Swaggs Great Canadian Adventure: Diving into DWC

[Icemann420]

U start with water that cold? I was told the lower end should be no less then 16 deg C (61F). I covered the lids and buckets with just a white stuff I found at the hydro store

In hot months yes I do in winter time I’ll use room temperature water but that’s in mid to low 60*f

 

[Icemann420]

After looking things over ^^this mightbe the source of your brown goop. I know others use a little great white in their buckets but it tends to muck things up. If you want to use a product like that look into Orca.
Orca®

The roots will get stained the color of the solution that you use to an extent. I try to keep my bucket as clean as I can so I don't us anything that doesn't mix well. Silica goes in first if you are using it.

Where is your water level in relation to the bottom of your net pot? I kept mine 1" from the bottom until they were well rooted and then dropped it a bit more once they are established. It also looks like your hydroton is wet in most of your pictures. How often are you top feeding the little ones? You can get them too wet with the rooters. You want them to go searching for the water.

The PH is very important or at least it was in my case. That was the largest hurdle I had to overcome.Just because the nutrients are in the water doesn't mean that the plant can use them. Certain nutrients are easier to work with than others. I am an AN guy all the way in coco but I had a hard time with it always trying to correct in DWC. When I switched to GH Flora it holds much better. I also started correcting the PH first because my watered is buffered so strong if I don't give it 24 hours to stabilize then I am chasing numbers all the time. I get everything stable in the solution before I do a reservoir change.

Sorry if I missed a few things. Good luck going forward. DWC is a different mindset than coco. I am a coco grower as well. the two methods are different. The source water is more important and there is little margin for error in the nutrients and PH.

Kick ass Sam. Nice info.

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

Merry Christmas to the entire Swaggs family!

Thanks. Same to u and everyone else. Been hectic and busy around here. Sorry for the delayed greetings folks.

Great advice Sam.

Exactly what I need around here lol.

A quick google search came up with this

This is going to be my challenge I think for the whole grow. Keeping temps in check.

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

After looking things over ^^this mightbe the source of your brown goop. I know others use a little great white in their buckets but it tends to muck things up. If you want to use a product like that look into Orca.
Orca®

The roots will get stained the color of the solution that you use to an extent. I try to keep my bucket as clean as I can so I don't us anything that doesn't mix well. Silica goes in first if you are using it.

Where is your water level in relation to the bottom of your net pot? I kept mine 1" from the bottom until they were well rooted and then dropped it a bit more once they are established. It also looks like your hydroton is wet in most of your pictures. How often are you top feeding the little ones? You can get them too wet with the rooters. You want them to go searching for the water.

The PH is very important or at least it was in my case. That was the largest hurdle I had to overcome.Just because the nutrients are in the water doesn't mean that the plant can use them. Certain nutrients are easier to work with than others. I am an AN guy all the way in coco but I had a hard time with it always trying to correct in DWC. When I switched to GH Flora it holds much better. I also started correcting the PH first because my watered is buffered so strong if I don't give it 24 hours to stabilize then I am chasing numbers all the time. I get everything stable in the solution before I do a reservoir change.

Sorry if I missed a few things. Good luck going forward. DWC is a different mindset than coco. I am a coco grower as well. the two methods are different. The source water is more important and there is little margin for error in the nutrients and PH.

