Question about changing out the res

[Papageno]

So I am new to hydro and have my first DWC system running. My buddy has for 6 years now not changed out his res during a run. He checks the PH every few days and tops of water and nutes. At harvest he dumps it and cleans. He gets great results. He is using General Hydroponics which I believe is synthetic which is part of how he can do this I think. By that I mean with my limited understanding of Organic nutes I would think that it wont work with organics to do that. So this is why I started this thread as I have a pile of questions about this because I have read on here many other people getting away with also not changing out the res. I know it works.

And before I list some of my questions I would add I am concerned for 2 reasons. Obviously the cost and labor aspect being simpler to just top off and add. But even more to the point is I finally got a very happy stable tea in my res that I would hate to dump.


1) When organic nutes get old and you have to change them out are they biodegrading and that is why they have to be flushed so soon? Are the nutes changing chemically to something that is bad or are they just changing into something that is not usable.

2) When the nutes from a synthetic (possibly also an organic also) get locked out do they have adverse affects to the plant by becoming salts or something else harmful or again do they just change into something not usable?

3) If you are using beneficial's (I am currently using both a fungus and a bacteria) and you dump your res should you clean out the res with say H2O2 and re-add new beneficial's or should you leave it and just add fresh water, additives, nutes and such and let the beneficial's grow back again from what is left on the interior of the res.


My plants look great. I have never seen such tight nodal density in veg. My roots are nice and white. The pH has needed no balancing for almost a week. I was having to add Down regularly but recently I did something that got it to self regulate. But I have not changed out the res for 2 weeks now. I want to go do it just because I am a little paranoid but at the same time I don't want to mess with something that is working great.

What are signs that you need a res change?

Thanks!!!

 

[Renegade69]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

Hey Idiot...LMAO... It's one of those drop one or the other thing. Could have kept the "Villiage" but it wouldn't have been as funny as saying "Idiot"...LMAO. yOU Cool, i'm cool, we're cool...LOL....Cool!!

I like the direction of your question and have never seen it asked so sub'd for the hopeful input from the SME's....

Let me begin with another question about your friend. Does he have any way to precisely tell which nutrients are low? Thus, putting back only what's needed. Or, in my simplist mind...he is measuring his PPM? This simplist form allows him to add nutes based on PPM levels. Example...fresh nutes measure at 1300, a few days later it's at 1000, a week later it's at 600 or less. Add nutrients based on what he thinks the plant is feeding. More food for thought.

To my knowledge there is no cheap way to determine how much of each is in a sampling but at least seeing the decline would help in determining the "When" to add more.

Thinking out loud here....I think it would work. Well your friend has already proven it does.

Hold on to your seats it's about to get real...LOL.

 

[Papageno]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

So 1) I wouldn't have chosen that handle if I cared about being called an idiot.

2) I live in Oregon where it is now legal to grow your own so none of my post is a round about not to get busted. My friend is in California and has a medical card so he is legal too. So this is all up and up. I used to grow illegally like 12 years ago. I am an old fart now. But since the laws changed here I can grow for myself which was always one of my favorite hobbies.

So anyway I know some people will want to regurgitate stuff that someone at a grow store selling this stuff has force feed them. I have gotten my fair share from 2 stores I live near. But it doesn't change the fact that they are wrong and it can easily be done.

Really what I am asking isn't how someone would do it...I can get that info from my buddy directly. What I want to know is what happens to nutes that are in a good tea for 2 months if the temp and pH always stay good.

To answer your question...My friend tells me every other day he checks the pH and PPM. As needed he add's water and more nutes and never dumps. He uses untreated tap water from some of the worst water in CA too so he has something amazing dialed in.

I wrote this on my phone so if there are a pile of mistakes I am sorry.

 

[Papageno]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

I would also add that I got a bunch of expensive nutes. 2 different brands, one organic and one synthetic. Both based on advice from people selling the stuff. But I also went out and got some cheapo stuff they sell at Home Depot and wallmart and many other places. I wanted to use the cheap stuff just for the first 1 or 2 weeks before the roots really got big. Well sure as heck my plants are doing amazing. So now I want to try the spendy stuff still and I will in bloom for sure but I want to see what I can get in veg with just some silica, beneficials and this cheap but complete hydro food. Like I said I have a stable tea that is doing great that I don't want to toss.

 

[Renegade69]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

Nice tough skin....and no way calling you an idiot just picking on the word...LOL.

PH and PPM is the one thing most of us understand. I too don't like dumping as often as I do but I do it cause the PPM drops to a noticeable level. My problem is I don't know enough about the individual nutrients to only put back what's needed. It's easier to just dump and refill with fresh nutes.

Is your friend using any supplements in the res? Hydro Guard or something?

I agree with the principle though.

