Relearning hydro

[THCaesar]

THCaesar, do you use any myco's and/or beneficial bacteria in your rez?

Nope, just the basic 3 part + cal mag, the simpler the better imo. There's no place for beneficial bacteria in hydro unless you are doing some kind of organic hydro. All bacteria does in hydro is die and leave rot. Unless someone wants to correct me, that's been my experience anyway.

Just put on the blinders to all the fancy snake oil out there and use the standard plant food, unfortunately you chose a hard method / build to get down.... i've historically had nothing but problems with 5 gallon bucket dwc configurations.

My opinion is that a 5 gallon bucket is too small to keep a consistent nutrient mix, especially once they start to get bigger and drink upwards of a couple gallons a day. These types of swings in the concentration of your nutrient mix have the capability to cause major issues. If the plant drinks more of the water than it eats food, you end up with a bucket full of hot sauce.... and this can happen in a matter of hours once they hit full speed.... so, if you are able to check on it at minimum daily, the 5 gallon would probably be okay, but still probably needs to be topped off with pure fresh water from time to time so as not to let that PPM creep over time. Topping off with nutrient mix will make the nute mix super hot, as the water is consumed and nutrients that are not taken up are left behind.

Sorry to hear about the blackberry.... the kali mist is the good one anyway tho.

THC

 

[Freakshow]

hey thank you so much, my friend. The Kali Mist hit the flower room tonight. Might pull her out though. Damn midwest weather. Supposed to hit 85 on Monday and I'm using the chiller on the new Blackberry in the veg room. So I'll rig up a tub where both buckets can sit in a nice cool water bath. until temps dip back down to normal 40's at night.

 

[Freakshow]

onward slowly

The Kali Mist in the flower room is actually doing ok. Ppms are right about 500, ph was at 6.1 so I dropped back down to 5.8. Oh and guess what? She's actually growing. She does have some funk on her roots. It was bad enough yesterday that I almost trashed her. But tonight it doesn't look so bad and she's getting new root growth. I added some voodoo juice to the mix when I mixed up her nutes so maybe that's helping?? It does have the beneficial bacteria that is supposed to eat the bad stuff, so fingers are crossed.

I started a new blackberry kush clone in the veg room. I put that bucket in an 18 gallon rubbermade tube, filled it with water until the bucket just started floating. Then I put a pump in the tub and ran it to the chiller. temps in the solution are spot on 68 degrees and the first roots are poking through the netpot . Ppms on this one are right at 500 and ph is 5.8

and yes, i need to clean

 

[Freakshow]

I'm probably messing with it too much, but I made a fresh batch of nutes for the bucket in the flower room, washed (gently) the roots off with tap and switched out the old bucket. the roots didn't look bad and the p[lant was growing, but looked like it was hungry.

 

[THCaesar]

sounds like a good plan.

In dwc especially, it's good to get that old water out and get fresh in to prevent buildup of the unused portion of nutrient so it doesnt creep your tds/ ppm's up and your PH up/down with it.

Once they start to really take off, doing that every week or 10 days or so is probably going to be necessary with the 5 gallon. Between complete rez changes you'll want to top off with pure fresh water and recheck PH.

This is where configuring dwc in a recirculating fashion would be a nice thing to have hah :D

Did you adjust your feeding at all, or did you stick to ~500ppm? Are you measuring ppm pre addition of bacteria or post?

Glad to hear things are moving along.

THC

 

[Freakshow]

High THCaesar, i really appreciate ya, my friend. The Kali Mist went into flower last Sunday she didn't make it a week before i changed out the rez. I have zero problem changing it out faster than once a week. She started getting hungry (new growth was lighter green) when I topped her off with plain water so I went ahead and mixed a new rez.

the issue with doing a recirculating hydro set up in my flower room is I only have one chiller. With only one chiller, I can only run the system during the colder months and the chiller. I don't want to do any vegging in the flower room. So I would have to have a smaller hydro setup in the veg room, with a chiller and the big system in the flower room, preferably around the big vertical 2K watt light for maximum yield. Plus, as fast as the crud and slime grow in my basement hydro experiment, i would need a chiller in each room. Can't afford that right now, but......

dammit, now ya got my gears grinding. The smoke is rolling out of my ear.

