New Grower Northern Storm Auto DWC

[Free Flow]

Question. We can all see the mineral stain on the hydroton in the pic. I get that on my windows from the sprinklers, too. So my tap water is only 53 ppm and the city report looks good. Mostly sourced from three main wells within city limits. They recently upgraded the city water plant (ironically, the old plant is currently under construction--they are building plug and play grow boxes, or pods, for renting cx's), and the water seems good, gotta lower the ph a little, but tests very low ppm. How the hell can it be hard water if there are only 53 ppms of shit in it? Is this affecting the plants?

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this is a good question, i'm also curious of this as I have hard water with low ppms also.Sorry I cant help answer this.

I grow in DWC or bubbleponics also and as far as results go, Dwc have always been my biggest yields, Coco has been simple and easy also with good yields but its a bit of a learning curve to get it all dialed in. Rdwc is hard because of exactly that, managing your ph with multiple plants especially different strains is tough, but its manageable once you get it down. You guys should just stick with growing in coco to gather some experience while playing with a plant or 2 in dwc then eventually once you get a hold of what your style of growing is that's just my .2 cents man. messing around with different styles of growing right off the bat is a hard thing to do, if you're up for it then by all means go for it we are here to help but like I said, you will have better success if you slow down and master your environment.

Plants look awesome man, so far so good in the Coco, even the dwc mega crop plant looks good. how much mc are you giving per gallon? Sorry to ramble bro just took a huge dab and stumbled on this awesome thread

 

[Boradan]

Did you thoroughly wash the Hydroton and soak it in pH 5.5 water before using it?

Those clay pebbles are notorious for pushing pH up on initial use if not thoroughly cleaned/soaked before first use.

 

[KkB]

this is a good question, i'm also curious of this as I have hard water with low ppms also.Sorry I cant help answer this.

I grow in DWC or bubbleponics also and as far as results go, Dwc have always been my biggest yields, Coco has been simple and easy also with good yields but its a bit of a learning curve to get it all dialed in. Rdwc is hard because of exactly that, managing your ph with multiple plants especially different strains is tough, but its manageable once you get it down. You guys should just stick with growing in coco to gather some experience while playing with a plant or 2 in dwc then eventually once you get a hold of what your style of growing is that's just my .2 cents man. messing around with different styles of growing right off the bat is a hard thing to do, if you're up for it then by all means go for it we are here to help but like I said, you will have better success if you slow down and master your environment.

Plants look awesome man, so far so good in the Coco, even the dwc mega crop plant looks good. how much mc are you giving per gallon? Sorry to ramble bro just took a huge dab and stumbled on this awesome thread

Thanks for reading and for putting in your two cents, Free Flow. Ur right, master one first, although the majority of the stuff I looked into prior to starting involved DWC. We built a great bucket system, but kept tweaking things, making it hard to dial in, like switching top feed line size, Res was ph'ed, then ran for a week with air stones and full circ. Then, We mixed in a 1/6 dose, and put them in the 'ton. I fought ph every day, lowering it a full point and some change every day. Day 3 comes along... i adjust down and it finally stabilized...woke up and one was LAID OVER, and the other was nuked at the tips. I added two gallons of ph'ed water to dilute system and the one stood back up, but--- we moved them to coco, and they are back on track.
The plant getting megacrop is getting about 2.5g/gallon --750ppm in the res now. Plus slf-100. I fill the bucket to the 3.5 gallon mark, then mix it like I was making two gallons. Since i dont have a scale yet, i been using a teaspoon to guestimate 5 grams of megacrop. It seems very forgiving, even when not mixed exactly. The one lady, the tomatoes, and my dwc lettuce are getting megacrop and doing well.

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[KkB]

Did you thoroughly wash the Hydroton and soak it in pH 5.5 water before using it?

Those clay pebbles are notorious for pushing pH up on initial use if not thoroughly cleaned/soaked before first use.

Didnt presoak the pellets, but we ran the system for a week with full circulation before putting in nutes (light-1/6 strength). Thought they would have had time to stabilize, but of course i didn't monitor the ph in the system throughout that week prior to make sure it was stable. Another lesson learned!