I definitely think some of that staining was from the root booster. But just the way the roots looks. Just like strings of thread. All stuck together and the small black clumps. Something was just not right. Then the drooping thing and weird new growth. For my water level, I had the water up maybe an inch into the net to start then I dropped it just under the net once they poked thru. My ph is always 5.6-5.9. That usually doesn't change much at all. I'm not sure how good or not good this is but since I'm using alot of water , I don't have a place to keep my water for 24-48 hours to dechlorinate or whatever it has to do which is what I was doing for my previous coco runs. I have one of those orange Gatorade 5 gallon water jugs like the athletes use. So I was storing water there. I don't have that kind of storage for water now so I just been using it straight out of the tap. Temps as I mentioned before always end up creeping back up to 21-22 degrees C (69.8F-71.6F) so I will likely just keep trying to start off with cooler water then just doing the ice packs/water bottle method.
This passed week, they weren't coming back so I really got discouraged and popped new beans and turned the whole tent off.
After a day and half, the plants were still telling me that they don't wanna give up yet. Or maybe they were telling ME not to give up yet...cuz when I cleaned out the buckets and hydroton again and dressed up the buckets, I actually snipped off the majority of the roots and raised the water level back into the pots for them and just let them do their thing.
So I look in the buckets because at this point I'm thinking I gotta clean them out again and get ready for the new beans, I looked in each bucket and boy did I have a surprise in 2 of the buckets. The whitest more beautiful strong thick roots o ever seen. I've seen them in other journals and photos before but Holy shit I recommend every human to have the pleasure of seeing that site. Wow. I'll have an update with pics later today. Plan to do a fresh res change for the 2 and just monitor the 3rd one. The pink kush is not happening here so it will be replaced for sure.
Before I forget, I am trying to find something about ppms on DWC. If anyone has information on that I would really appreciate it. From what I've seen, I see that even very early on they need ppm to be up around 1000-1200. Ive only done coco so naturally that would seem super high, although I've done it, but should I bump them up to those levels?

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

In hot months yes I do in winter time I’ll use room temperature water but that’s in mid to low 60*f

I've been catching up on ur journal btw. Half way there. I made it to page 20 so far.

 

[SamSmith]

I definitely think some of that staining was from the root booster. But just the way the roots looks. Just like strings of thread. All stuck together and the small black clumps. Something was just not right. Then the drooping thing and weird new growth. For my water level, I had the water up maybe an inch into the net to start then I dropped it just under the net once they poked thru. My ph is always 5.6-5.9. That usually doesn't change much at all. I'm not sure how good or not good this is but since I'm using alot of water , I don't have a place to keep my water for 24-48 hours to dechlorinate or whatever it has to do which is what I was doing for my previous coco runs. I have one of those orange Gatorade 5 gallon water jugs like the athletes use. So I was storing water there. I don't have that kind of storage for water now so I just been using it straight out of the tap. Temps as I mentioned before always end up creeping back up to 21-22 degrees C (69.8F-71.6F) so I will likely just keep trying to start off with cooler water then just doing the ice packs/water bottle method.
This passed week, they weren't coming back so I really got discouraged and popped new beans and turned the whole tent off.
After a day and half, the plants were still telling me that they don't wanna give up yet. Or maybe they were telling ME not to give up yet...cuz when I cleaned out the buckets and hydroton again and dressed up the buckets, I actually snipped off the majority of the roots and raised the water level back into the pots for them and just let them do their thing.
So I look in the buckets because at this point I'm thinking I gotta clean them out again and get ready for the new beans, I looked in each bucket and boy did I have a surprise in 2 of the buckets. The whitest more beautiful strong thick roots o ever seen. I've seen them in other journals and photos before but Holy shit I recommend every human to have the pleasure of seeing that site. Wow. I'll have an update with pics later today. Plan to do a fresh res change for the 2 and just monitor the 3rd one. The pink kush is not happening here so it will be replaced for sure.
Before I forget, I am trying to find something about ppms on DWC. If anyone has information on that I would really appreciate it. From what I've seen, I see that even very early on they need ppm to be up around 1000-1200. Ive only done coco so naturally that would seem super high, although I've done it, but should I bump them up to those levels?

First off that is great news on the rebound. Sometimes the less we mess with them the better off they are. I am wondering if it just wasn't getting all mucked up with the root booster and they were struggling. Like I had mentioned before I like to keep the solution as clean as I can so I don't get false reads on what is actually going on with the roots. In soil or coco we can only guess.

As far as nutrient ppm's go I do run my DWC higher than my coco grows so far. I run the coco at 700-750 total starting from 140-150 tap after declornination in 5 gallon buckets with air stones over night. Same tap in DWC I will let it get to 850-900 after a reservoir change. It drops from there over the week. This is all after they are well established though. When they are young I run the coco at 300-ish and the DWC at around 400ppm.

