhesive spray and applied mylar to the walls. Up top is a make shift frame for my T5 lights and 400 HPS to hang from.

On the bottom, I covered the carpet with the panda film, obviously with white side up.

The room is apx 5X4X8 with only 7 ' of height being used for growing.

For nutes , I will be using the Fox Farms Line of nutes.

For lighting: I have 8 X 54W T5 7 6500k 1 3000k
400 W HPS Cool Tube

For Odor control I have a Pro 70 Carbon Activated filter and during flowering I will be using ona gel for extra security.

For ventilation control I have a Can fan 8 inch flange. It is really big and get the job done. I am going to have to build a makeshift box to keep the sound down.

I will be using (2) 10" air stones for each tote. I was also able to utilize hole in the tote where handle is so that. I will securing them with fishing weights

I have two tetra whisper pumps to pump air into them.

Here are some of the seeds that have already sprouted. At day 2 1/2. Do you guys think it be a problem if they stay there in that container until the silicone drys on those totes.

I currently have the nets and the right amount of Hydroton rocks ( already washed out at least 6 times) in Ph adjusted water. Which reminds me that I need to soak the air stones too. lol.... Almost forgot to do that.

I hope I have the formula saved for using fox farms nutes, as I dont want to over do it seeing how this is my first hydro grow. I am hoping everything turns out great with it too, as I invested a lot of money and now I am broke lol.

I plan to have the lights on once they are in dwc containers for 18/6 as recommended for these seeds.

Although some have had problems with these seeds and not autoflowering I am going to try to grow as it says to do with these seeds.

A big shout out to Roseman for the pics and inspiring idea of rigging a kitchen sink sprayer to my garden house. I went to Home depot and bought the fittings so that I would still be able to use my garden house outside. This is a good idea to utilize, as it is more efficient to bring clean water into your reservoir and clean out anything that is unwanted. This is also good to hook up to a sink inside house, as it look awkward with a garden house going into house.

with the drainage valves installed on these totes, it be so easy to clean out containers and drain out. Asssuming that it is water proof. After 4 hours of curing, i tested one of them and it started leaking. The silicone directions says it needs 48 hours of curing before water can be directly in contact with it. I only did this to see if I did a poor job at sealing, and I did, so I added much more generous amount. I will leave them over night and give it 24 hours before I make the Dwc, as these seedlings needs to get the roots establish and up and running.

Bump....will fishing weights harm my water at all? I was concerned as it is made up with lead. Just dont want to kill my self or the plants...

OK so after long hard work.... I finally got em into the DWC/bubbleponics.

I was unable to get the other tote up and running because there was a leak near the drain valve, so I had to reseal it, which takes at least 48 hours to cure.

So I guess I will part soil and DWC. Since I already had a whole bag of Fox Farms Ocean forest sitting in my room.

I decided to go green and re use the baggie my dogs treats came in. It seemed light proof and just the right size for the plant. I still have four more waiting to sprout. I also took another one that already sprouted and placed that in a small cup, which will need re potting within week or two.

As for nutes go , I put in 7 gallons of water and 8 1/4 tsp of grow big. I hope that is not over kill, I should of done 7 1/4 tsp instead. oh well. Anyways please let me know if I am doing anything wrong as this is my first dwc grow.

Bump?

Seriously.... I thought I have more input on this by now...

Will the lead be a issue for the water?

As well is there anything I am missin in the equation, that I may need to add?

smartguy345 said:

So I guess I will part soil and DWC. Since I already had a whole bag of Fox Farms Ocean forest sitting in my room.

Anyways please let me know if I am doing anything wrong as this is my first dwc grow.

Click to expand...

You are using soil in a DWC? and adding nutes?

Do a straight hydro or maybe do a drip line on some soil.

Use the soil outside.

Lead weights aren't really lead are they.

For seedlings/sprouts, I would've gone 1/4 strength for nutes to start off with. I'm using fox farm as well and I still saw some slight nute burn at 1/4 strength.

iI GUESS WE TALKED ABOUT A WEEK AGO LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD SETUP IM STILL WAITING TO GET MY STUFF HAVING MONEY PROBLEMS GOING TO HOME BUILD MOST OF MY STUFF IM GOING TO BUILD 2 150S I GUESS ILL SEE HOW GOOD I AM AT RIGGING STUFF HERE ARE PICS OF MY SHORT RIDERS I DONT THINK THE LEAD WEIGHTS WILL HURT

smartguy345 said:

Bump....will fishing weights harm my water at all? I was concerned as it is made up with lead. Just dont want to kill my self or the plants...

Click to expand...

I see you've done your homework. Everything looks good. Just a couple points to note. No, lead fishing weights will be fine to use. Most of us do.

