First time grow in DWC

[Brazyy]

So I'm growing for my very first time. I figured it would be a good idea making this grow journal because so far I have gotten alot of very good info on this site and it wouldn't hurt to share my experience and get more help along the way. I'm a college student living in Texas and I always wanted to grow but it was impossible for me until now. For years I've watched videos on YouTube and read articles here and there, since joining the forums I've learned a shit ton but I've still got a thousand unanswered questions. My goal is to absolutely maximize my grow space and harvest 200+gs of some turbo dank. I am only growing one plant, I wish I would have germinated 2 seeds but I didn't cuz I only made one DWC bucket. I chose to run a DWC because I figured it was the best way to maximize the plants potential and it also eliminated the risk of me over watering and all the problems that come with that. With school I can get pretty busy so having the option of literally just not needing to open the tent for a day if I can't is really nice. I didn't really wanna mess around with soil, maybe one day I'll try coco - but for now I wanna learn to master hydro. Also people who don't grow always picture me having the set up from Pineapple Express when I talk about hydro so I'll take the free clout. Anyway, I need to keep my grow completely secret, only problem is I have people over alot, the same people I don't want knowing that I am growing bud. My solution was to use the closet in my bedroom, so I took the sliding doors down and removed the clothes rack so I would have more vertical space. My tent is a vivosun 2x4x5 (I could be wrong about the exact measurements but it's in the ball park). For my lights I'm using the Spider Farmer sf2000, I've also got a 6inch inline fan and carbon filter to eliminate smell. Aside from that I've got a $30 fan inside the tent sitting in front of the left mesh vent. I'm using a cheap little humidifier, it got me through the first 4 weeks of life just fine but I might upgrade in the future because of the tank capacity, I find myself having to refill the tank multiple times a day and when I go home to visit I'm 5 hours away so humidity becomes an issue. I want to try and add some CO2 down the road but I have enough to diel in as is.

09/28/2021
Yesterday was day 28 of life, I have been changing the reservoir every Tuesday since I planted it in the DWC, it was the fourth change so far. As for my process, I start by filling another 5 gallon bucket with tap water, I put in the air stone and then the plant is ready to go in the bucket. I honestly don't know if this is good or bad for the plant, she doesn't seem to respond negatively to sitting in the regular tap water but please let me know if I am making a mistake there. Next I get 4 gallons of tap water, the PH where I live sits around 6 so I haven't been needing to use any up or down. I actually don't have a good PH meter, I cheaped out and got some shitty Chinese brand and it just doesn't work even after calibration so I'll order another one, until then I am stuck using the PH testing solution from GH. I have been doing pretty light feeds but I think I ran into a Cal/Mag deficiency so I gave her 10mL along with 12mL of FloraMicro, 11.2 mL of FloraGrow and 8.4mL of FloraBloom. I wait about 60 second between adding each solution to the reservoir and the whole time I'm using a mixing spoon to help evenly distribute the nutes throughout the water. Currently the light is sitting about 26 inches from the canopy. I keep the RH at about 60% and tent temp is usually around 72-75 at 50% light. I am going to start using 80% light and see how to plant responds.

09/29/2021
She is doing amazing after yesterdays feed. She no longer is showing the Cal/Mag issues and probably grew an entire inch over night. I have started LST by gently bending down the larger top leaves and if possible folding them under the smaller leaves that are less exposed to light. I don't want to top the plant because I'm worried it'll stress her to much and thus affect my yield. It looks like she is starting to develop pre-flowers but I am not entirely sure.

 

[West Hippie]

Welcome Brazyy, I’ll join in . I grow DWC also and flood and drain.
Girl is looking great

 

[Brazyy]

9/30/2021

Today is her 30th day of life and she is doing great. I've been doing LST by bending her left, right, forward and back each day going a different direction and folding the younger leaves over the older larger ones. I'll have to go and repeat this process a few times throughout the day, I'll stop when I go to bed and let her reset over night. Just trying to expose as much of the plant as I can and get all those bud sites covered with light. I'm still debating whether or not I should top/defoliate. I don't want to stress the plant to much, she is just so short and bushy. She seems to be responding well to the light increase, I jumped up from 50% light on the sf2000 to 80%. The heat has been sitting at around 75-77 during the day and this morning when I woke up at 5:30 it was like 73.5 or something. Got both my fans on at the low setting and the RH is usually between 50-60%, although for some reason it will jump up to like 60-69%. I live in a pretty humid place so that could have something to do with it. I have been considering using something to cool the reservoir, I'll probably get a few 16oz bottles, freeze them and then put one in the reservoir as needed. The water is cool to the touch but I really want to push this plant as much as possible. I know adding more light means the plant will need more of everything else so I am really watching her closely. As always any advise is more than welcomed and is much appreciated.