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times....IT JUST A WEED!!! And it did just fine before we came along...LOL.

I too am doing it as hobby. I have a 9-5 like most and having a water garden helps de-stress me.

So from one old fart to another....

So 1) I wouldn't have chosen that handle if I cared about being called an idiot.


So anyway I know some people will want to regurgitate stuff that someone at a grow store selling this stuff has force feed them. I have gotten my fair share from 2 stores I live near. But it doesn't change the fact that they are wrong and it can easily be done.

Really what I am asking isn't how someone would do it...I can get that info from my buddy directly. What I want to know is what happens to nutes that are in a good tea for 2 months if the temp and pH always stay good.

To answer your question...My friend tells me every other day he checks the pH and PPM. As needed he add's water and more nutes and never dumps. He uses untreated tap water from some of the worst water in CA too so he has something amazing dialed in.

I wrote this on my phone so if there are a pile of mistakes I am sorry.

 

[c526]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

Gday,VI

Im a water grower,legal or not makes no difference to me,but I am glad your back in the game,Ive been at this since the 80's,but only hydro style for the last 7 years..dwc/rdwc,bb and finally RW top feed.

and was mentioned above,how will you know what replaced?? sure the ppm may change,but there is no meter in the world that will tell you
what the plant has consumed

2 month tea?? that's a record, after about 7 days all of the beneficial are dead,unless 2 things---you keep feed them,and they have enough air to support them.yes the ph may be good,but you have soupy water,and that's about it.

for the record,I dont do FULL changes,I use a Heisenberg tea,and if I pull 10 gallons out of reservoir,I just add back 10 gallons of fresh
mixed nutrients.

check out this thread,this member is not here anymore.but his research is priceless.

Live or Sterile? Why I choose Live

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times....IT JUST A WEED!!! And it did just fine before we came along...LOL.

nope,its a plant.the term weed comes from being in the wrong spot,,if you had a rose in your mmj patch some may consider that rose bush a weed,in the middle of the cannabis plants

but yes it did fine before us,and will do fine without us.

 

[Papageno]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

Thanks for the responses. So I have lots of air stones in my DWC so that helps the beneficial's. I know they wont last forever and I would just keep adding a little when it starts to slow down.

I thought a lot about it and I still need to read that thread you posted but keeping a live tea with a real life cycle seems to me to be much less hassle and easier and cheaper then running a water chiller and trying to keep it sterile the whole time. In both cases you need to keep adding stuff. For living you just add a little and step back. For sterile it is a constant battle and you never really win you just keep it tamped down. So the plants are constantly seeing unnatural changes.

So I plan to grow with a living res. That said that doesn't mean I necessarily want organic nutes if they will break down in 4 days.

So my question still is out there (c526 you may have misunderstood what I was asking).

1) If I have a stable res with good pH at say 70 degrees do synthetic nutes go bad (lock out or become in some way not accessible)? If so do they turn into something bad for the plant or just dead participates in the water dangling around but not hurting anything?

2) Same question but for organics?

My assumption is that for organics when they go bad they start to decompose and create non beneficial bacteria and can turn the res south fast. If that is the case and you must flush every 4-6 days otherwise things start to get unrecoverable then that is a pile of added risk, cost and labor that only makes sense for those who are doing this as a full time job with a large grow.

Also if that is the case and organics cause problems if not flushed,... then when you do a change you really need to clean it out, not just open the drain and then refill. Nor could you do the dump 50% of the res and refill method as previously mentioned.

Oh and one more thing. Both of you have mentioned something I already understood which is you don't know what it needs. However I think that is kind of upside down thinking. So long as you don't overfeed, the plant will uptake what it needs. If you keep adding a balanced set of nutes then the plant will find what it is looking for. If you don't over do it then it would take a long looooong time to get to the point of over doing it on one particular nute. And if you did see some sort of burn usually each one is readily diagnosible...you flush and start again...not a big dealio. I think specifically that the whole point of these fancy nute products is they are formulated such that the balance is close to perfect. So you would have to have a mutant plant that uptakes nutes vastly different to get it to far out of whack quickly. By that I mean sure maybe it eats up some parts faster than others. But when the total count gets low it will be low for all of them. No two things are ever equal so one will be higher than another but not by much. So topping it off again with a diluted 50% solution is not going to hurt or burn something. And one thing to note is all plants tend to grow heartier and stronger and better fruits if at a few points in the cycle it gets starved and or dried out. Just like people on a yo-yo diet, loose 10 gain 30. It is a natural defense mechanism that plants also exhibit.

Here is another way to think about this. If we had all the time and money in the world we would pretreat an entire res batch every day and then next day change it out and have supper clean perfect PPM water new every day. Why don't we do that right? Because we don't have to. Instead we do that every few days. But why at 4? Or some at 6...or some at 84 days (my friend)?