You might go to the hardware store and get a couple rubber washers for the drain valve. Don't depend on the sealant to hold, it probably won't. It won't for very long. Put some teflon plumbing tape on the threaded end also.

You need to REMOVE the plastic wrap from those Rockwool cubes. Don't breath in the fibers, they are not healthy.

Go 24/0 when you see the heads pop thru...than 1/4 nutes only after the first set of real leaves show, then add 1/4 in another 2 days then the other 1/2 a couple days leter. Go to the Fox Farm suite and look at their feeding schedule for hydroponics. (they have one for soil grows as well)

You're NOT going to use soil anywhere near your hydro system, are you?
Don't do that. If you're transplanting from soil to hydro, be sure and rinse off ALL the dirt from the roots first.

Guys and gals, pretty sure the OP is running one DWC tub and soil for the rest as only one of his/her DWC tubs ended up not leaking.

So I believe that s/he is doing strictly DWC for a coupla plants and strictly soil for the remaining.

As for the fishing weights, not a problem - as HGH said, it's pretty common.

Good luck.

Nice color .. nice dark green.

No I agree I read several topics about fox farm, and I am using 1/4 tsp per gallon as stated in my previous post.

As for the other question, no I am doing soil grow using ff ocean soil, and dwc. I am doing both because my other container had a leak and I had to transplant those plants quick.

I still have plenty of work to do. As for the the drip method I am going to try without it as I heard good things just using air stones. once the roots are in the water I should be good. I filled the tote up with 7 GALLONs of ph balanced water. The Net cups have about a inch of standing water at bottom, so the roots will already be submerged into the water.

I will include some more pics and update on plants. Everything seems to be working fine, with exception of a slight heat issue. which I am not to concerned about as winter is around corner. Anyways thanks for your guys responses to my lead weights.

HomeGrownHairy said:

I see you've done your homework. Everything looks good. Just a couple points to note. No, lead fishing weights will be fine to use. Most of us do.

You might go to the hardware store and get a couple rubber washers for the drain valve. Don't depend on the sealant to hold, it probably won't. It won't for very long. Put some teflon plumbing tape on the threaded end also.

You need to REMOVE the plastic wrap from those Rockwool cubes. Don't breath in the fibers, they are not healthy.

Go 24/0 when you see the heads pop thru...than 1/4 nutes only after the first set of real leaves show, then add 1/4 in another 2 days then the other 1/2 a couple days leter. Go to the Fox Farm suite and look at their feeding schedule for hydroponics. (they have one for soil grows as well)

You're NOT going to use soil anywhere near your hydro system, are you?
Don't do that. If you're transplanting from soil to hydro, be sure and rinse off ALL the dirt from the roots first.

Click to expand...

Thanks a bunch, I will need to remove the plastic from the rockwool.

As for the drainage valve I dont know how that would work. As it is leaking where i installed a part of the drainage valve. I will show you a bettter pic of what I am working with so that I can understand how I would use a seal.

What I did and it seemed to work for the other one, is I bought marine grade silicone, that doesnt hurt fishes

^^^ Speaking of which i paid arm and a leg, would reg. silicone would of work? I just did not want any thing toxic in my tub. It really seems to work with the one I already have after putting on alot of it on both sides. I already have teflon tape on the threaded sides.

Ok WILL I have problems if I dont take that plastic off of the rockwool cube before it goes in dwc?

I ask this because I had left them on, and I did not want to disturb the grow rocks and possibly injure the newborn.

So far there is some signs of growth in my seedling box. One seed had signs of mold, so I am going to throw that one out, which explains the smell. I dont want to take any chances and have it affect other plants, it was very very small, something that could of been easily been overlooked. but i have worked with mold before and knew.

I have not watered the plant that is in the soil and I am fixing to do that with just regular ph balanced water. I am doing this because I am using fox farms ocean forest soil mixed with perlite.

Here are the pics and today is offically Day 1 of my newborns.

Yea mine is slow at uploading pics i just upload one at a time when i try to do all at once i get a message security token missing

OK here is more pics.... I believe this is day 2... if memory serves correct. The first pic, the leaves grew alot bigger then the other ones. So far so good, no signs of nute burn at all. Looks like i put in just enough!

Anyways the two soils ones, I actually water today for the first time, although I should of did yesterday, I was just to lazy n tired.

As for the seeds in the cube, which is a total of four now, only one is showing signs of sprouting.

Although it says to keep it on a 18/6 cycle, as of now I have it on 24/0. I am hoping that be to much of a problem, although I plan going to 18/6 within a week. As well as installing the 400 w hps cool tube.
I will continue to keep you posted.