First grow Recirculating DWC

iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
this grow journal starts off at 37 days into veg.

finally got the three babies into the system after a 4 day struggle with leaks

they've been flushed with r/o water for 3 days.

before they were flushed, i had the ppm of the reservoir up to about 450, 50% cal-mag, 50% GH's MaxiGrow.
I noticed slight burning of the tips. Unsure if it's from high ppm, or heat stress.

Decided I will reintroduce nutrients *slowly*


Today, (day 37 veg) added 35ppm Cal-Mag, and 35ppm of MaxiGrow bringing the nutrient ppm level to 100 (r/o water's ppm is 30) if the ppm drops tomorrow, I'm going to add 50ppm more of nutrients.

Here are some shots of Sativa, the best looking plant as it stands
 

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iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
i learned from some people that i was screwing up by using a 50/50 ratio of cal-mag and my veg nutes.

checked the reservoir and ppm dropped by 25ppm, so i bumped it up using only maxigrow to 150ppm

hopefully it drops a little by the morning and i can continue to keep bumping it up
 
jcommerce

jcommerce

Well-Known Member
Sup Ill,

A few questions. Can you tell us what type of lighting you're using, ventilation, Ph, other supplements, light cycle, temps, humidity, etc? The more info. the better. I'm in the midst of a bubbler grow (see link below) and have been through a lot of ups and downs as you'll see and have learned a lot in the process. Maybe I can be of some assistance. The main thing I've noticed about yours is that for 37 days veg. in a bubbler system, I would think that your plants should be quite a bit bigger.

One small bit of advice, you should get some reflective tape (or black paint) from Home Depot and tape your buckets completely. Your roots need to be in complete darkness. White buckets especially will allow a lot of light to penetrate and inhibit their growth and possibly bring on root rot/fungus. Are you using any defensice supplements like Defend or Hydroguard to prevent this? While your roots look healthy and white, it appears as though they have very little side branching, which might be due, in part, to the light.
Just my $0.02 trying to help a brother. Grow on and best of luck! I'll be keeping an eye on my fellow bubbler grower here. :mrgreen:
 
iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
jcommerce said:
Sup Ill,

A few questions. Can you tell us what type of lighting you're using, ventilation, Ph, other supplements, light cycle, temps, humidity, etc? The more info. the better. I'm in the midst of a bubbler grow (see link below) and have been through a lot of ups and downs as you'll see and have learned a lot in the process. Maybe I can be of some assistance. The main thing I've noticed about yours is that for 37 days veg. in a bubbler system, I would think that your plants should be quite a bit bigger.

One small bit of advice, you should get some reflective tape (or black paint) from Home Depot and tape your buckets completely. Your roots need to be in complete darkness. White buckets especially will allow a lot of light to penetrate and inhibit their growth and possibly bring on root rot/fungus. Are you using any defensice supplements like Defend or Hydroguard to prevent this? While your roots look healthy and white, it appears as though they have very little side branching, which might be due, in part, to the light.
Just my $0.02 trying to help a brother. Grow on and best of luck! I'll be keeping an eye on my fellow bubbler grower here. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...



250w HPS light, and two 48" T8 fluoro tubes as side lighting, and two 100w equivalent CFL bulbs. (lol)

light cycle is 18/6

I let the PH drift between 5.5-6.1, currently it around 5.7. water temp 68 degrees

temperature always around 72-75 degrees, RH 30-45% (kinda low eh? could that be part of the reason why they are small?)

very good idea with the reflective tape. So I just wrap each bucket around with it entirely? is just one layer of the tape sufficient? also do you think taping super thick black trashbag material around would work? if not im definitely getting the tape

I do use hydroguard to prevent root rot, although theres no hydroguard in the water currently since they were being flushed, and being introduced to the nutes gradually. I should probably add some tomorrow. the bottle says 5-15ml per gallon, but how much do you recommend i should use of hydroguard?

also on the shelf waiting to be used is superthrive and liquid karma. I'll be using general hydroponic MaxiBloom for the flowering phase)

thanks for the reply bud :)
 
jcommerce

jcommerce

Well-Known Member
Nice, sounds like you've got almost everything in perfect ranges. I had some heat problems that caused some leaf curl, but if you're at 72 - 75, you're all good. The trash bags should work well, that's a good idea. If you go with the reflective tape, one layer will do the trick. I used duct tape and needed 3 layers. I'll definitely be using reflective tape for future grows.

On another note, what are you using as far as air pumps and air stones? I was experiencing quite a bit of droopiness until I added air pumps and stones. I've got what appears to be a rolling boil going on now and the plants and leaves are loving it and "standing at attention", so to speak.

