Indoor DIY DWC - Baby Buckets!

[logangrowgan2020]

Hola, Amigos - long time since I rapped atcha! Hope everyone had a nice summer and harvest season is goin well.

The tents provided some fruit for me out of the last run. To catch up, I started a bunch of stuff in clear plastic containers and lost most of em to rot. Transferred a breeding pair of auto skunks to a single (real) bubble bucket, transferred a surviving photoperiod gorilla glue cross into another bubble bucket. Each had their own tent. Spoiler alert, both made it thru.

The glue is local hobbyist run, Tony Green's IBL Glue male with a Humboldt Notorious THC female. Grow shop said people had a lotta different phenos, ours here is niiiiiiiiice gas. Not too sour, not super chemy, but high test nose hair tingling GAS. Very powerful affects. Here's a bud:

The breeding pair provided fully seeded fruit. Harvest process was simply overdrying and hand bucking. Haven't cleaned up and seperated all seeds but got them in a big grove bag with the gunk/trim. Can confirm that at least one of the seeds "worked", while cleaning hydroton post-run I found a daggon sprout with a nice tail! A seed fell and already germinated funniest thing. Here's a timeline of the male showing development:

As these babies were finishing made the big decision to keep the next run simple. Mission focused on nice buds to burn thru winter. Currently got two fem autos kickin about six weeks old, so about half way to harvest. Made a new bubble bucket....saw a bucket on the shelf at the hardware store and couldn't say no. It's a yellow top tote in 5gal bucket format. Handle and everything. Called Commander XL:

Plants are doin awesome, bangin into flower and lookin healthy in my opinion. Finished up my General Hydro Flora Series liquid nutes and decided to try dry/powdered nutes next. Landed on "Dakine 420".... they had it at the local shop. Cool packaging, had a "starter kit" in a single box that made it easy. Mixed them a little too strong (~1800ppm) but plants seem to be surviving a few days into the change.

I made a little video on my phone if y'all got five minutes to kill listening to me ramble, some pretty decent footage of the girls.

Pic:

Video link:




Thank you and have a nice day!

 

[DCLXVI]

I think @Vapo ran the Dakine line a ways back. He may have some tips on it. Your plants are looking great. Did you just stick a netcup in the lid of that bucket? I've eyeballed those myself but eh, DWC is always a "next time" for me.

 

[logangrowgan2020]

I think @Vapo ran the Dakine line a ways back. He may have some tips on it. Your plants are looking great. Did you just stick a netcup in the lid of that bucket? I've eyeballed those myself but eh, DWC is always a "next time" for me.

I got a 4" holesaw for 4" netcups, put them in the corners. Do it over a piece of wood, start slow with minimal downward pressure, regular drill.

I ran the air line thru one of the netcups. Some designs run the line thru a seperate hole in the bucket, but this has given me issues in the past. If you grow a beast enough of a plant the roots will engulf the airstone, so your stone/line, bucket, and lid/plant are all three tied together.

This way the stone/line and lid/plant are tied together, but the bucket is free. So simple workflow: 1)remove lid and place over empty bucket 2)pitch old water/nutes and rinse old bucket 3)add new water/nutes, replace lid. If all three are tied together you're stuck topping off only.

If you're thinkin about running DWC and are iffy about the DIY part, check out PA Hydro. They sell a two bucket kit, pre drilled, enough hydroton, air pump and stone and lines etc to get you goin....basically everything but nutes and seeds for sixty bucks:

2 Plant Complete DWC Buckets Including: Quality Airpump, Airstones, Water Level Indicator Kits, Clay Rocks And 4 Rockwool Starter Plugs Drilled And Ready.

PA Hydroponics is central PA's largest and most well-stocked hydroponics and indoor gardening store offering a great level of service, quality of inventory, and expertise. We ship anywhere in the United States and have everything you need to keep you growing.

shop.pahydroponics.com

 

[logangrowgan2020]

Whassup home team, it's fall y'all! Been gorgeous outside but illnesses goin around like crazy. As we used to say in the restaurant game, "hydrate or die-drate".

Babies are doin well in the bubble bucket, but definitely crowding. Moving forward I'll start plants two-in (maybe even four-in) like this but transplant to their own buckets. At this point in the bucket we've got one giant root ball - couldn't separate these now if I wanted to. Such a fun learning experience.

Sour Stomper's buds maturing at a faster rate, more frost, more smell. Smells like "happy pot", kinda sweet kinda sour kinda 'dank'. Seed was dropped three days earlier. No topping, but I used two training clips on the main stem/stalk to bend towards outside corner.

Methane is growing like a BUSH. Responded well to topping. Loves the training clips. Bud development is slower but even. No real nose on her unprovoked but the stem rubs are classic "OG" gas. That combined with the light/bright/electric green give me high hopes on the end product. I feel like this plant, with a well dialed in environment and perfect feeding in hydro, could fill a 2x2 alone. Gonna be a huge PITA to harvest, but the Stomper looks easy as pie.

Overall very happy with both cultivars and can see why their breeders have such awesome reputations. Thank you to Mephisto and Gnome Automatics.


Here's some photos, 63 and 60 days since the seeds met a warm wet paper towel:

 

[logangrowgan2020]

Plants are kickin butt! Probably harvest Sour Stomper in three weeks and Methane in four-five, my best guess anyway.

Check out these roots:

Training the Methane hydra:

Sour Stomper bud shot:

Been a really fun run in this bucket so far. Really happy with both cultivars. I hope the root stuff doesn't cause an issue, the way they're wrapped up with eachother.