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[KkB]

Didnt presoak the pellets, but we ran the system for a week with full circulation before putting in nutes (light-1/6 strength). Thought they would have had time to stabilize, but of course i didn't monitor the ph in the system throughout that week prior to make sure it was stable. Another lesson learned!

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Definitely washed the hell out of them, those things are DUSTY. Strangely, the plants were loving it the first few days, no transplant shock or anything, but the ph was really high. Figured if it was in the correct range, that they would do better... got it down, rhey suddenly were able to correctly uptake, and BOOM. Too hot for them.

And i bought a blue lab ph pen and calibrate weekly. That fucker is dialed in.

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[KkB]

Thanks for reading and for putting in your two cents, Free Flow. Ur right, master one first, although the majority of the stuff I looked into prior to starting involved DWC. We built a great bucket system, but kept tweaking things, making it hard to dial in, like switching top feed line size, Res was ph'ed, then ran for a week with air stones and full circ. Then, We mixed in a 1/6 dose, and put them in the 'ton. I fought ph every day, lowering it a full point and some change every day. Day 3 comes along... i adjust down and it finally stabilized...woke up and one was LAID OVER, and the other was nuked at the tips. I added two gallons of ph'ed water to dilute system and the one stood back up, but--- we moved them to coco, and they are back on track.
The plant getting megacrop is getting about 2.5g/gallon --750ppm in the res now. Plus slf-100. I fill the bucket to the 3.5 gallon mark, then mix it like I was making two gallons. Since i dont have a scale yet, i been using a teaspoon to guestimate 5 grams of megacrop. It seems very forgiving, even when not mixed exactly. The one lady, the tomatoes, and my dwc lettuce are getting megacrop and doing well.

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If you havent jumped on that offer from megacrop, then do it! You can get a free 230g($15) AND a 1000g ($35) sample with the AFN code. I got both, you jist pay shipping. For me, it was 9 dollars between the two for shipping. And it is awesome, it has npk and trace elements, silica, amino acids, ect.

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[KkB]

Figured it was time to update the journal, although the title is misleading at this point! We started this journey with 2 plants in a RDWC handbuilt system, and the others in custom airpots and 2 ten gallon smartpots with a coco, peat, and perlite mix blended by our local garden supply store, but freaked out early on and switched all plants to the coco blend save for one NS lady and two tomatoes in 5 gal dwc bubbleponics buckets.

The coco plants : 3 Critical Purple Kush autos (GCS) and 3 Northern Storm autos (msnl) are getting GH Flora Series 3 part nutes at 50% strength and slf-100, fed to runoff every third day and light supplemental (leftover mix) feeding in between to keep the top layer of coco from drying out. Except for one NS, they are happy.

The bubbleponics NS gets megacrop and slf-100. Her res ph is a little high at 7.0, but she don't mind. Was adjusting down every day, but gave up and she's doing fantastic still. No res change, just added more megacrop and slf-100 three times so far. Her roots are amazing and beautiful white. I dialed the air back on her a little as her roots were rolling over themselves and twisting up. Problem solved... there is a 4" cylinder air stone and a 951gph commercial air pump.

Earlier this week, we mainlined the largest NS, one leaf, above the 4th node (maybe 5th)and she didn't miss a beat. She has 8 awesome colas emerging from the bush pretty equally, one is getting a small side light to encourage growth out feom under. One minor defoliation and lots of leaf tucking the last few days.

Remember Champ? She was the biggest, strongest, and earliest seedling... Didn't last. But she recovered from her early fucked upedness and is getting some heavy lst. Soon she will start to circle the pot. I put that bitch down by the throat and less than an hour later she's looking up again, so having to adjust the insulated wire noose a few times a day. I pinned her main branches out the other way like Atrain and so many others have demonstrated so well here on AFN, and they really dont need the restraint any more. Her main stem is horizontally level and low to the medium and shes doing exactly what we make her. Just not really GROWING as fast as 2 of her NS sisters.

Then there is the last NS female. Dont know whats up with her, gonna put her pics last in the list so please give us your thoughts! Shes been fed, underfed, deficient, toxic, you name it, we were sure she had it. That yellowing discoloration eventually dries up and falls off. New growth isn't affected at first, but it eventually spreads there. Super slow growth, but she never looked wilty, never truly overfed, underfed... things that come to my mind are a disease or sunburn. But all the other plants, aside from tomatoes that have a similar blotchy pattern, but no necrosis, are doing well under the current regimen.