If, big if, i can get comfortable with this hydro thing, i'll do it. I can generally get 8 or 9 plants around the big light. I would think the yield from that would be well worth it. Financially, I would think I'd need bigger than a 1/10 HP chiller for that set up though. The one I have is a 1/4 hp and it does a fine job. but in a 8 or 9 bucket system, i'm not sure a 1/10 hp would cut it. I'd need to redesign the platform i have the plants on too. I just cut a hole in the platform for this bucket. I'd need to rebuild the whole thing around the big light to be able to place the plumbing and such. It's doable.

lets see how this goes before I go jump off that cliff. You're a great bad influence, my friend. LOL. cuz i really love building shit

 

[Bubbamaniac]

Hey Freak do you run the chiller in the winter time also? I always noticed my reservoir stays nice and cool as long as it's under the tables, also you can move the aerator pump outside the flower room into a colder area so it pumps cold air into the water.

 

[Bubbamaniac]

Also there is a new innoculant for hydro and other mediums called Mammoth P I've heard lots of good things about it!

 

[Freakshow]

Also there is a new innoculant for hydro and other mediums called Mammoth P I've heard lots of good things about it!

Holy shit that stuff is expensive!! And people bitch about AN being pricey? This stuff i hundreds of dollars per liter. i think I'll pass on that for now. Thanks anyway.

Bubba,, I'm not sure if I will need to run the chiller in the winter or not. Things seem to be going ok in the flower room for now. The Veg room stays reasonably warm though so we'll see.

 

[Freakshow]

ok, the funk returned in the flower room bucket. I added a shotglass full of the 30-something% peroxide and things look much much better. The plant is green and growing too - big plus.

The bucket in the veg room, this is the one being chilled, is looking GREAT! So, i just need to chill the plants down in the veg room and once i get a baseline of what level the girls like the nutrients, things should be golden.

I thinking of a recirculating bucket system around the big light for the winter. I could realistically get 8 or 9 buckets around the bog light. In summer, it'll have to be dismantled and replaced with hand watered coco though. I can't have the AC in the flower room competing with the heat discharged from the chiller and putting the chiller outside the flower room is not an option - it's way too warm down there already in the 95 degree humid summers we have here. But, when it's 10 degrees outside with 2 feet of snow, oh hell yes I'm all over it. The chiller will help keep the room warm during lights out. I do try to be efficient.

onward and upward

 

[Freakshow]

ok, the Kali mist is in the trash. She started growing buds and was only 8 inches tall. The pythium and/or peroxide, perhaps, stunted her.

The Blackberry Kush in the veg room, however, has doubled in size in the last 2 days. she's almost the size of the Kali mist. I did a little FIM work - we'll see how that takes - and will probably toss her in the flower room soonish. I have to find a tub short enough to go under the platform for the chiller bath the bucket will sit in.

THCaesar, I hear what you are saying about 5 gallon buckets. The bigger the rez the more stable the solution. I am in the process of designing a recirculating bucket thing with a bigger rez to go around the big light. I'm just playing with this for now to get the feel for things. I've been way too spoiled with hand watered coco for a long time. The last hydro I did was 3 years ago and that was in an 18 gallon tub. However the tub is too tall for the set up i have now.

 

[Freakshow]

The blackberry hit the flower room yesterday. She's growing very well. I tried to FIM her but i think i missed a couple spots. Gonna bend her over in a couple spots too.

I have a tub the bucket is sitting in, under the platform, with water circulating through the chiller, hoping it will keep rez temps in check. We'll see how it does

ppms are in the 500's at this point

 

[kushyman]

your stuff seems to being doing fine


i am very much into hydro..home made drip ring.. tubs..on timers..i did rdwc with them..great growth too much liquid and problems..so only have 1-2" drain level now..i tried hydrotron,,its good but i liked coarse coco because it holds more moisture in case of pump failure
i do not use any jug nutes ..
res temps are important and summer can be a bitch..i have a chiller..but thinking that
hopefully enough good cob[leds]bars to circumvent the possibilty of too much heat



that kali mist should be goodun

 

[Freakshow]

THCaesar, I forgot to answer some of your questions:

A recirculating system is in the plans. I'm not adding mycos to the mix. With the chiller, things are looking pretty good. I'm basically topping off with plain water and changing the bucket weekly, however, as things progress, I will be adding in 500 ppm nute solution for topping off. The plant looks great and the meristem is thick I'm happy.

