If you dont have a PPM meter.. no big deal you might be able to get away without it.
If you dont have a PH meter, you shouldn't attempt to grow cannabis at all!!
Hygrohybrid is a hack!! who the fuck charges people to watch your crappy youtube videos? Sure, he knows how to build a cool RDWC system, but that mega RDWC system killed his plants when he got a pythium outbreak and didn't use any Hydrguard to save his plants.
After that video.. i didn't see a lot from him. then he felt that he was so good that he needed to charge people a subscription fee to watch his lame videos.
If you guys want a great grower to follow and learn from, TheCapn was the man..
Unfortunately, he is no longer with us on 420 here, although i do know where he is currently blogging and i do speak with him daily. Some of this articles in the sub forums are still available such as his "Simple Hydroponics" top feed system known as "Capn-Style" in the hydroponic growing section on 420 here. He is my mentor, and i have learned many things about growing, disease, training, harvesting.. just about everything you could need to know! I will be continuing his growing style here on 420 in my own Journals, as well as blog tutorials in the future for people to learn from since his blogs were all deleted.
I agree and also disagree with midasone. While DWC is the easiest method of growing to set up, i find its the hardest to get control of and its the easiest to get out of control!
Water quality and especially water temperature are your enemies when growing in DWC. If using a top feed system like i use, temperature wont be so much of an issue as your roots aren't sitting submerged in water. You wont even need an airstone or air pump technically if you irrigate more than 6 times a day as the water returning to the reservoir aerates the water enough. But your roots dont sit in the water, so they receive oxygen from the air within and around the rockwool, so it really doesn't matter if you add air to your reservoir, unless you are using something like Gen Hydro's Floralicious Plus, then it is highly suggested to aerate your nutrient solution.
When you have your roots sitting in a nutrient solution that has no movement to it.. they will begin to take on the colour of the solution. You can simply rinse the roots off under cold water, but if you have a fully mature plant, that son of a bitch might be heavy as hell!! who wants to lift that sucker into a sink to spray off the roots? i sure as hell dont.
Thats DWC growers biggest issue. is how their roots look. Which is the whole reason why EVERYONE should stop growing in DWC buckets. Everyone freaks out so much.. " OMG one feeder root is discoloured. H2o2 rinse!! Plant is dying!! World is over!!"
I realised that keeping your roots pearly white will NEVER happen in DWC. the bottom roots will always be sitting in more concentrated solution as the metals in the nutrients will sink to the bottom. Thats why water movement is so important.. to keep the nutrient solution properly mixed.
If you DO WANT to do DWC growing, I would highly recommend doing it in an Recirculating DWC system. The constant movement of water will keep the temperatures down, also keeping the nutrients properly mixed in the reservoirs. Also having a larger amount of water in the system will make it take much longer for the water temperature to raise.
My Ultimate Hydro suggestion would to be buy a 2cu. ft. bag of rockwool grow cubes. They measure 1cmx1cmx1cm. They look like a crouton. No large blocks of rockwool! Get yourself a variety of pot sizes, from a small 4" round or square pot, all the way up to a 5gal round pot, or a 5.2gal SuperRoots AirPot like i (and TheCapn) grows in.
During veg, hand water everyday to waste. By that i mean, you dont re-use the water you just fed your plants. Toss it out.. give it to your house plants, spray it on your backyard. dump it over your fence into your neighbours yard and watch him wonder why one patch of grass or shrubs are growing way better than the rest haha.
Watering to waste, also known as drain to waste or whatever, is a great way to ensure that your plants are getting fresh nutrient supply each watering, not pH drifted, diliuted nutrient solution thats being recirculated. Your plants will grow faster and more lush in colour.
It sounds like it might be expensive, but in the end, its not really, as nutrients aren't all that expensive. When you buy the small bottles (why anyone would i dont know??) yea it gets expensive cause you have to replace them sooner. Thats why you buy in bulk (at least i do) so you get the best bang for your buck, plus it saves you trips to the grow store, and i cant speak for anyone else, but i know i ALWAYS come home with more than i planned when i visit the hydro store! Love that place!!
Top your plant early and top it often. This keeps it short and promotes lots of side branching. This will produce a large, even canopy, and keep your roots searching outwards so that it can support the big plant above the medium.
Every 2-3 weeks your plant should need to be transplanted up a pot size. Dont get stupid and skip a bunch of sizes. Like i did my first try. I went from 4" square pot straight to a 2gal round pot. This took too long for my roots to start to get root bound before a transplant. I then went straight into a 5.2 gal AirPot which again, was too big of a jump.
The more you transplant your plant, the bigger your root mass will be, and the bigger your plant up top will be. Big Roots, Big Fruits!
I would happily help anyone who wants to learn how to grow in a top feed system. You will have way better looking product. Let me show you an example if Hydrofun doesn't mind me posting a couple pictures!
This is some White Widow i just grew in a DWC bucket:
Darker coloured, not much trichomes, overall, average looking.
This is the same WW, grown from clones off the above DWC plant, but grown in a top feed system with 2-6x daily irrigation:
Notice how much lighter in colour these buds are. There is a considerably huge difference in the amount of trichomes on these buds. They smell better, they're much more dense. Overall, a high quality looking end product.
These two pictures alone should be enough for any grower to get their head out of the buckets and into some rockwool grow cubes!
