DWC Bucket Grow: Mistakes Were Made

[RugDr]

My last harvest lasted 6 years. I was giving it away like summer tomatoes and had plenty for years. I did a lot of research on shelf life during my last grow. I can say mine was good for about 4-5 years but potency has gone downhill fast recently. So, it's time to grow again. I don't like to continuously grow. I like to grow, harvest and enjoy until it's time to grow again. I don't like the stress of ongoing crops. So, my priorities are quality, ease of growth, and shelf life.

My new grow mistakes

My first mistake was choosing DWC without a hydro store near by. Soil was much much easier and only required items that are widely available. I'm hoping things get easier now that I've gotten a basic grasp of the concept and my materials. My second mistake was not buying everything I needed right up front. Soil is more forgiving when you don't have exactly what you need on hand. The plant waits for you longer. I popped some seeds and didn't have rockwool so i used jiffy pots. DUMB. Peat has been a PITA. Falling apart, too soggy from wicking up the res, fighting the fine netting. It's just not a good choice. If you are new to DWC and considering it buy EVERYTHING you need upfront. The system is important or you be stressing like me trying to hodgepodge it all together.

What I bought:
I bought PH and TDS meters, buckets, air pump, tubing, GH trio nutes, hydroton and already had the lights.
I had to improvise Ph down, small net pots, a seedling tote, measuring devices, starter medium...

What I should have bought:
everything above plus:
Tote to start seedlings for 3-4 weeks
Medium netpots that could be used in the tote and then moved to bucket lids after starting
Rockwool, root riot... anything but the peat pellets I had on hand.
PH Down/Up
Z7
Cal/mag

I'm sure I will find other things i wish i had before the were a problem. Now, let's get started.

 

[RugDr]

Seedling Stage

Strains:
Strawberry Lemonade, Purple Punch, OG kush, MoneyMaker

RO Water
GH TRIO NUTES to 150 PPM
Sulfuric Acid for PH down

Seedlings are in repurposed single-use coffee pods with the bottoms cut out and jiffy starters inserted.

I cannot wait to get them out of the peat and into their 6" netpots and buckets. The peat is awful at soaking up too much water. I already removed one girl rinsed all the peat off and held her up with clay pebbles for now. She's much happier.

As mentioned above, DWC was a poor choice for me due to the lack of a hydro store in my area. All my issues could have been solved with a retailer who carried this stuff. Instead, I'm stuck getting things online in the midst of pandemic so i'm having to improvise a lot or wait weeks for things I need today.

 

[RugDr]

Homemade Ph Down Recipe:

1 Part Battery Acid (from any autoparts store) to 19 parts RO water.
Add the acid to the water, not the other way around.
Let sit for a few minutes and then put the lid on and gently shake to mix.
You have a mild PH down.

I would have bought regular ph down for hydro but it was taking 3 weeks to get here. You can do your own research and see if you think it's safe. I did and i'm happy with the results and I could get it right here in my town.

 

[RugDr]

Well, it's been an eventful week. I managed to heat stress the plants a bit with the 400 watt light. The seedlings stretched a bit when they first popped up. I mistook this for the light being too far away when in fact it was heat stress from the light being too close. It didn't make sense that a 400 watt light would need to be closer... dumb. However, the stress appears minimal and it's wasn't extreme.

The rest of the supplies I needed finally arrived so the girls were all moved to their own 5-gallon buckets and I immediately ran into a major problem. The CalMag I ordered was General Organics CaMg plus. It was a disaster in my res. It must have had some nasty crap in it because my res was a foamy mess. Brown, nasty, slimy basically overnight. My beautiful white roots looked like they rotted overnight. Luckily, it appears to have been some kind of bacterial bloom and was just kind of stuck to the roots, they didn't actually rot. Z7 knocked it out in a day. No more foam and it's clearing up the stained roots. I only put the cal mag in two buckets and the other 4 show no signs of this so the general organics cal/mag is the culprit and it's going in the trash... and Z7 was a lifesaver.

It has taken a while to walk everything in but I do think things are settling in. Res temps hover around 68, water is clean and clear, PH just needs to be nudged down every few days and the ladies are growing. I'll be adding a little well water to supplement Cal/mag until I can get a suitable product.

Here are a couple of shots of the Strawberry lemonade plant. She has thrown three fan leaves on her 4th node. I'll be topping her to this node in a week or so. It'll be interesting to see if she continues to do this or if it was heat-related.

 

[Slapalottapuss]

Not a hydro guy so this may be super dumb, could you add epsom salt (magnesium sulfate and water soluble and neutral ph)instead of the cal mag? That is what I use both as a foliar and in the nutrients when I feed. I go about .25tsp per gal I’ve heard people using as much as 1 full tbsp. Also as far as I know organic nutrients are a no no in hydro.

 

[RugDr]

Not a hydro guy so this may be super dumb, could you add epsom salt (magnesium sulfate and water soluble) instead of the cal mag? That is what I use both as a foliar and in the nutrients when I feed. I go about .25tsp per gal I’ve heard people using as much as 1 full tbsp. It will also bring your ph down some. Also as far as I know organic nutrients are a no no in hydro.

I don't think it's actually organic, just a misleading name.