Surfbuddy's 1st DWC BigBud, Northern Lights, BubbleGum Grow Journal 2012

[SurfBuddy]

Looking good surf buddy but if you plan on growing all those plants in one bucket you are going to run into a over crowded situation. How long do you plan on vegging before going to 12/12?

Actually, soon. I'm going for a sog, and will flip when most of the kids have 4 or 6 sets of real leaves. Most are showing two sets now, but some are still stuck in the rockwool. I may end up pulling those out and setting them in a 5 gallon bucket to veg longer... I think I will also start more seeds in a few weeks

Yea SB, I only put one in. Up high. I get some temps in the mid 80's. Even hit a 91f a time or two. But I just open the door to the room a bit and crack a zipper. I've found the combinations that work for me. But the exh fan is a 500cfm from lowes for my 4x4x7 area iirc. Whatever it is, I remember it was way overkill per suggested air exchange per cubic foot space.

I've generally kept my round holes closed tight. Because of light leak during lights out period, just to be safe. This means that during those periods, with zippers closed, tent suck is pretty big and you can even hear it in the fan as it has more pressure.

I'm going to change that and add ducting to at least two round vents (outside) and open them up for more air flow. loop the ducting and walla, no light gets in but all the air will. Probably $10 worth of ducting.

OK, sounds good. I have made some adjustments that seem to have temporarily resolved my heat issues, see below.

I like the idea of having more intake volume to keep the flow down...

Depends on the space you have, your going to need to make at least an intake hole to pull air inside and through the box. These links will hopefully have some answers for you.

How Much Ventilation Do I Need in My Grow Room?
How Do I add Ventilation to my Grow Area, What Can I Do about Smell?

YES! THanks for the links, that is sound info there sir. A formula like that is what I needed without knowing that I needed it


I have pulled the t8 highbay and placed 2 4' LED fixtures in the tent. The temps dropped to below 80. Yeah!

I then dismantled the high bay and disconnected one of the ballasts-- it actually powers three of the bulbs, and I want to try it with both cfl and led to see if I can get the temps down with just one ballast...

I've realized that I wasn't adjusting the pH as thoroughly as I imagined... mostly because if I adjust it for the 5 gallon reservoir, when it mixes through to the one and two gallon reservoirs, it dilutes the pH balanced water back up to 7 or so. I have discovered that it takes about 1/8 tsp to take a gallon down a point in pH. or was it a half point? damn.

Live and learn

 

[SurfBuddy]

UPDATE Temp 77, RH 71 (is that too high?)
Added in 1/4 pH down to bring the pH from 6.9 to 5.5
plants seem to be digging the lights and lower temps
first root busted through the solo cup!!!
three of the rockwool cubes seemed to be bone dry, so I opened the valve that feeds them all the way, but saw no increase in drips--strange.
I think my pump was sitting on top of the airstone, so it was getting no water up to the babies. I decided to just top feed those three cubes for now 'cause I gotta go to work. Boo. Yea for LED's!

 

[CronicHempHog]

UPDATE Temp 77, RH 71 (is that too high?)
Added in 1/4 pH down to bring the pH from 6.9 to 5.5
plants seem to be digging the lights and lower temps
first root busted through the solo cup!!!
three of the rockwool cubes seemed to be bone dry, so I opened the valve that feeds them all the way, but saw no increase in drips--strange.
I think my pump was sitting on top of the airstone, so it was getting no water up to the babies. I decided to just top feed those three cubes for now 'cause I gotta go to work. Boo. Yea for LED's!

from what i understand rh at 71 is high wanna bring it down to at least 60 ish or slightly below, ive been in the 50's to mid 60's on the high side
temp should be ok, but they also say you want your water temp at 69 so you dont get root issues, 5.5 on the ph scale is the bottom end i ususally got mine about 5.8-6.0........

 

[SurfBuddy]

OK, unplugged the humidifier. tanks.

