New to DWC using Botanicare need expert advice

[Pocketz]

Hello,
So I've decided to give DWC a try but I really want to be sure I'm doing this the correct way and not F*ck anything up. I've acquired quite a few materials I'm going to list them below.

5 gallon buckets,
Air pumps/stones,
1000watt full spectrum light,
Clay pebbles,
Rockwool cubes,
Cloning tray,

NUTRIENTS
Botanicare
Pure blend pro (grow & bloom)
Sweet Raw,
Hydroguard,
Silica Blast,
Fulvex,
Bush doctor kangaroos root drench
PH up and PH down,
And of course ph tester.
_________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________
what I need to know....
Should I be using anything else along side the botanicare nutrients?

Am I missing any nutrients?

When should I be using all of these and how much? Do I use just as the bottle directed? I see some people mention using half of what the bottle says.

Is there a good chart/feeding schedule?

Do I go ahead and start using with seedlings or do I wait until I remove from cloning tray?



Sorry for so many questions I just don't want to jump into this blindly..

Thanks in advance

 

[013]

Hey Pocketz,

Not sure about the root drench, in pure hydro things must be towards the sterile side. Prolly need to talk about your water source too. Hey - I know a guy..... @Rexer - he’s really skilled and if it’s not within his wheelhouse then he knows where send ya.

welcome aboard

 

[Rexer]

Thanks @013


Welcome to @Pocketz


DWC is a great way to get your feet wet (pun intended) with hydro. Most DWC peeps eventually (not all) go to RDWC to make reservoir management easier.


There's a few products that I'm not familiar with, but while I've never run the Botanicare lineup - from what I've seen and read they're excellent nutes.

Pickup some calmag, that's the only thing I've seen that's missing. You could even grow them out without a lot of the supplements you got.

What's the grow environment?

The light, is that what it's said on the box, or is that what it's pulling (draw) from the wall?

Get a grow journal going soon as you can. Don't be shy to tag me into the journal, I'll follow along best I can!

I'll come back and edit this post and add a good grow journal for you to find, the grower is doing DWC and writes everything out well.

Edit: here's the link!

Thread 'Mars-Hydro DWC 1 Plant 4x4 Scrog' Mars-Hydro DWC 1 Plant 4x4 Scrog

 

[Delps8]

NUTRIENTS
Botanicare
Pure blend pro (grow & bloom)
Sweet Raw,
Hydroguard,
Silica Blast,
Fulvex,
Bush doctor kangaroos root drench
PH up and PH down,
And of course ph tester.
_________________________________
____________________________________
____________________________________
what I need to know....
Should I be using anything else along side the botanicare nutrients?

Am I missing any nutrients?

When should I be using all of these and how much? Do I use just as the bottle directed? I see some people mention using half of what the bottle says.

Is there a good chart/feeding schedule?

Great timing. I just finished transplanting 5 Gorilla Glue autoflowers from seedling trays to my RWDC res. I'm using Botanicare's Kind nutes so I've had some experience digging around their (poorly done) website.

Hydro and soil alike use feeding schedules and the expert schedule for your nutes is at this link. Botanicare sets up their nutes as "standard" and "export". The nutes that comprise the standard schedule area always listed at the top of the page, followed by a blank line, followed the supplements that comprise the expert schedule.
Check out that page and you'll see everything listed out for you.

Re. fulvex - don't know that product. Perhaps someone else will chime in.

Re. Bush Doctor - that's made by FoxFarms. The only time I'd mix nutes from different companies is if I knew the exact content of all of the nutes and had a deep knowledge of chemistry and plant biology. I don't have that level of expertise so I stick to one manufacturer.

Botanicare does not provide EC/PPM values - they just list the nutes to be used and give you the number of ML/gallon. In contrast, Fox publishes both. I'd like to see Botanicare publish there numbers but the crap web site is full of "pretty, pretty" which hampers its usefulness. Conventional wisdom is to using ½ or ¼ the strength that the manufacturers recommend and build up from there. I've been "fine tuning" my seedlings - measuring light with a PAR meter and dosing water using a 3 ml syringe - and their very robust so I decided to go with ½ strength. If your seedlings are healthy, you might want to try ½ strength because at that level it's still below the recommended EC level for seedlings. I'm not expecting to have issues at ½ strength.

The nutes I just put in my res have an EC of 0.5 and a pH of 5.9. You've got Up and Down so it sounds like you're familiar with pH. The other piece of the puzzle is TDS. If you're not familiar with TDS, EV, and PPM, spend some time reading up on them. It will be a quick read and well worth your time.

Do I go ahead and start using with seedlings or do I wait until I remove from cloning tray?

Botanicare has "seedlings" on the feeding schedule so it's a safe assumption that they recommend using their nurse on seedlings. I followed their schedule but cut the strength levels in half. I'm using most of the Botanicare Kind expert nutes, all except the Rhizo Blast.

Sorry for so many questions I just don't want to jump into this blindly..

Thanks in advance

Asking questions is a good way to learn. People here are really helpful - it's quite impressive, frankly.

I did one grow back in 2017, using Fox Farms nutes, and have started another one just now. When I decided to grow my own, I went with hydro one of the reasons being that it's more interesting to me than using soil. Spend some time reading the reference material here and it would also be helpful to read grow journals.

If you're interested, I'll be starting a grow journal in the next few days.

Good luck with your grow.