Bato/Dutch Bucket - 1st Time Grow

S

sammysnake

Active Member
Hello everyone! Not too long ago I received my paperwork from Canadian gov't to legally grow my own cannabis at home, I am mostly a straight shooter and didn't want to risk anything by doing anything illegal. Since my teenage years I always was super fascinated with cannabis and dreamed of growing my own plants, the next few months will hopefully see that dream through to fruition.

Here are some details about my setup:
Strain: CropKing Northern Lights Fem Auto
Genetics: 70% Indica, 20% Sativa, 10% Ruderalis
Location: Indoor
Method: Bato/Dutch bucket hydro
Lights: 300W LED (to start, might add more)
Ventilation: Carbon filter in + out
Avg temp: 20-24C
Nutrients: General Hydroponics
Bucket Size: 5gal
Reservoir: Large 20gal tote
Target pH: 5.5 - 6.5

Been doing some basic outdoor gardening (peas/beans/chives/etc) the last year as I finally own some property that will facilitate this hobby, so I got my feet wet with with soil. Growing indoors I wanted to keep things clean and go hydroponics for my first grow. I have seen it mentioned before that this should possibly be avoided by first time growers, but I like jumping in head first. After doing quite a bit of research I have decided on the Bato/Dutch bucket method even though I don't see it commonly being used in this forum or others.

Basic idea of Bato/Dutch bucket method for those who don't know:
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Got my hubby to build me this room (5x5):
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Preparing the room:
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Day 3: We've opened up!
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Day 8: Things are coming along.. decided to bury the growing medium (rooter plugs) deeper in the clay pebbles. Was initially worried about plugs being water logged and rotting, still am a little bit actually.
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The most difficulty I have had so far is figuring out how to start off my plants due to this method of hydro has irrigation running 24/7 and worrying about my starting medium getting too wet. I think possibly in the future I might trim off a bit of the rooter plug so that they can get oxygen sooner if the plugs get water logged from 24/7 irrigation. That is if i'm starting plants in these buckets in the future. Chances are I might evolve to a cloning tote and they'll be a little bit farther along and will be easier to transplant into 24/7 irrigation.

Will post progress here soon, looking forward to figuring out nutrient concentrations in coming weeks once cotyledon are shed. Feedback welcome!

edit: Looking at other peoples day 8 pics, mine should be a lot further along it seems. Currently I have two theories for the stunted growth. Either because of waterlogged rooter plugs or humidity is too low. Currently running at 30% RH, which I know is super low. Need to get a humidifier I think..
 
Heya,, great set up, of which I know absolutely nothing about,, but, great set up,, cheers to hubby

Make sure that the room is 'dark', for flowering,, not, nearly dark, but totally dark.

Your plant issues I would think could be more related to Overwatering than rh issues,, i struggle to keep my rh in the thirties, with two humidifiers going,, my low humidity, as far as I can see, has had no negative affect on my grow,, tho apparently low rh is a heaven for bugs, which I have had some issues with, and still do, tho I cant see them right now

Wet roots, on the other hand,, are a definite problem, well, I guess you will be having plenty o wet roots soon enuf.

Pls seek out some hydro users to help with it, I have been trying hempy pots recently,, it is very different than soil, especially when the plants are babies, as you know

Cheers and best karma sent,,
 
@nivek: Thanks! Room is almost completely light proof with lights off, still seems to be a few trouble spots that I am going to fix up with aluminum tape. Also trying to keep it airtight too so air only can exit through the carbon filter outtake.

This is my update for today.

Don't think I mentioned this in my original post but was visible in pictures, I have four 5 gallon buckets setup with irrigation and return lines. Three of the buckets will cannabis plants and a lot of you might find this funny / weird but I am also growing a snowpea plant a long side for the fun it.

What is funny is currently my pea plant is showing up my weeds, but it may further my theory that the cannabis plants are drowning in the rooter plugs. For the pea plant I used just a tiny little bit of rockwool so they should have plenty of oxygen where as the cannabis seedlings were planted in a full rooter plug. Future grow I may just use a little bit of a rooter plug if starting directly in the 5 gallon bucket, or use a starter dome like everyone else and transplant to clay pebbles once roots are matured.

Pea plant :D Getting huge already, if only my girls were this big..
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Day 10: Plants are growing, not as fast as I would like..
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Day 5: This little fellow was germinated a few days later.. I actually did surgery on this one and removed the rooter plug and re-planted directly in clay rocks. Hopefully not too much damage was caused, but trying to test to see if grows faster than the other two that currently in the rooters plugs.
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Room upgrades:
Trying to completely seal the room to eliminate light leaks and smell control. One of the main sources of leakage at this point is the entry door. Off of Amazon I have recently purchased some D-shaped weather stripping to seal the door better.
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Also my second Carbon filter has arrived and I am going to attach it to the inline exhaust fan. I already have a carbon filter on the intake fan to filter air coming into the room.
 
So the bad news ... probably as a result of typical newbie micromanagement. I did surgery to remove the rapid rooters because I thought they were waterlogged and suffocating the seedlings, my line of thinking was they shouldn't be in there with constant drip method. I removed from RR so they mostly be open to hydroton. I regret this as I don't think it was the main issue and removing from RR probably caused a lot of shock to the plants.

Plants had been in stasis for a good 10 days, no growth, turning yellow. I decided one of them was officially dead after the leaves started crumbling..

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The good news,..
We have new growth on the two remaining (of the original three)!!

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So was trying to think of the things I could possibly be doing wrong and have come to the conclusion it was probably because the LED lights were too intense. Being 2 feet away with both veg + bloom lights on.
 