 

[Chksbak]

They look great

 

[Brazyy]

10/02/2021
Day 32
A guy from the forum gave me some advice on LST on another one of my threads. He suggested that I use skewers to tie down the branches rather than folding them over constantly. I felt half retarded that I didn't think of it first to be honest. I was a little worried about potentially disturbing the roots by sticking them in the hydroton - but I don't think it'll be an issue. She has been responding really well to the additional light, in 4 days she drank a gallon of water. I refilled the reservoir with regular tap water and then I checked the PH, still using the PH testing solution. I estimate the PH is anywhere between 5.8 and 6.2, the solution doesn't give an exact number so it will always be up to interpretation unfortunately. I noticed that the roots where a bit bunched up so I gently ran a skewer through the strands I could. I was able to untangle some but there was one cluster I couldn't get without damaging the roots. Temps have been bouncing around from 75-78.5. RH has been up and down, it rained the other day so its very humid outside. While I was doing the LST I was watching the RH climb, I was confused because I figured that if the tent was open the humidity would decrease because I would be letting out the evaporated water coming from the humidifier. This was not the case, in fact it was the opposite. So to reiterate, it gets humid as fuck here. If anyone has any tips on how I can better maintain humidity ranges, I am aiming for 50-60%. So far she has been responding very well to it, so if it isn't broken why fix it. I have increased the 6inch fan sitting by the vent to the half power setting to increase air flow through the leaves because she is starting to become so dense. Doing my best to open her up and get her spread out.

 

[Brazyy]

10/02/2021
Day 32
A guy from the forum gave me some advice on LST on another one of my threads. He suggested that I use skewers to tie down the branches rather than folding them over constantly. I felt half retarded that I didn't think of it first to be honest. I was a little worried about potentially disturbing the roots by sticking them in the hydroton - but I don't think it'll be an issue. She has been responding really well to the additional light, in 4 days she drank a gallon of water. I refilled the reservoir with regular tap water and then I checked the PH, still using the PH testing solution. I estimate the PH is anywhere between 5.8 and 6.2, the solution doesn't give an exact number so it will always be up to interpretation unfortunately. I noticed that the roots where a bit bunched up so I gently ran a skewer through the strands I could. I was able to untangle some but there was one cluster I couldn't get without damaging the roots. Temps have been bouncing around from 75-78.5. RH has been up and down, it rained the other day so its very humid outside. While I was doing the LST I was watching the RH climb, I was confused because I figured that if the tent was open the humidity would decrease because I would be letting out the evaporated water coming from the humidifier. This was not the case, in fact it was the opposite. So to reiterate, it gets humid as fuck here. If anyone has any tips on how I can better maintain humidity ranges, I am aiming for 50-60%. So far she has been responding very well to it, so if it isn't broken why fix it. I have increased the 6inch fan sitting by the vent to the half power setting to increase air flow through the leaves because she is starting to become so dense. Doing my best to open her up and get her spread out.

I don't know why my computer keeps inserting multiple of the same picture.

 

[Rexer]

Hey @Brazyy
Found your journal! Looking pretty good.

Do you have a tds meter? It's used to measure EC/PPM, very handy tool in hydro IMO.

You'll want to consider implementing either someform of beneficial microbes or h202.

I tend to sometimes not get all my notifications, so feel free to tag me anytime. West Hippie is here as well, that guy rocks hydro.

 

[Brazyy]

Hey @Brazyy
Found your journal! Looking pretty good.

Do you have a tds meter? It's used to measure EC/PPM, very handy tool in hydro IMO.

You'll want to consider implementing either someform of beneficial microbes or h202.

I tend to sometimes not get all my notifications, so feel free to tag me anytime. West Hippie is here as well, that guy rocks hydro.

I have one but I'm not inclined to trust it because it is the same brand as my busted PH meter. I have H2o2, what do you suggest I do with it? I use it to clean the other bucket I use for the plant while I do reservoir changes.

 

[West Hippie]

Brazyy I see your temps are a little high . All sorts of critters start growing in the bucket . Do you have any Orca or Z7 maybe hydroguard. What do the roots look like ?

 

[Rexer]

Running beneficials is the recommended route personally, orca or Hydroguard.

Using food grade H202 (29%) can be substituted, not the stuff you pick up at the pharmacy. Local hydro store or online. Just don't mix beneficials with H202 (the h202 kills the beneficials). Get thick rubber gloves for the h202.

