Deep Water Culture Basics - Bubbleponics

Sharing some things I have learned doing Deep Water Culture with cannabis.

Technically what I use is called “Bubbleponics”. First your environmental needs must be met - light, temperature, humidity and air movement all need to be in range for plants to grow well. I will assume you understand these basic concepts. The rules for a good DWC are simple but not very forgiving. Plants respond adversely quickly to something out of range. The good thing is that they will also respond well to a correction quickly. DWC is an everyday task; in fact checking your plants many times a day can keep you ahead of needs.

Two tools that you cannot do without are a good PH meter and a EC meter; both should be equipped with a temperature gauge as well. Maintain them and replace them on the vendor’s schedule.

The five basic components:

1. Water. You could spend a lifetime trying to learn about water for plant growth but let’s keep it simple. Most people can use their tap water as long as the beginning PPM is 200 or less. If your water goes over this you will need to mix it with distilled or Reverse Osmosis water to get it below 200 PPM. Use a float valve and top off bucket to keep the water level in your reservoir consistent even small fluctuations can cause stress. Set the water level 1” – ½” below the bottom of your net pot. Aerate your water for a day or two before you intend to use it. This will help precipitate calcium carbonate out of the water and make it easier to control your PH. I just use my top off tank for this. The perfect reservoir water temperature is 68°F. This is the temperature that water holds the most dissolved oxygen. Do not use copper, brass or aluminum anywhere in your system; not even the tiniest fitting.

2. Air. Roots need air. An aquarium air pump and air stones provide this critical component. I always use two pump/stone combos for redundancy. Losing aeration even for a short period can be problematic. The smaller the bubbles are coming out of the stones the better. I use a UPS battery back-up on my air pumps. The volume of airflow needs to be high enough to saturate the water but not be so violent that the roots are damaged. Smaller bubbles allow more airflow with less violence.

3. Nutrients. Just make this a no brainer. Unless you have a lab and the skills to use it; choose ONE nutrient vendor whose products are built from the ground up for cannabis hydroponics and use their entire line. Do not mix and match. Vendors spend millions of dollars and years developing their products to work with each other. Take advantage of that. Follow their feeding schedule. Change the water/nutrient solution every week – without fail. Learn about Liebig’s law of the Minimum to understand why you are doing this. Look at the Liebig’s Barrel to visualize what we are talking about here. DO NOT MIX NUTRENTS INTO THE RESERVOIR; mix them in a separate container using water that has been aerated for a day or two following vendor instructions the day before the reservoir refresh. Doing this ahead of time will make it much easier to get the PH balanced and stable. A suction pump will be worth its weight in gold to help evacuate the reservoir for a refresh. Many product lines can and should be used at 50% of the vendor’s chart strengths in DWC but not all of them. Do a little research on your chosen brand.

4. PH. PH has absolutely everything to do with the uptake of nutrients into the plant. Let it range from 5.7 to 6.2 in DWC. This will allow the different components to move through the best uptake zones for that nutrient. Check the PH every day even multiple times per day is better. Roots not only take water and nutrients in they also exude substances that can dramatically change the PH in the reservoir in a very short period of time. I am talking hours here not days. Mix PH buffers into some water before adding to the reservoir to prevent burning the roots. Make small changes at a time. One full point is too much (5.2 to 6.2). It takes practice and vigilance to maintain PH in the proper range. PH problems have caused me more issues than all of the other environmental factors combined. The minute you take your eye off this it will bite your plants in the ass!

5. Botanicare HydroGuard. The only additive outside of your chosen nutrient regime I recommend. It is a must have. I would not even buy a bucket before I had this in stock. Root Rot is totally preventable with this. I live where it is not possible to maintain the reservoir temperature below 78°F in the summertime and it has gone as high as 82°F. The ability for water to keep oxygen saturation at that high of a temperature is minimized. Think stagnant pond! I have grown great plants totally root rot free using HydroGuard under these conditions. High temperatures are not the only thing that can cause root problems. Botanicare HydroGuard is a basic component to DWC. I am not affiliated with or compensated in any way for this endorsement by anyone except my happy plants with huge colas.

I have tried several ways to get a plant started. Top feeding seeds planted in small rock wool cubes or Park’s Bio Dome sponges supported in the net pot by PH balanced clay pebbles until the roots get down into the reservoir a couple of inches has worked best for me. Then stop top feeding to prevent crown rot.

So there you have it. Now 10,000 people will take issue with something I have laid out here and I may agree with many of them. I have moved on to growing hydroponically in rock wool cubes because it solves my oxygenation problems associated with high summer reservoir temperatures. I am telling you now that if I did not have heat issues in the summer I would still be growing DWC!
 
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    Bradtd89

    Points: 10
    For anyone who needs a quick refresh in doing DWC or even a fresh new beginner, your post is very helpful. Thank you. I have a similar system myself with the same temp problems where I live.

    VitaMan

    Points: 10
    Fist DWC. Made a lot of these mistakes....and found some of the solutions you wrote about.
I know best to read plants, but is generally the feed strength in ec the same as coco? Or is it slightly weaker? Has anyone posted their feed schedule in terms ec?
 