Keep us updated bro!
 
iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
so far so good...

ppm is up to 175 (mostly maxigrow, and *titch* of liquid karma (40ml to 25 gallons, very miniscule amount)) they have been consuming about 30+ ppm from the reservoir every night

pH currently 5.6, it had drifted to 6.1

added 10 drops of superthrive to 25 gallons

tied the tops down to make an even canopy

I'm thinking that I should fim them on the very top, try to get the bottom shoots to catch up.

jcommerce: using two duel output pump 65 gph, one line in each bucket with a 3" round airstone (the flat circle thing), and the extra line has an air stone tube running to the reservoir.


advice or comments please! :) :weed:
 

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iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
It's a bitch having a ro filter than only spits out a gallon an hour. Gotta save up the 25 gallons to give them a flush, and then bump the reservoir up to about 600-650ppm with only maxigrow.

currently the ppm is at 540, and they still have been eating it up

i take it that the leaf twisting is from pH fluctuations. I know i have been keeping my pH within the 5.5-6.1 range always, but maybe it swings from the high end to the low too quickly. the past couple of days i've been trying really hard to keep it about the same level it was the last time i checked it, then bring it down slowly, instead of shooting it straight down to 5.5 when it reaches 6.1.

I don't see any more leaves starting to get spots, so im hoping that it was just the ones i saw, or the problem went away


i would like to flower in the next 7 days or so

heres some pictures...
this is BEFORE i trained them just now, I'll upload some after shots in a seperate posts
 

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iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
update


2nd day since I put them into 12/12.
I tried feeding them 600ppm into the reservoir and the nutrient level kept increasing. They seem to not like very much food, or maybe it's just one of them in the system that doesn't like it messing up the whole levels

right now it's at 525ppm and they seem to like it
yesterday i took my last clone off of Spracky, who doesn't really resemble it's name anymore at all.

pH seems to want to stay around 5.9-6.0
I'm worried that they might get too tall during the stretch for just a 250 watt light

heres some shots
Does the last shot even resemble a female preflower at all?
 

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atlantadirect

atlantadirect

Well-Known Member
Good looking grow iIIusion. Nice job training your plants. I was wondering if you thought the side lighting from the T5s and the cfls was helping your grow any, I am considering setting up some side lighting of my own.
 
iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
atlantadirect said:
Good looking grow iIIusion. Nice job training your plants. I was wondering if you thought the side lighting from the T5s and the cfls was helping your grow any, I am considering setting up some side lighting of my own.
Click to expand...

They definitely do help. I've noticed the side shoots will grow out to the fluorescent, but not want to reach upwards towards the HPS, after they are long enough from growing towards the T5 I just tie the top up so its under the HPS

I think sidelighting promotes bushy multi-cola plants
 
iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
Day 16 Flower...
Two plants left, had to kill the indica because it was a male :(

PROBLEM!
One of the plants is showing the "claw" from too much nitrogen? The other plant is just fine

I dumped out the reservoir 3 days ago, filled it with nothing but RO water, with a ppm of 50, the next day when i checked the ppm it went up to 150

I was worried about starving them from nutrients, so I added 45ml of cal-mag to 20 gallons bringing the ppm up to 350

Just now I checked the ppm and its up to 420, so I diluted it back down to 350.


What do I do to get rid of this claw?
I have been using just grow nutrients, haven't added the bloom nutrients yet because I read they need a lot of nitrogen in the first two weeks flower

Should I start using the bloom nutrients instead hoping it will get rid of the claw? Or should I flush them again?

I NEED EXPERT ADVICE! :confused:
 

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iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
Still looks no better today, I don't know what to do
Added another airstone underneath the plant with the claw.

Does anyone know what I should do before it dies?
Flush?? Nutrients? Voodoo dance? Anyone?
 
iIIusion

iIIusion

New Member
Alright, well i found another male leaving me with just one plant left
Of course with my luck, it was the neglected plant "spracky" who i honestly didn't care for us much as the other two i had to kill

Just my luck, eh?

Its 20 days into flower, and spracky still hasn't shown any signs of preflowering. Im thinking its because of the fact it's had too much N, and is delaying the flowering process

I'm also pretty sure it's got to be a female-- because i found 2/3 males, and the males usually show their sex first, and perhaps males will produce their pollen sacs with a lot of nitrogen, and females won't produce their flower with too much. At least thats what i hope!


So spracky has been flushed for over 24 hours with just tap water, I set the pH to 5.5, and it drifted up to 6.0, and i had to set it back to 5.5 again, hoping to negate some of the over nitrogen effects,

I'm just about to dump the reservoir out again, refill it with tap, and then use 1/4 tsp per gallon of Maxibloom (NPK = 5-15-14)



Anyways, here are some picture of my last plant left.
Wish me luck with it being a female y'all, please!!!!
 

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