Grow Mediums RDWC recommendations

[GHCgrower]

High all!

I'm new to hydro. I've grown several successful outdoor in ground soil grows. I bought a 4 bucket setup from PA Hydroponics. I'm using general hydro flora series nutes at 25% recommended dosing. Room temp has been running 68 - 75. I have had a couple spikes up into the 80s but only a couple times. Humidity is 60%. pH has been between 5.8 ranging up to 6.7. I have a large exhaust fan that comes on once an hour for 15 minutes.

Starting out with Sour 60 Auto and Stilton CBD Auto. I'm currently at 19 days in. The plants appear small to me.

At week two I noticed a slight odor in the growroom. Upon investigation of my nute tank, I noticed a chunky white slime in the tank. I drained everything. Scrubbed the tanks with bleach water. Rinsed the tanks thoroughly. Drained and added fresh nutes and 2.5 ppm bleach.

Fast forward a week... I started to notice a slight odor in the room again. Upon further investigation, I found some more white crap built up on the top edge of the tanks. The roots haven't made much new growth and the plants up top only added a new set of leaves.

I flushed and wiped the inside of the tanks completely with bleach. I just added new nutes tonight. No bleach in the tank. pHd to 5.8.

Tank temps were averaging right around 72.

Also, I noticed some junk in the flora micro... I have attached a pic of this, the buildup and my girls at 19 days.

Any advice on this is appreciated!!

GHCGROWER

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@GHCgrower Welcome to AFNWhere is the aeration? Read this DWC primer and get back to me.

Grow Mediums - 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...

www.autoflower.org

 

[GHCgrower]

@Mañ'O'Green I read through that thread. Great info there for sure! I don't have any enzymes or bennies in my tank at all.

Bubbles are in each bucket with large air stones. Air source is from outside of the room. The room the air source is in is temp regulated to around 70F.

Thanks!!

Happy to have found AFN! It's been helpful!!

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@Mañ'O'Green I read through that thread. Great info there for sure! I don't have any enzymes or bennies in my tank at all.

Bubbles are in each bucket with large air stones. Air source is from outside of the room. The room the air source is in is temp regulated to around 70F.

Thanks!! ✌

Happy to have found AFN! It's been helpful!!

Ok so you are trying to grow "Sterile" I tried that once. It did not work well for me and I have never tried again. Current culture makes a line of nutrients designed to run sterile. I would look there for some ideas.

 

[GHCgrower]

@Mañ'O'Green

Ok so you are trying to grow "Sterile" I tried that once. It did not work well for me and I have never tried again.

So if that is the case, what do you run as far as benies? Is one better than the other? I'm down for whatever. Currently the tanks don't have any bleach in them.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Like I stated in the primer, Botinicare HydroGuard is a basic ingredient for a healthy DWC/RDWC. You are allowing your PH to get way to high. The allowable range is 5.6 to 6.2. Reservoir changes every week without fail. Never use bleach or H²O² in the reservoir. Use a float valve to keep water levels consistent. Use the entire GH Flora line exclusively here is a XLS spreadsheet to do the calculations for you. Your reservoir temperatures are a little high but not in a problem zone.

Flora Series.xlsx

Shared with Jumpshare

jmp.sh

You need to bump up to 50% strength now and should move up 10% each week until you see a little but of tip burn then back off 10%.

 

[Bongos]

I use Jack’s 3 2 1 with hydro guard and some Tribus. Let your roots get established and get ready for a boom around week 4 or 5. Mephisto Sour Stomper day 56.

 

[GHCgrower]

Awesome! Thanks for the advice! I think I had a lot going on. LOL! I don't think my water levels were sufficient in my buckets. They were 3" plus from the netpots. I've adjusted that. I will add some hydrogaurd to the mix. I have started keeping a log for my daily pH readings and will keep that in better check as well. My goal pH has been 5.8 but it has been a little inconsistant.

I appreciate the help!

@Mañ'O'Green Thanks for the input! I appreciate everything. I have been using your sheet.

@Bongos Thanks for the advice!

GHCGrower :smoking:

 

[GHCgrower]

Well I thought I'd post an update here. I discovered a few things I had going on. First off, as I mentioned above, I didn't have the nutrient level in my tanks set deep enough. My seeedlings were not reaching the nutrients. I misunderstood the nuetrient heights until recently. Now I know. Secondly, I was letting the water temp raise too high. I was letting the air temp go above 75 wihtout having a chiller on my system. I think all of this was leading to my slime issues.

I have since completely drained, whiped down everything, flushed the tanks with bleach water, wiped down everything again and filled back up with nutrients. I had to do this twice now. Both times involved tank temps that got too high. I htink I finally am getting a handle on that now. I also bought a bottle of hydrogaurd... It'll be here Friday. I can't wait to add that to the mix. I think that will help things immensley. Why I didn't buy it sooner is beyond me. LOL!

All of the above aside, I am making better growth progress... Still things seem to be going very slowly. I'm using 2 LED lights that draw a combined wattage of 300 watts. Yes they are the cheaper LED lights found on Amazon. These happen to be the Bloomspect 1000 watt equiv full spectrum lights. I have been running them on full spectrum and putting my lights at 18" above the plants. One is slightly closer. One plant has the full intensity of the light on just it. The other light is shared by two plants. All three plants appear to be growing well. They are really starting to reach for the light...

All buckets have a large 2 inch areation stone in them running on high. Air comes from outside the grow room so it's slighly cooler (62 - 65F). I'm keeping humidity at 65 RH... I have a large fan blowing on them on the lowest setting. I have an 8" exhaust fan that turns on for 5 minutes once per hour. The room is 4 x 12. I also have a 10 lb mushroom fruting block in there colonizing for CO2 production. Any air drawn into the room pulls from my mushroom colonization shelf (high CO2) within my clean room. Now that I have decent roots growing, I lowered my nutrient water down a bit. I believe I"m at that 3" mark below the net pot (yes my roots are in the water. LOL).

Am I being impatient or overly parinoid to think that I won't get decent sized plants being 27 days in (from germination)?

This is my first auto flower grow. I just expected more growth out of these since they are in RDWC. I was hoping they would at least reach 2 feet tall before they started flowering. They have not yet, but I'm scared they will start....

Any advice or comments are greatly appreciated!


GHCGrower
:smoking:

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Yeah they seem kinda small but you just never know? Try turning on the red bloom only for 15 minutes at lights out to see if you can initiate some stretch.