My first grow in dwc !!!

K well i posted a previous thread about problems. well i think i have solved the issues and am going to keep a journal here. i am in week 6 of veg. due to the short size of my plant. and i am giving her time to get her roots back in the water. after i chopped them all off.cause they were turning brown. which now i think might have been a lil hasty.i thought it was root rot, but from the cases ive seen on here of root rot, it def wasnt. but never the less..roots seem to be coming back strong. but not quite in the water yet. so ill keep her in veg. i am growing a ww- northern lights . i got a hold of some feminized seeds. i am growing under a 400w mh. with 1 grow and 1 veg 65 w cfl.and some side lighting and plan to use that setup all the way through. cant afford a hps. currently i am not working.and making due with what i can afford.i got the mh for free.so air temp is 74 and humidity is 50% , res is 65. i have a 4 inch bubble disk and 2, 5" inch sticks. i thought my ph was always around 6.0 but i just figured out the other day my ph meter shit the bed.i am getting a new one tomorrow. and i use the fox farm trio here are some pics let me know what you think.. from what i see from all my fellow bubble heads my shit looks pathetic !!

Give it a little time to get over the root prob, if those nutes are organic thats what made your roots look nasty. I'm using Botanicare pro and my roots look kinda brown from them. You may just have to baby them for a couple of days other than that lookin good Chevy !

Right on man, she looks like she is still gonna come around. All that aluminum foil looks like a space shuttle! I hope she continues to "live long and prosper" haha, but really nice setup using what you have, I was thinking about using the foil myself until I can scrape together the funds for some pandafilm. Good luck and I'm watchin to see how she recovers and will be "rootin" for ya.

I just realized how far away a couple of those lights are. Those two CFLs at the top are doing nothing and the MH is wasting a lot of lumens. You need to get the MH to 18" away from the plant and the CFLs should only be a couple inches away.

hey everyone. thanks for the input... i moved the lights so far up cause the leaves start to v when i get them any closer. but ill try to go to around 18". right now they're at 24" above. should i just take the cfls and put them in theyre own sockets alot closer? listen to this, i went and got a new ph meter today and did a nute change. well the new meter says my water comes out of the tap at 8.i ph and the old one says its 7.3 ph. so i added my nutes to each gallon. now the old meter says it was good at 6.3 ....and the new one said 5.0... fucked up huh. and i dont even know how long it was like that. so now i am storing my meter in the 7.0 calibration solution. does that sound ok? any other tips would be greatly appreciated. i used to just store it in my tap water. at it was always wet, thats why i dont understand what happened to it. oh well. got some great root growth overnight and she has grown an inch. thats the first time she has grown that much in a day.. im pleased.. now another question... the foxfarm feeding schedule says to use the big bloom now , but every time i have used it i get brown roots, is that normal? im gonna hold off with that stuff till i start flowering. but im prob gonna use it then. all it is is bat guano and earth worm castings. i just dont want to fuck up the roots again. so here are some pics from today. and oh i started to germ some of what i think is feminized white rhino , that i got from a fellow grower back home.i just bought all the stuff to start veggin them in another closet. ill prob take out some of the cfls and use them in there till my other girl is done buddin.. im building my own... costs about half of what it would cost online...thanks all and oh a lil trick i use is to hold all the air stones down i use 3m trim tape. u know for cars. works awesome...even submerged in water

That last pic makes me want to put more airstones in my bucket i'm feeling bubble envy lol.

well i hear you can never have enough bubbles. and there cheap anyways so why not right?its made quite a nice difference.

so im pretty sure that my ph meter was fucked since the day it arrived. it would always calibrate to 7 but didnt really fluctuate when i tested. i mean it would go from like 7 to 6 or something. but today when i got my new meter. i put in what i would normally put in for ph down, into straight water. now with the old meter it would have been perfect but HOLY SHIT!!!! it was down to 4.5 when tested with the new meter.. no wonder my plant didnt like to grow. needless to say new meter works great. i just cant believe the old one was junk from the get-go. thats the last meter ill get off of e-bay. i got the new one at the only grow shop in the state. 50 min away...

hey i was also wondering when it would be a good time to switch to 12/12. do i wait till she has a big root mass or just till she hits a certain height?

chevyman said:

hey i was also wondering when it would be a good time to switch to 12/12. do i wait till she has a big root mass or just till she hits a certain height?