Here is direct quotes my friend texted me. He is on vacation right now so I aint bothering him about this crap so I can't get answers but here is what he wrote me when I asked him a pile of questions...

Me: So what kind of hydro system are you running? Have you tried others?

Him: I have 2 10 gal tubs with a small pump in each and a aquarium air stone. (some bla bla stuff)...I bought the fertilizer from amazon for about $40 for the 3 pack. In my cabinet I get 2 per side and get about 2oz per plant. Full cycle from feminized seeds is about 12 weeks. So 8 oz every 3 months.

some back and forth about fertilizer and stuff... he is using General Hydroponics.

him: I don't check it much. Only once every few days to make sure the pH and dissolved solids are good. I have never flushed the water while it is growing. It's pretty simple but has worked for years. I think the key is femenized seeds. Cloning is BS. The seeds always work and are quick. (ME HERE I THINK HE IS USING AUTOS) 3 months after I put them in water I have buds from everyone.

He goes on to tell me a few other issues he had with clones but he feels seeds sprout faster then clones take root. I think they are close as I have had great success in the past cloning. But now a days there are femed autos, it is hard not to just use those for small personal grows. Also helps with total plant count. I think the only reason to clone now is to monster crop for small personal grows.

If you are a pro running a perpetual then nothing in this thread matters for you. You should be doing things by the book. But for those of us trying to grow 4 personal plants at a time in a small enclosed space I think my friend has a point. Keep it simple, just plant femd autos at around $8 a seed doesn't seem like that big a cost. Find a method that allows for low maintenance quick turn...cause we have day jobs.

 

[c526]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

bro,thats a ton of reading,most of us are high

Ill try some of them.

So I have lots of air stones in my DWC so that helps the beneficial's.

the amount of bubbles is not the same as,the force needed,look at 1.5 watt per gallon.the water should be turbulent. smaller will work,but why half it

1) If I have a stable res with good pH at say 70 degrees do synthetic nutes go bad (lock out or become in some way not accessible)? If so do they turn into something bad for the plant or just dead participates in the water dangling around but not hurting anything?

they will be fine as long as the air,stays pumping,70 is good and if you use a Heisenberg tea you can push to 75 before problems will occur(root rot)synthetic nutrients usually go bad if they sit dormant,they go "stale"and stink.

Oh and one more thing. Both of you have mentioned something I already understood which is you don't know what it needs. However I think that is kind of upside down thinking. So long as you don't overfeed, the plant will uptake what it needs. If you keep adding a balanced set of nutes then the plant will find what it is looking for

Its how toxicity happen,to much of a good thing and the plants become greedy,this can be alleviated by small feedings,I do run a live system,not all of my reservoir is ever empty.I wont ever run a sterile,I went to work one day and came home to a dead tent, devastation.

If you don't over do it then it would take a long looooong time to get to the point of over doing it on one particular nute. And if you did see some sort of burn usually each one is readily diagnosible...you flush and start again...not a big dealio

Not in water growing,the damage can be as fast as a few hours,and yes flush is a cure,but there is also stress and ph swing/shock
these girls notice stuff as sensitive as a a goldfish.especially in the water.

So topping it off again with a diluted 50% solution is not going to hurt or burn something. And one thing to note is all plants tend to grow heartier and stronger and better fruits if at a few points in the cycle it gets starved and or dried out

please start a journal,I want to watch this,ive done it and know what happens,you are thinking like a dirt grower,not a water grower.

Here is another way to think about this. If we had all the time and money in the world we would pretreat an entire res batch every day and then next day change it out and have supper clean perfect PPM water new every day. Why don't we do that right? Because we don't have to. Instead we do that every few days. But why at 4? Or some at 6...or some at 84 days (my friend)?

please see above post,I do not pull it all and run sterile,I run a live environment.I do pull and replenish weekly,that stuff goes out to my garden,no waste.

it all depends on your goals as a grower,I wont grow autos,there is too little to be had,for the amount of plants needed to provide my medicine.
autos cant be cloned,so if you find something special,it is gone forever,a 10 pack of all the same autos will show different characteristics
in each.in a free world,I would in a heartbeat,I would love that many variety's,in little space
but i prefer to wait an extra 4 weeks(12 for auto 16 for photo) for a lbs,photo period plants

.cause we have day jobs.

why not take the advice of the pro growers??lmao its how they got to no jobs.I just sold a 600acre farm this spring,I take all the pro grow advice I can get.

have fun with it man

 

[Papageno]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

Thanks.

So to keep it short... If the res stays happy then there is no need to change it out for either organic or synthetic?

My plants are starting to take up the water but my PPMs haven't changed so it seems they are taking that up at about the same rate.

