Indoor Cherry Bomb......blowing up the DWC! Don't fear the DWC.

[HotBunz]

Alright now! I am 39 days deep into this grow. I had zero intentions of starting any sort of grow log but decided maybe I would after all, maybe to just help others who are afraid to get their feet wet with a DWC set up. Granted all the early grow fun is behind me with this grow but I will share what I can as the rest of the grow continues.

I grew a number of grows may years ago and jumped back into the growing game a little over a year ago with autoflowering strains. I had always grown in soil as hydro was always a term I thought was coined for the experts. I either have been very lucky or my last statement is not true. I tend to believe that it's not just luck. I tend to spend a lot of time doing research before I jump into something because knowledge is power of course. I try to single out the failure points of others and learn from their mistakes. At the same time I have a lot of faith in the K.I.S.S. principle(Keep It Simple Stupid/Stoner).

This Bomb Seeds Cherry Bomb is my 5th Cherry Bomb plant and my second DWC/Bubble Bucket grow. She is in a HTG 3.5 bucket with the HTG 6" Rhizocore bucket top. This top has a channel up the middle of the net pot. What I do it trim the center out of the top of this channel and place my root cube on it. This lets the tap root shoot straight into the bucket without having to fight it's way through the Hydrocorn/expanded clay pellets. I believe a solid, strong tap root is vital for the small/mid sized autoflowering strains. As for rez/bucket changes....nearly everything I have read says to do bucket change every 5-7 days which I did on my first Bubble Bucket grow(Mephisto Genetics Sour Crack 1,030grams wet likely a strain record). I admit I believe this information is WRONG. I have read of several long time DWC growers who do ZERO rez changes. I have only done 1 bucket change to this point in this grow and I feel the set up is much more stable and the plant is much happier than the first. My bucket temps are just south of 80 degrees F I am using HydroGaurd to fend off root slime.

Another newbie mistake I see is using a swimming pool worth of different nutes while just getting started with DWC. I just saw a new grower what was using 9 different nutes at the start.....good lord just seems overly complicated and asking for failure.Start with the basics and learn what they do and how to control the plant before you go crazy with other additives. I am using good ol' General Hydro Flora series, Grow, Micro, Bloom, GH Cal/Mag and Armor Si(silica). Lighting is a basic MarsHydro 300w old model LED fixture.

Well this is enough rambling for now. This first picture below is of the tap root at day 20 and the full plant picture is from today, day 39. Is she perfect nope but I love her little ass all 32" wide by 20" tall of it!

 

[frogleg]

Looks like this thread is just right for me ! Subbed of course
Always paying very close attention to what you say bro, thanks for helping out all the DWC noobs out here so much.
Cheers

 

[2Stoned2Care]

Wow that tap root is insane.i have a dwc setup i bought at the start but decided to grow in coco and soil because i thought it looked like so much hard work changing the res washing it out then refilling while thinking were do i put my plant while i do that just seemed really to much hassle but thank you for this info i am going to give it a try i think.what size pump and airstone do you use bro i think the one i have is not enough

 

[HotBunz]

Wow that tap root is insane.i have a dwc setup i bought at the start but decided to grow in coco and soil because i thought it looked like so much hard work changing the res washing it out then refilling while thinking were do i put my plant while i do that just seemed really to much hassle but thank you for this info i am going to give it a try i think.what size pump and airstone do you use bro i think the one i have is not enough

Thanks!

The air pump is a generic Elemental Solutions dual outlet 127 gph pump. It's plumbed to a single line to a 4" cylinder air stone. I am using the Rhizocore lid which I feel makes it a lot easier to get your sprouts into the bucket faster.

http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-Elemental-cylinderstone-4-Inch

http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-HTGSupply-RHIZOCORE-Basket-Bucket-Lid-6#

I too thought that hydro was made out to be so much harder than a soil grow. I too followed the masses and was doing bucket changes once a week in the beginning during my first DWC grow. I have seen a couple hardcore growers talking about doing ZERO rez changes during whole grows and have followed suit with this current plant. I do believe that this plant will be my own personal record and my Ph has been much much more stable. I have drained the bucket 1 time once I was on a full bloom nute schedule but I did not switch out to a "clean" bucket, drained and refilled that was all.

I believe if you use RO/DI water or a least very good, low ppm(50PPM or less) tap water, have the right tools i.e. PPM/EC meter and PH meter you are off to a great start for a bubble bucket set up.

 

[2Stoned2Care]

So how far up the pot do you have the water mine says to keep it about 1 inch below the bottom of the pot,as the bubbles pop creating a mist that wets the bottom of the medium which the roots then find.i really want to try this after my first grow as i only have a 2x2x5.7 tent which i would love to fill with 1 plant,and bubblers seem to get huge plants.i already have a ec/ppm meter,ph pen,ph up and down.my water is 170ppm after being sat out for 48 hrs and ph 7.4

 

[HotBunz]

So how far up the pot do you have the water mine says to keep it about 1 inch below the bottom of the pot,as the bubbles pop creating a mist that wets the bottom of the medium which the roots then find.i really want to try this after my first grow as i only have a 2x2x5.7 tent which i would love to fill with 1 plant,and bubblers seem to get huge plants.i already have a ec/ppm meter,ph pen,ph up and down.my water is 170ppm after being sat out for 48 hrs and ph 7.4

I start with the water solution 1 inch below the bottom of the net pot. I keep it there til around day 20 then bring it up to the bottom of the pot and then over the next couple of week work my way up to a full bucket.

Wow it seems you have very hard water. A number of nute lines have a 'hard water" version of their nutes.

 

[HotBunz]

Well day 46 for the Cherry Bomb is here! I managed to pull her out of the cabinet to get a couple of pictures. I have to drain her bucket in order to get here out due to the size of the door on my cabinet. I did not reuse her nutes this time around so this will have been only her second complete nute/bucket change for this whole grow. She seems to be happiest at 750ppm and is drinking nearly 2 gallons of water(RO/DI) a day now. With the MarsHydro 300's she is a calcium whore and I can't get enough into her so she is showing a bit of a calcium deficiency. Not worried about it at this point in the game. I wish I had another 12" of height on my cabinet as she is at the height now where she is the light stress zone for my set up with the MarsHydro 300's. She is 21" tall and 34" wide. I spent a good 20 minutes giving her a good trim while defoliating her. The reason to do so was two fold. For one to open her up, if a leaf was blocking light from a lower bud site it was cut off. Also nearly all of my other Cherry Bomb's as well as Cherry Bombs grown by a number of AFN members have had bud mold issues so the less leaves to get in the way of air circulation the better.

The fun part of this grow is upon me. The bud sites are really starting to pack on the mass. She is also starting with the sweet cherry medicine smell! I think she will go 70 days or so. If I had to guess I would think she is a 6oz dry plant unless I jack something up between now and the finish.

 

[2Stoned2Care]

WOW bro she is gorgeous.do you defoliate or just let her do her thing

 

[Af_mini]

Wow. It's looking great.

 

[HotBunz]

WOW bro she is gorgeous.do you defoliate or just let her do her thing

I took a plastic shopping bag worth of leaves off her before that last picture. If a leaf was blocking a bud site off it came. Also needed to open her up for better airflow.