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Many factors determine that. Some hit it early for height reasons. Some wait for pre-flowers before switching, some wait for alternating nodes. For me I like a time line, like veg 4 weeks-flower 9 weeks. With your root situation that changes the game a little, I have no experience with that but I would just treat the plant as if it never happened.

hey everyone look at these pics!!! is that a preflower? i dont know what a preflower is but that looks like signs of a female!!! i dont even have the lights on 12/12 yet... what do i do?

looks like a lady to me......

do i switch to 12/12 now?

do it man 12/12 time ill be keepin up

That is definitely a female. Congratulations chevyman! If height is not a problem then you should wait for alternating nodes. Here's some information originally posted by Roseman. I can't take any credit for it but I thought it would be useful to you.

Roseman said:

The longer the VEG cycle, the more the yield.
Consider this, in nature, outdoors, we plant a seed in mid to late April. It grows through April, May, June, July, and in mid to late July, as the sun's rays change, the plant naturally changes from VEG to FLOWER, with the diminishing sun's rays. That is nature's way. The plant grows and matures to an adult plant for about 3 to 4 months. THEN, it makes flowers. That is nature's way.
Indoors, in HYDRO with feeder tubes, we cut that time in half, by using 24/7 LIGHT. instead of 3 months, or 13 weeks, it takes about 5 to 6 weeks to become a mature plant in HYDRO, with 24/7 LIGHT. Pot plants growing as young plants, make what we call nodes, or a set of two leaves, one directly across form the other. When a pot plant is mature, it will make new leaves one at a time, not directly across from an other leaf, but staggered.


OK, also in nature, in addition to plants, we see animals and humans reproduce at maturity or adulthood. If a human, (or dog or any animal) is forced to make babies before maturity, like getting a 12 yr old girl pregnant, or a dog in her very first heat, then the babies are weak, or runts, or deformed, and just not at their best.
A dude here, a most experienced, knowledgable grower named fdd2blk (and a MOD here too) taught me a long time ago, that it does not make sense, it is not wise, it is not logical, to make a child have a child, and it is not wise or smart or logical to make an immature baby plant, have babies. LET THE BABIES GROW AND LET THE ADULTS MAKE BABIES.
If you will VEG for 5 weeks, to 6 weeks, you will have more time for proper TOPPING, PRUNING, AND FIMMING, and you'll get bigger plants, a much larger yield, and you will also have a mature adult plant, ready to make healthy, stronger babies (flowers) .

If you begin Indica Flowering, after VEGGING 3 or 4 weeks, you will harvest about 60% to 75% of what you would have harvested, IF you had waited and VEGGED for 5 or 6 full weeks.

This info applies to rapid growing in Hydro, and to Indica strains. NOT slowly in SOIL, and NOT Sativa.

I average 3 to 4 ounces per plant, VEGGING 5 to 6 weeks, and I have gotten 7 ounces from one plant

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this is true but you can have a 9 foot plant and wont yield much. but you need light all around the plant. or sufficiant lighting

im pretty sure you can veg longer and still have enough light. maybe add a few more cfl's. on the side. you can never have enough

chevyman said:

hey everyone look at these pics!!! is that a preflower? i dont know what a preflower is but that looks like signs of a female!!! i dont even have the lights on 12/12 yet... what do i do?

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That's great chevy she has shown herself as female. I would say since pre-flowers are present she is ready for 12/12.

k thanks guys. i think i'll wait for alternating nodes. what the heck right! it already been 6 weeks whats another week or two!! Bubble heads rule !!! you guys are awesome.. here is a pic to show the rapid root growth im getting. well rapid compared to what i had going on. i think the extra bubble really make a difference. im kinda scared to use the fox farm big bloom when its time, cause its organic and causes the roots to turn brownish. but im just gonna look past that.