Grow Mediums Sage plunges into DWC

[Sage]

Hey hydroheads

I've finally decided to give this a go, and thought I'd journal it here to try and get some help and advice along the way. I've grown in soil and coco, Biotabs, nutes, autopots, now trying blumats in coco but I've always been intrigued by DWC. Also want to try a Wilma, but that'll be for another day...

So current set up is:

1m x 1m x 2m Budbox grow tent

250W dimmable Timber growlight stuffed into an aircooled hood (my last space was very hot, where this tent is placed is not so I may have to break the lights out of their hood at some point).

Manrose fan, massively oversized carboair carbon filter (shop sent me one three sizes bigger than I'd ordered...), Phresh intake filter.

19l Oxypot with a small round airstone (I modded the net pot to imitate the Rhizocore net pots which I've seen raved about but seem impossible to get in Europe)

Eheim silent pump rated at 100l/h

Remo nutrients
Botanicare hydrogaurd
Hygrozyme
Plant Magic silicon

And I've picked Sour Hound x Heisenberg as the strain to grow. Germinated her in a root riot cube, as soon as a root poked out the bottom I put her in the oxypot. Water was RO, mixed with about 10% very hard tap water and added Velokelp, PH'd to 6.2. Clay pebbles were also washed thoroughly, dried out then, PH'd to 5.8.

Here she is five days from sprout, and just today one of the roots has reached the water.

As this is my first go any advice will be gladly taken, calling @MedGrower and @sanguine and anyone else who wants to help out
Cheers!

 

[woody]

Hey mate really nice set up. You using hydroguard or sm90 or something along those lines?

 

[Sage]

Duh! Thanks for reminding me! I put in 2ml/l of hydroguard alongside the Velokelp, just forgot to list it. They say hydro's all about being precise and keeping records, thing is I'm generally whatever the opposite of OCD is... I get the feeling hydro might be a good discipline for me

 

[Be4u]

Just stay on top of your PH. That's the most important thing. Imho.
Don't use meters, use liquid. If your PH is funny check three times a day till you get it right then once a day just to be safe (but that's overkill really). It's the first thing I do when I open the door, check the PH.

Your going to love the outcome, when I went hydro over two decades ago I never went back to dirt. Hydro is too easy.

 

[MedGrower]

I will be watching this one. Already loving the setup and the start. pH 6.2 and VeloKelp will make her thank you. I am sure you have EC / PPM -meter around somewhere? Because along with pH, that is the second most important thing to measure and keep up with it. Checking daily is usually enough. Way I do it is I check the pH with a meter and if I see any reading that is out of ordinary, then I resort to a chemical test with liquids to douple check.

Many times when the concentration of the solution is very low (below 0.4 ec / 200 ppm) normal pH -pens cannot really give you an accurate reading. This is where chemical pH tests are important.

Best of luck. I am thrilled you are doing DWC with Remo. It's going to be gooooood

 

[PickleRick]

Love me some HQ photos! Best of luck!
Just at the end of my first dwc if you wanna check it out in my signature.
Subbing up!

 

[Sage]

Thanks guys!

Many times when the concentration of the solution is very low (below 0.4 ec / 200 ppm) normal pH -pens cannot really give you an accurate reading. This is where chemical pH tests are important.

I didn't know that, I'll look out for a chemical test. I've got a bluelab truncheon for EC so hopefully I can keep on top of that.

 

[Sage]

Right, so my first dilemma is this, I filled the res with RO water but I couldn't believe the time it took to filter. Pretty much all day to get 19 litres, and the amount of waste water was huge. Apparently you can get RO filters which have a water/waste ratio of 1/1 but they cost several hundred £'s (mine was a cheap fleabay special, lesson learnt...). So would running with my tap water be an option? It's PH 7.4 EC 0.6 and that's after it's been through a whole house filter which is supposed to remove a load of crap. It's also quite low in Magnesium and very high in Calcium so I might have to supplement magnesium on top of the Magnifical. Or is this going to be a world of pain?

 

[woody]

Why dont you make up a spare res bucket with tap and see how it goes.
My tap is ec0.4 and about 7.2ph and i never had problems

 

[MedGrower]

Right, so my first dilemma is this, I filled the res with RO water but I couldn't believe the time it took to filter. Pretty much all day to get 19 litres, and the amount of waste water was huge. Apparently you can get RO filters which have a water/waste ratio of 1/1 but they cost several hundred £'s (mine was a cheap fleabay special, lesson learnt...). So would running with my tap water be an option? It's PH 7.4 EC 0.6 and that's after it's been through a whole house filter which is supposed to remove a load of crap. It's also quite low in Magnesium and very high in Calcium so I might have to supplement magnesium on top of the Magnifical. Or is this going to be a world of pain?

Man that EC is a bit much in your tap water, but pH is ok. It would be ideal to go with RO for sure since you get better control on Mg/Ca/Iron since all of them correlate with each other and it might be tricky to find a good balance otherwise.

But it is doable for sure. Just not optimal. Hey, one middle ground would be to mix tapwater with RO? That way it would not be THAT hard but you wouldn't have to do it that much either.

I guess I am lucky to have my tap water around 0.12 ec