These are some unknown seeds that may be 16 years old but not less than 12. I will never grow these again. I am using them to suss out this little RDWC system I built. There is not much to be learned by dialing this run in. With my luck they are all males and I will collecting pollen instead.


I can say this cheap stuff I have going has had nice results with plant 4" tall that have many nodes and are 10" wide...

 

[c526]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

G'morning V.I

So to keep it short... If the res stays happy then there is no need to change it out for either organic or synthetic?

I wont answer for the organics,I only use them outdoors.But for the synthetics,that is correct.BUT if you run photo plants in the future,at the point of flower then you would want as much out of the system as possible,so the plants can have all of the flowering nutes and little nitrogen in the water.

My plants are starting to take up the water but my PPMs haven't changed so it seems they are taking that up at about the same rate.

thats the goal brother.

These are some unknown seeds that may be 16 years old but not less than 12. I will never grow these again. I am using them to suss out this little RDWC system I built. There is not much to be learned by dialing this run in. With my luck they are all males and I will collecting pollen instead.

there is learning in EVERY plant,growing is easy,but learning to read the plants,and seeing deficiencies before they become a problem,takes some time to learn.study the leaves,there is a million answers in them.

if you dont know the strain,collecting pollen is futile,why breed when you wont know the characteristics of him.

nothing wrong with cheap nutes,we survived the 80's with MG Just have to know how and when to use them,getting the right npk values

plants look great

 

[Papageno]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

Thanks for all the help!!!

So I hear ya about the pollen. I was kind of joking there...however I used to breed about 12 years ago. I have this bag of various seeds all of which are some sort of good. Some a different breeder gave me, some I made. All are good. I have this strain of Sativa that multiple friends of mine have never found anything like it again. Very alert but potent high, not turning you into a lump on the couch. I was well into about 4 gens of inbreed on that crossed with skunk and close to having a standard. Anyway... The unknown part is I had some trouble getting sprouts to start. They are at least 12 years and as far back as 16+ old. After a few weeks of failing, doing stuff that worked for me for years, I started throwing a bunch of seeds in at a time and trying different things. I finally got a bunch to take all at once and was unsure which was which by then. Even then only about half of the made it to the initial 2 petals and again another half failed there. I never had such a hard time but probably because they were old. In soil I would always just put them in soil directly no paper towel in the final pot because transplanting root bound plants is foolish. They always came up. No tricks just plant them like I do anything else outside. Then clone the fems and done deal. I have some new seeds I bought from Holland last month that I will breed when I get a system running right and I get my cabinet built. Everything I am doing now is a test run to see if I want to switch to hydro.

Anyway I have gone a week now without having to add any pH balancing. I have read this stuff I use has been shown to self regulate the pH allowing for it to drift up and down as nute intake is needed. I am finding this to be true. I was planning to do the pH cycle thing, run it down to 5.4 and let it drift up to 6.2 then bring it back down to 5.4. I have not had to touch it as I haven't gotten over 5.94. I would add however that I don't do 24 hours of light. There is good stuff that happens at night that may not be necessary but is beneficial and aids in reducing plant stress so I have a night cycle. I have not checked in a while what the pH is at night. Maybe I will do that today.

I so badly want to use the expensive stuff...but I also want to see what happens with this Home Depot stuff that seems to be working great. I want to do a res change but I also don't want to touch something that is working. I have a huge oversized res and I want the water level to drop far below the pots to stimulate root growth so I want to just let it run for a few more days and see. Even at the current level the air stones are getting lots of drops to the lid still so I can go much further down I think.

So to be clear I have had to do nothing for a week now. Wouldn't that be nice to get a system running that needs only minimal attention every 2 or 3 weeks?

 

[Kal1424]

Re: Question about changing out the res.

Gday,VI

Im a water grower,legal or not makes no difference to me,but I am glad your back in the game,Ive been at this since the 80's,but only hydro style for the last 7 years..dwc/rdwc,bb and finally RW top feed.

and was mentioned above,how will you know what replaced?? sure the ppm may change,but there is no meter in the world that will tell you
what the plant has consumed

2 month tea?? that's a record, after about 7 days all of the beneficial are dead,unless 2 things---you keep feed them,and they have enough air to support them.yes the ph may be good,but you have soupy water,and that's about it.

for the record,I dont do FULL changes,I use a Heisenberg tea,and if I pull 10 gallons out of reservoir,I just add back 10 gallons of fresh
mixed nutrients.

check out this thread,this member is not here anymore.but his research is priceless.

Live or Sterile? Why I choose Live







nope,its a plant.the term weed comes from being in the wrong spot,,if you had a rose in your mmj patch some may consider that rose bush a weed,in the middle of the cannabis plants

but yes it did fine before us,and will do fine without us.

Pardon my newbie question, but what is RW top feed? Is that rockwool top feed? How does that differ from DWC? thank you