The damaged seedlings could of benefited from a few days rest and recovery before being put under the LED. They may recover yet . Maybe put a dome over them and stop watering so much

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I have four seedlings at about the same stage as yours , 13 days from starting 9 days since sprouting.

I suspect they are setting roots and will take off soon , this is my first time with dwc

And
Happy wake n bake !
 
Nice ! they reset the roots and are back at it , perfect.

I just adjusted the buckets PH , somehow it was at 7.3 now its set
to 5.4 they should settle in a little more vigorously now

I was wondering why they were dragging their heels , I screwed up..haha

My lesson learned is to be more attentive to the PH.. much more.

Part of growing is learning from our mistakes even after years and years
shit happens.

Never a dull moment , love it
 
LEDBud said:
Nice

happy happy joy joy in the garden , it can get dicey at times

The new one is stepping right up into place !
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Yessir :)

Latest update. Finally increased nutrient concentration to veg mode now that plants have recovered.

Dec 27 (Day 24)
- flushed reseviour with fresh tap water
- adjusted pH, added starter level nutrients
- 5.6pH, 400ppm

Jan 1 (Day 29)
- added "2nd week" GH feeding schedule nutrients, 800ppm
- added 3 gal of fresh water
- fixed hose problem on one of the buckets

Jan 2 (Day 30)
- pH reading low 5, decide to add some fresh water to get up raise to 5.5pH
- 800ppm, 750ppm with fresh water added
- 30-40% RH on avg, added humidifier

Bucket #3
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Bucket #1
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Group shot :)
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Baby is under humidity hood in bucket #4. Snowpeas growing like weeds in bucket #2. Everything is back on track by the looks of it.
 
The growth sure is fast with DWC !

Its always a relief to see the change from seedlings to plants as you know they are going to make it now !
She will mend that top in a day and be trucking along the next day or so


Now that the roots have settled in the growth will be explosive , next week your girls will be huge (comparatively)

looking good !
 
I saw you had some issues when starting your girls. I wanted to let you know, for experimentation in the future, that i put my started seeds straight into my hydroton and have had 0 issues doing that. I grow in dwc buckets and top feed with a pump and ring, like yours, for the first week or so until i have roots out of the net pots. I have my top feed set to feed 2x a day for 15 minutes per and i have found it works pretty well.
I know you asked for comparison pics on your first page and i didnt have any day 8 pics but i have a pic from about day 30 or so, if that will do...
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Good luck getting everything dialed in and happy growing.
 
#1, #3 - Day 40, #4 - Day 11
- #1 showing signs of possible nutrient toxicity, going to dilute res a bit
- added 1gal, 666ppm, 6.0 pH

#1, #3 - Day 43, #4 - Day 14
- flushed reseviour with fresh water, balanced pH, added nutrients
- 5.0 pH, 716ppm
- #1 responding well to LST
- #3 on the road to recovery from main stem snap
- turned on ""Bloom"" setting of LED light to increase light intensity, raised higher
- added a mesh to the drain hole on the bottom of the bucket to prevent root growth into drain tubes

#1, #3 - Day 47, #4 - Day 18
- tried a bit of LST on #1 again after letting it heal a bit more
- tried moving irrigation tube inside the bucket to see if it would be a better design, jury is still out
- added some fresh water to top up res, also to increase pH was reading lower 5's, ~666ppm

Removed a large bunch of roots growing inside the draining tubes. One of the buckets was not draining very good at all.
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Sorry for the poor purple/pink LED pictures below..

#4 - Day 18
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#3 - Day 47, unfortunately has not received the same training attention because of the main trunk snap
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#4 - Day 47
- The LST appears to be going well for the first attempt! 7 mains so far.
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Things seem to be stabilized for the most part, steady growth, no major red flags. Keep on keeping on :)
 
LEDBud said:
They are starting to take off now !
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Awww yea!!

#1, #3 - Day 50, #4 - Day 21
- #3 main stem snap is healed pretty good now
- Keeping up with LST on all plants, making up for lost time with #3 which has a stem snap
- Topped up reseviour with nutrients
- 6.0pH, 666ppm
- Going away for a week, plants will probably will be happy without all my micromanagement, have hubby monitoring pH

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Hey Sammysnake,
I was researching dutch/bato and stumbled onto your thread. I'm going to be starting my first hydro setup this Spring growing tomatoes in my greenhouse so my experience is minimal at best. What caught my attention was the first post where you said you got a permit to grow for personal use from the Canadian government. Well, turns out Im in Canada and didn't even know such a thing existed. Im sure its a convoluted lengthy process and any insight you have or links to start me in the right direction would awesome and much appreciated. Sorry for getting off topic!
 
Batobucket said:
Hey Sammysnake,
I was researching dutch/bato and stumbled onto your thread. I'm going to be starting my first hydro setup this Spring growing tomatoes in my greenhouse so my experience is minimal at best. What caught my attention was the first post where you said you got a permit to grow for personal use from the Canadian government. Well, turns out Im in Canada and didn't even know such a thing existed. Im sure its a convoluted lengthy process and any insight you have or links to start me in the right direction would awesome and much appreciated. Sorry for getting off topic!
Click to expand...

The process of getting authorization to grow at home is actually super simple and painless. All you need to do is submit a single form along with an actual prescription from a doctor and you're golden. See: Production of cannabis for your own medical purposes - Canada.ca Here in Calgary our local medical marijuana clinic is awesome and fairly easy to get medical prescriptions from them.

You're allowed to grow 4 plants indoors and 1 out, maximum of 360g of dried on premises allowed.

You do unfortunately have to wait a couple months to get a response.
 
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