Which is 24/7 currently under 2XXXL hoods with 1000w MH and super HPS. Max height above canopy
1 viparspectra 900w LED in the center between hoods

Temps are steadish, trying to stay between 76-88 F, but came home today and found it at 102 inside... first sunny day in a while and def warmest, didnt have the side garage door open and it gets the sun on the main garage roller door all day. Outside temps low 60s, garage temps 80's, frying balls inside the tent! We got it cooled down in a hurry.
Switched intake fan to a heavy duty six inch inline with about a million more times power than the shitty one we had there (On a variable control switch).
We moved the shitty one to the intake of the hood ducting that had only one six inch fan blasting air from garage, through lights, out into garage with a curvy duct job. Keeping it cool inside garage, and temps in tent are stabile at 85 F now, but will prolly fall to 79 F overnight.

The bubbleponics, and two CP's were fimmed a day or two after one leaf was mainlined. They all have responded well, but i think we only achieved a good 4 way branch thingy on one. Hopefully I am wrong, but they all look good and are putting on the size fast and lots of new growth.

Thanks for reading, folks. Hoping to see these fuckers explode soon, been a long month, no doubt.

Loving every minute of it, though!

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[KkB]

Update: all plants doing well save the one NS that has just been ugly all along. I have the Optic Foliar lineup arriving today or Monday (The three parts shipped separately). All save for one Critical Purple and the ugly NS have been topped or fimmed, with varying levels of LST taking place. There is a Big Bud auto in there (the smallest) who was just pinned down yesterday without topping and has responded well to the LST.

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[KkB]

Don't forget about the tomatoes in bubbleponics! They love megacrop! All plants getting GH three part except bubbleponics plants (one Northern Storm and two tomato plants) Although I think the tomatoes may have a cal-mag issues, but that's another forum, right?

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[KkB]

Sooo. Plants are doing well...

All but one lady is getting GH flora series, water to runoff every other day at almost full strength mix and slf-100 (I LOVE THIS SHIT) and optic foliar three part mixed as per instructions to make Overdrive on the off watering day. Temps are awesome, humidity has been better lately, and getting smelly and crowded in the tent.

The lady in bubbleponics is getting 5g Megacrop and Sweet Candy (very small amount right now, like a sprinkling in the res). She is drinking a few gallons a week, been filling the res to 3/4 full and treating with slf-100 and it is clean as a whistle in the bucket. I have been changing the res when it gets low and cleaning the bucket in between (never dirty or grimy/slimy, but trying to keep it that way) and she looks great. She was fimmed and that node gave me 4 shoots, PLUS her main cola came back from the guillotine (I must have left too much) so her branch structure is amazing, very little LST required and shit loads of tops.

Even the fucked up Northern Storm is growing nicely, just smaller, thinner, and ugly as all hell as she eventually seems to eat her leaves from the outside edges in. They grow in green, get mottled, turn brown, then yellow, and eventually necrosis. Variegation is my best guess, just cant find out what it means scientifically.

The critical purple ladies.... Two have started flowering and the last one is on the verge. The ladies developing flowers were fimmed, one seriously pinned down and LST'd heavily along the substrate, the other left as more of a bush and coaxed into spreading evenly. They were given transition to bloom mix yesterday, going to feed Bloom mix this time around. They both got slightly nuked and are showing at the tips, and I am thinking the optic foliar was too much too soon,or there was too much N in the food for this cycle? I am gonna ease back to twice a week on off water days with optic foliar.

The Au Natural CPurple left to grow as she wanted appears to may be getting ready to flower, but I honestly don't see sites yet.

Should I defoliate more?


The youngest---a big bud auto planted 3/15 is growing up fast in the smallest pot.

Started some photos the other day to raise a mother plant and maybe some males for future projects. They will have their own 4X4 tent.

I have also successfully rooted several of the smaller shoots trimmed last week! One had a tiny bud site, I really want to grow a tiny ass mature lady auto. Hope it works!

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