I stumbled with DWC in the beginning with PH but yours seems to be spot on. 5.9 is where I target but it drifts from 5.5 to 6.0 when I am adjusting it back up. Most of the time it is 5.7-5.8 and I check it twice a day.

I guess the only other thing I can ask is how much air are you running in the buckets? I am pushing 575 GPH into a bucket with (2) 2" X 4" stones.

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

First off that is great news on the rebound. Sometimes the less we mess with them the better off they are. I am wondering if it just wasn't getting all mucked up with the root booster and they were struggling. Like I had mentioned before I like to keep the solution as clean as I can so I don't get false reads on what is actually going on with the roots. In soil or coco we can only guess.

As far as nutrient ppm's go I do run my DWC higher than my coco grows so far. I run the coco at 700-750 total starting from 140-150 tap after declornination in 5 gallon buckets with air stones over night. Same tap in DWC I will let it get to 850-900 after a reservoir change. It drops from there over the week. This is all after they are well established though. When they are young I run the coco at 300-ish and the DWC at around 400ppm.

I stumbled with DWC in the beginning with PH but yours seems to be spot on. 5.9 is where I target but it drifts from 5.5 to 6.0 when I am adjusting it back up. Most of the time it is 5.7-5.8 and I check it twice a day.

I guess the only other thing I can ask is how much air are you running in the buckets? I am pushing 575 GPH into a bucket with (2) 2" X 4" stones.

I think some of my issues were also from light getting into the buckets. Before I went to they hydro store last week, the pots weren't completely full of hydroton simply because I didn't have any left from the pack I got with my buckets.

I'll definitely bump up the nutes a bit more today and see what happens. My light issue is a non issue now that I filled up the nets properly plus I have the white wrap stuff on the kids aswell to prevent any light penetration. I don't think there's much I can do to get away from using tap water so that will likely not change unless I come up with something and I'm really hoping that doesn't cause issues.

I'm using 4" air stones on all the buckets from a standard 4 port air pump that u would normally find at a hydro store. Not sure what the output. I'll try to remember to post a pic of the air stone itself. 4" rectangular shaped one.

 

[SamSmith]

I think you're fine. Just let it ride for a bit and see how they react.

If there is one thing I have learned about growing cannabis is that they don't like abrupt changes. Trimming them up is equivalent to a deer stopping by for a nibble and they don't seem to care but any changes to light,temps,PH and nutes and they can object.

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

I think you're fine. Just let it ride for a bit and see how they react.

If there is one thing I have learned about growing cannabis is that they don't like abrupt changes. Trimming them up is equivalent to a deer stopping by for a nibble and they don't seem to care but any changes to light,temps,PH and nutes and they can object.

That's the plan. Just try to keep them with happy roots. Hopefully my new mixture satisfies them

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

Okay so here we go. New day. New res change. Fresh new snow outside. And inside, we also have fresh new roots. Pearly white roots. The plants themselves don't really look great. But honestly, I don't think they look horrible either. Water temps have stayed the same, I didn't really make a consistent effort to put the ice packs in the buckets so I'm going to assume maybe my issues were mostly light leak related?

Ppms are now around 650-700
Ph is 5.6
Water level just under the net pot, about a finger knuckle down.

Up first is the rambunctious raspberry boogie that was always showing a strong desire to flourish and grow now that's what the roots are supposed to look like now that I've seen the before and after

This raspberry boogie bean was popped a week after the gorilla cookies and Northern high lights.

Up next is the gorilla cookies who also had a very good start....also doesn't look great but the new root system, I like.

As for the other 2 plants....pink kush is RIP. And the norther high lights still has no roots. The bigger plant is the northern high lights. And the other thing was the pink kush. Replacements on deck already. Have 4 beans popped that I will move into rooting cubes tomorrow most likely.

The new beans on desk are
8 ball kush
Gorilla glue
Blue dream
Norther high lights.

 

[SamSmith]

In those pictures it looks like nute burn. The roots are about as good as they get. Looks like you are on the right track now.