I know best to read plants, but is generally the feed strength in ec the same as coco? Or is it slightly weaker? Has anyone posted their feed schedule in terms ec?
@d.t use the manufacturer's charts they know what is the best starting point then read your plants.
 
@d.t use the manufacturer's charts they know what is the best starting point then read your plants.
Sorry but the manufacturers of what? The The nutirent company’s? They give crazy high recommendations, (except biobizz in soil)
There’s no way I’d follow the recommendations of advanced nutrients.
I got given a dwc bucket couple of days ago so new to hydro. Had a few grows in soil and coco. I reckon il figure it out ok.
Less is more sort of thing.
 
1/4 strength to start and go up from there.
This is invaluable:
PH-EC_Chart1.jpg
 
Sorry but the manufacturers of what? The The nutirent company’s? They give crazy high recommendations, (except biobizz in soil)
There’s no way I’d follow the recommendations of advanced nutrients.
I got given a dwc bucket couple of days ago so new to hydro. Had a few grows in soil and coco. I reckon il figure it out ok.
Less is more sort of thing.
Right now I am running H&G at 100% of their chart and no tip burn in rockwool blocks! In DWC/RDWC When I ran Dyna-Gro tip burn started @ 80% backed off to 70%. When I ran GH Flora 70% started tip burn backed off to 60% If you read the charts or calculators they tell you this is just a starting point. The important thing to remember is to keep your nutrients in the balance that the charts demonstrate. In DWC you need to act fast if something is wrong you will know this by being in tune with your plant.
 
Ah right cool. I’m guessing a dehumidify is a must with hydro? I haven’t had to use one before. Within 2 days it went up from 45% to 75% which I think is about right for a seedling? but I got an 9 week auto night queen sitting in there nearly finished. So I taken the dwc bucket out and put the mesh pot in a small jug hopefully that will do to get it going. The seedling was started in coco so I reckon the coco ph perfect nutrients will be absolutely fine to get it going. Money is bit right right now so went for ph perfect hydro nutrients all 3 for £36 but haven’t opened them yet, instead of other nutrients then another 70 for a decent ph meter.
Sorry if this post is in the wrong place? I’m not too sure, I haven’t spent a lot of time round here!
With silver bullet does that mean I can’t use healthy microbes like biosys tea? I guess could add the microbes last day before a change over
 
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Ah right cool. I’m guessing a dehumidify is a must with hydro? I haven’t had to use one before. Within 2 days it went up from 45% to 75% which I think is about right for a seedling? but I got an 9 week auto night queen sitting in there nearly finished. So I taken the dwc bucket out and put the mesh pot in a small jug hopefully that will do to get it going. The seedling was started in coco so I reckon the coco ph perfect nutrients will be absolutely fine to get it going. Money is bit right right now so went for ph perfect nutrients all 3 for £36, instead of other nutrients then another 70 for a decent ph meter.
Sorry if this post is in the wrong place? I’m not too sure, I haven’t spent a lot of time round here!
DWC does not add appreciably to the humidity any more than other styles of growing. It is the transpiration of the plant itself that raises humidity. Speed up your exhaust fan to lower the humidity.
 
Ah right ok cheers il check the fan. I assumed the big bucket of water would have caused a rise but I guess the lid keeps it in, it must have been something else I have a quite few plants in there, il check the exhaust fan is 100% connected all right. cheers
 
Yo I take it back about the advanced nutrients telling you to use too much, as it does say on the bottles for Micro, Grow and bloom to use 1ml per litre for seedling which seems about right.

I managed to do some damages to my little seedling moving pebbles about, it was really leggy so I tried bending it down under pebbles and almost killed it, instead of waiting to see if it recovers I took a cutting of a photoperiod plant ‘Grandady purple’ to see if that works. I got space for two plants after my auto is done and I have been vegging this gdp so yeah figured I should grow another photoperiod but never cloned before, If it doesn’t work I may find an outdoor spot for the gdp plant and get some auto seeds in and try one in the dwc and one next to it in coco in an autopot and see how they do.

I stuck a dome over the top to keep the humidity up. The cutting is in ecothrive coco, and the pot is sitting just above the water so the bubbles are wetting the pot.
Is this about right?

There’s a mars2 400 with just the red light on the side and a autoCOB I recently got on top. The mars was the main light I had on the NQ up until a couple of weeks ago but with the arrival of the COB I thought I’d put it on the side with just the red/bloom light on. I thought the autoNQ was nearly done but the COB seems to have kickstarted a load of new bud growth, loads more new big white hairs sticking out and buds getting fatter. It’s only In a 8.5 litre pot so wasn’t expecting it to be this big. I had intended on doing a soil grow using biobizz in autopots being newbie, then learned this wasn’t a good idea so just top watered. When it’s done il take out the mars and just use the cob until perhaps flowering.

The autonightqueen is overshadowing the cutting in the DWC but not much I can do about that. Got about 10litres of water in there bubbling with silver bullet roots, the advanced nutrients micro grow and bloom and their silicon to a ec of 0.6.

With just one bucket, how do you empty it with a big plant in there? I’d like to empty it once a week and put I. Fresh nutrients to keep it clean. My pot came with no instructions. Do you use the pipe on the side?
 

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