Edit- and as West Hippie advised, see if you can get your temp down. PS- he's pulled more in one grow in 5x5 then I can dream of, he knows his stuff

 

[Brazyy]

Brazyy I see your temps are a little high . All sorts of critters start growing in the bucket . Do you have any Orca or Z7 maybe hydroguard. What do the roots look like ?

I've got food grade H2o2, I use it to clean the reservoir every other change. I also use it to clean out the other bucket I use to place the plant in when I'm doing a change. The roots are white/brownish but it think the brown color comes from the nutes.

 

[Brazyy]

Running beneficials is the recommended route personally, orca or Hydroguard.

Using food grade H202 (29%) can be substituted, not the stuff you pick up at the pharmacy. Local hydro store or online. Just don't mix beneficials with H202 (the h202 kills the beneficials). Get thick rubber gloves for the h202.

Edit- and as West Hippie advised, see if you can get your temp down. PS- he's pulled more in one grow in 5x5 then I can dream of, he knows his stuff

Yeah I use rubber gloves, I got a tiny drop on my foot for a split second once and it burned me pretty good. I've been thinking of using a frozen bottle of water to lower reservoir temps, but I don't want to make it to low so I'm thinking of putting it on the air pump to lower the temp of the air going into the water. Thoughts? Also - what should I try and bring the temp of the tent down to? When I looked into the strain it said I should have more moderate temps.

 

[West Hippie]

I see this foam around the basket and it’s going to keep growing if not treated . What you can do right now is hold it over another bucket and hose it off . Turn your bubbles off and and put a bottle of ice in the bucket if you have it if there’s more foam it will go after the sides .

 

[Southerncough]

Looking good! As others have said, gotta get ahead of the yuckies or things will go south very quickly!
It's really exciting when the plant takes off and drinks 1-2 gallons a day. You'll see very noticeable growth in a day and then see the reservoir much lower and think damn, look at her go!
What strain is she?

 

[Rexer]

Good catch West! I was zooming into the roots and missed that. I was thinking though that it looks like a coating on the roots?

The dilution rate of the h202 into your reservoir depends on what % your h202 is (ie. 27% vs 29%).

It has to be re-added every few days (don't remember how many) as it breaks down. That's considered running a sterile setup.

 

[Tokin Roll]

Welcome and nice start to your grow journal @Brazyy

I have a couple questions.

Are you using tap water in your reservoir? If so is it hard or soft water?
If you are using tap water are you letting it sit for at least 24 hours before you use it?

Get a quality ppm/ec pen, and a ph pen, you can't do DWC without them.
If you are going to do DWC you have to know what you water is doing all the time.

Are you feeding her yet? If so how much preferably in ppm's or ec. ?

The water should be aerated all the time or is will become stagnant and start to smell.

You need to keep your water temps. below 72 degrees or root rot can start.

What are you doing for circulation?

Sorry for so many questions.

Stay safe, and grow well my friend,

Tok..

Also, increase your cal-mag, you are showing signs of a deficiency.

edit: spelled ph wrong.

 

[Tokin Roll]

What are you doing for circulation?

Think about this to reduce your temperature.
Frozen bottles of water help also in the beginning.

Do you have an exhaust fan on all the time?

Where is your grow area located?

Tok..

 

[Brazyy]

I see this foam around the basket and it’s going to keep growing if not treated . What you can do right now is hold it over another bucket and hose it off . Turn your bubbles off and and put a bottle of ice in the bucket if you have it if there’s more foam it will go after the sides .

What is it? I thought it was just from the water bubbling. I started putting ice directly on the air pump to cool the air and that seemed to have dropped the temp of my water, it's now cool to the touch. You think I should take it further?

 

[Brazyy]

Looking good! As others have said, gotta get ahead of the yuckies or things will go south very quickly!
It's really exciting when the plant takes off and drinks 1-2 gallons a day. You'll see very noticeable growth in a day and then see the reservoir much lower and think damn, look at her go!
What strain is she?

Thanks for joining in, welcome! I'm growing a Green Crack Auto from seedsmen, I'll probably grow 2 more next season as well. I've got some white widow fems but they are photos so I wanna gain a little experience before I start making things more complicated.

 

[Brazyy]

Good catch West! I was zooming into the roots and missed that. I was thinking though that it looks like a coating on the roots?

The dilution rate of the h202 into your reservoir depends on what % your h202 is (ie. 27% vs 29%).

It has to be re-added every few days (don't remember how many) as it breaks down. That's considered running a sterile setup.

I didn't realize I should actually have it in the reservoir. I just use it to sterilize everything after use or during a change. I have 35% food grade H2O2. Is there a chart or something I look at that lets me know the amounts I'll need, and what does it do to my PPM?