 

[realhigh]

I have been back at it for almost a year and I am still wondering what I forgot or why things are as they should be, than I up'ed the ppm's on the mix as I did in the past and BAMM, a growth explosion took place. Just hope I can get the screens filled in enough to flip them soon as my med jars are getting low again.

I loved the Recirculating system I built up years ago, no room for it now, but I do wonder if a smaller scaled design could prove beneficial over the DWC setup.

Grow on, hope all the best with it.

 

[Freakshow]

your stuff seems to being doing fine


i am very much into hydro..home made drip ring.. tubs..on timers..i did rdwc with them..great growth too much liquid and problems..so only have 1-2" drain level now..i tried hydrotron,,its good but i liked coarse coco because it holds more moisture in case of pump failure
i do not use any jug nutes ..
res temps are important and summer can be a bitch..i have a chiller..but thinking that
hopefully enough good cob[leds]bars to circumvent the possibilty of too much heat



that kali mist should be goodun

High Mr Melon, yes I am looking forward to the Kali Mist. I'm trying to collect more old school genetics rather than the newer overbred strains.

I have been back at it for almost a year and I am still wondering what I forgot or why things are as they should be, than I up'ed the ppm's on the mix as I did in the past and BAMM, a growth explosion took place. Just hope I can get the screens filled in enough to flip them soon as my med jars are getting low again.

I loved the Recirculating system I built up years ago, no room for it now, but I do wonder if a smaller scaled design could prove beneficial over the DWC setup.

Grow on, hope all the best with it.

After looking at the picture i just took, I probably should up the ppms a bit, looking at the lite green new growth. I appreciate the advice, my friend. I'm getting ready to actually remove the platform the plants sit on in the flower room. If I get a DE light, I'll need that extra 8 inches of height and I'll need the room for the recirculating system around the big light.

Here's a couple shot of the Blackberry Kush girl after a week in flower. her roots got one funky spot, but other than that, i think she looks pretty darn good.

 

[Freakshow]

thing sare cruising along. I added another 10 ml of base (Sensi Bloom A&B pH perfect) and 5ml of each of the additives. This pH perfect stuff is kinda cool so far. I have ph'd the bucket at all. When I added the extra in, i just dumped them in there.
I'll get some pics tomorrow.

 

[Freakshow]

end of week 2

I can't say I'm unhappy with how this girl is doing. I'm hoping she'll get bigger. I'm pretty much on half strength nutes, according to the feeding chart.

 

[realhigh]

One does wonder if they are using enough nute's during their grow. I always found pushing it a little at a time until I just see a bit of leaf tip burn, than I have that point to work from keeping things from burning up, but growing strong.
In vegy stage the idea is to get the plant to feeding strong so that when you enter floral cycle you can feed them what they need, I like to be near 1200ppm's going into floral stage, and yes many have told me it is to much, just one of those things I do in the garden for to many years.
Okay, even with medium leaf removal, and heavy on one plant, I have no leaf tip burn with my first week of Bloom mix. I will be flipping to 12/12 light cycle today and it will start at 5pm this evening. I run my rooms at night and early morning, again just something I like to do with the garden after all these years.

All are looking nice GM, keep up the work and grow on my friend.

 

[Freakshow]

High Realhigh, thanks for stopping by. Yeah, the problem I have experiences in the past is these nutrients tend to be a bit gentle. I've run plants before that I pushed and were stunted. That was years ago. I'm changing the bucket out today for fresh and I'll up the nutes a bit. The goal this time is get smoke-able bud and not kill the plant.

I will say this: I have pH'd the solution since they went into flower. I'm using the pH perfect Sensi Bloom this round. It's pretty darn simple. Just mix and go
thanks again!