Hi Gloom - your first grow you're working out the kinks. Obviously there's issues with the power going off which in DWC is bad bad news. You need oxygen, without it the roots will die, when they start to die that's when pathogens start to grow on the dead root material and before you know it, you've a pythium infection and well kiss goodbye to any decent harvest.
You've got issues with your background water EC, so go and get a water filter. Even if you got a basic one with two filters in it, that would take your water EC level down to about 0.2 EC or something which will be fine. Then you don't have to worry about that.
Pale new growth is fine, they are growing fast so they are a bit pale, the trick is to just not let the new growth get too pale or too big. Pale new growth to me = fast growth and that's not a problem at all dont worry about it.
As you've found out and as DWCocha has said the Ceramic air stones are really the only ones you should use in DWC. Of course the blue ones will do in a pinch. Don't worry too much about roots breaking off, they are pretty strong. If you do find any broken roots in the water though, do fish them out asap. You don't want pathogens feasting on them and creating baby pathogens.
The photos are looking much better - finally I can see what's going on in your tentMaybe a brighter light would would help if possible, but 100x better than before.
As far as I can see mate you're doing well. Two weeks in and the plants are where they should be. If you can on your next grow get yourself some filtered water, some Formulex (great for starting off seedlings and cuttings) and some Cal-Mag, that's all you really need for the first couple of weeks, they should be slightly better off. But with what you have there's nothing to be scoffed at, they're a good size for 14 days and nothing too bad in the way of deficiencies, etc. If they carry on like this you'll get a decent harvest and have learn't a lot to make a bigger harvest for next time, so far so good.
Lastly I think the string will be fine. When the plants get older the branches turn into stalks / trunks almost and no string on earth will cut into them
1) water temperatures - don't let it go over 22, aim for 20 degrees
2) air in the water - don't let that air pump stop or the power go out
3) lower ec starting water - start looking around at water filters
but all in all man things are going well - keep it up
Thanks heaps for stopping by and the advice. Water temperature shouldn't be an issue for me in the coming months, temperatures are dropping not even halfway through autumn yet and still have winter and half of spring probably, before my temps go up again... I do have plans for a water chiller and setting up a recirculating system, for the next grow. Trying to work out if i can have a recirculating system and still be able to move the buckets around some without leaks though. At the moment im not even using a quarter of my 200x200 tent. So there's only one light running, once the ladies bush out a bit i will throw a couple under the other light, and as they grow space the buckets out further and further and set the light mover to go further and further...So i need to be able to move them a bit without leakage.
I changed electricity companies...the old company didn't want to let our business go and was a pain in the ass, i didn't realise they were gonna come out and pull the fuse, happened in the morning and the new company couldn't get someone out to reconnect it until just before dark. Pain in the ass, day of growth lost ( and hopefully thats all....)... But certainly not an ongoing issue.
I can get a 400 L per day RO unit for $350 from a hydro shop nearby. Certainly something i will look at in the coming weeks... God i've spent so much already lol...my wife is going to kill me.
If using RO water, do you need to add anything back other than Calmag? Or is everything needed in the vega nutrients?
Oh, i lowered the light to 50cm from the tops too.
AU $395 is nuts for a lower end system!