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

In those pictures it looks like nute burn. The roots are about as good as they get. Looks like you are on the right track now.

Thanks for the feedback. I really hope things turn around now. Those roots are a good sign so I'm just being patient and will see how things go. Fingers crossed.

 

[newty]

Nice rebound!! Love to see those healthy roots

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

Nice rebound!! Love to see those healthy roots

Tell me about. I couldn't believe my eyes. Good thing I looked when I did. Otherwise the tent would still be all off and unplugged.

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

New day, new year, new vibes. Hope everyone had a safe a memorable holidays. Little bit of an update, good and bad news.

The bad: temps are still running away on me if I don't toss Ice packs in daily and the roots once again are letting me know they don't like the temps. Reason I wanted to do DWC in the first place was to be able to let things be for days at a time so since I can't do that without the water temps getting too high, I've decided to set aside the DWC idea for the time being. Till I have better space and can dedicate ice pack time daily for the whole grow, which I can't do now.

The good: I never give up. Adapt, adjust and execute.pink kush, as tiny as she is just does not want to die. It's literally the same exact size from weeks ago and has one single long strand of root that actually searched far and wide for water. Cuz that buckets water level is much lower. The rest of them are still alive and doing okay. Still having stress issues and slow growth just from all the issues I've had thus far.

So, the plan now is to just transplant them onto air pots and in coco. 3 gal pots for all. I purchased a water pump and just need a couple of fittings. I'll have a bucket with the nutrients in it and the water pump on a timer, hoses and a watering ring sort of thing and see how that goes. I really want to keep a DWC bucket but the whole temp thing is something that I may not be able to give the necessary attention to for the entire grow cycle due to life, work, etc etc. So this was the next thing that I came up with.

Sorry to all of you who were looking to see a successful DWC grow. Unfortunately, things changed and I had to make these adjustments in order to keep my grow growing. Will post pics soon of the new setup.

 

[InTheShed]

I'm just here to watch you grow Swaggs, come hell or high warm water! I have no doubt you'll figure something out .

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

Transplants complete. Pink kush got the boot.

Up first gorilla cookies.

Up next raspberry boogie.

Northern high lights. Seems like weak genetics or a real slow grower. Both beans started off slower then others and the plant itself is smaller to the others on comparison.

Last look at the pink kush which made its way to the trash.

New beans were put in rooting cubes this evening so they will be added to the party once they get going.

 

[InTheShed]

Nice work. Even the slow growers have a lot of roots, so now that they're in coco they might take off! We can only hope...

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

This is the revamped set up. Still a bit of shuffling around to do with the Gatorade 5 gallon bucket and messing around with the water pump and timer but I think this is gonna be it. Should be all good I'm hoping as long as they don't mind the same feed. Oh god how I don't need that problem.

It's nothing complicated or crazy. Just a Gatorade 5 gallon bucket with the water pump inside obviously. I also have a few air stones in there too for added spice. Don't know if that will or won't do anything but it looks cooler then standing water in the bucket lol. From the water pump, I have that hose you can see and just got a few little fittings and some standard 1/4" hose I think it is and ran those little hoses to each pot. They had these watering ring/square things at the hydro store so I just picked those up. Also I ended up getting a 3x3 water table I think it's called. I dunno. The black thing at the bottom that all the pots are on. Not sure if u can see in the pics but my first pump run had alot of run off. So thank god for that thing.

 

[SwAggNiFiCeNt]

After an anxious sleep, I made it thru the night and went straight to the tent this morning. Not that I expected anything terrible to happen but still with everything that's gone wrong, just nerves i suppose. Anyway, things are looking great so far. The next few days will tell a better story but for now, I can say that I finally can go on about my day not worrying if the roots are brown or not. What the water temps are etc

Ppms going in are around 550. Ph 5.6
I tested the run off and the ppms were up around 800. Ph in the 5.6 range.

Also gave a couple of the gals...one for sure gal and one that better be, their first tie downs today. A little lst to make them feel at home and welcome them into their new reality. Lol. Here's a few pics.