 

[SurfBuddy]

Two of the seeds still hadn't spouted, and were duds, so I pulled them and consolidated the rest into the one tub.
I also gave the kids their first feeding at 1/8 strength GH Flora
Here's BB under the new lights:

And Here are the individuals. Any ideas what might be going on with NL2? It looks like it will croak. Also BG4 was actually the first one to crack, but also the one that already had a tap root out of the rockwool when I did the res change and hose rerouting

Any comments? Ideas? LMK if it's too boring to see all of em


NL1

NL2

NL3

BG1

BG2

BG3

BG4

BB1

BB2

BB3

 

[Bassman59]

high RH in early seedling state and early veg is fine. watch the water though. You dont want to drown them. Kinda looks like that bent over one might be too wet.

no nutes till 3rd set of leaves. true leaves. dont count those 1st two round ones.

 

[SurfBuddy]

OK I turned down the flow on that one.
I will not feed again until the 3rd set of leaves... and I'll be flushing in a couple of days too. I figured since I was going 1/8 strength, it would be OK, but there I go, thinking again ...
Gotta remember to just let them grow

pH at 6.5
ppm 152
Gonna zip up the tent tonight to see if heat comes up over more hours.

 

[CronicHempHog]

question how far into the water is the rockwool?
mine just is deep enough so the water can wick up
once im in the dwc i have been using half strength on the nutes and havent had any issues so far which is about 7.5 ml per gallon also might depend on what nutes u using
hey your new lights is it led's?
cool blue glow going on

 

[CronicHempHog]

oh yea i sent the pm to the place with the info on the how to make the rso

 

[SurfBuddy]

pH 6.8, taken down to 5.8 with 3/8 tsp for the 6-7 gallons remaining
ppm 215
temp 79, all night with the tent fully zipped up. Now to run the test during sunshine hours
RH 71% How do I bring this down? I don't have the humidifier running anymore...

question how far into the water is the rockwool?
mine just is deep enough so the water can wick up
once im in the dwc i have been using half strength on the nutes and havent had any issues so far which is about 7.5 ml per gallon also might depend on what nutes u using
hey your new lights is it led's?
cool blue glow going on

The rockwool is not in the water, I have a dripper set up inside the tub that pokes into the bottom 1/2 of the rockwool. That's how they have been since the seeds cracked, no transplanting to aviod root breakage/shock.

So, I guess they have always been in the DWC, and did not use any nutes until yesterday, at 1/8 strength. (I have read too many burned plant threads here). I basically used 1/4 stregnth nutes based on 1/2 the water volume, then dumped that into the other half. 1/4 stregnth is 1/4 tsp/gallon
I'm using General Hydroponics Flora series, but it sounds like a lot of people here really like the blue planet nutrients, so I might try that next

The new lights are LED's, and one of them is Blue, two daylight, and one soft white (warm white). I want to try my new config with the highbay with all cool, daylight and the one Blue light as a mix of CFL and LED, once that last bugger pops up out of the rockwool. It already shed it's shell below level and I can see "regular" leaves, but it looks stuck. THen later when they get taller I'll have the smaller 4' fixtures as side lighting for the middle/bottom of the gals.

oh yea i sent the pm to the place with the info on the how to make the rso

Thanks for that, will check it out now...

 

[SurfBuddy]

ppm 229
pH 6.7
temp 79
RH 73

Found an interesting post in 's journal referencing The Gas Lantern Routine, which pointed to this blog by 12twelve, and since I'm struggling with daytime temps, I'm going to give it a go.

I drove all over today looking for an inline duct fan Lowes, HD, etc. even parts stores,
and nada. Ugh.

Put the 6 lamp light back in with 3 LED's and 3 CFL's and left in one 4' fixture with 2 more LED's.. it is MUCH brighter than with the 4 LED's.

Let's see how they like it!

 

[Bassman59]

here's one simple link. maybe it will help. you can check stock online at local stores for lowes or home despot:
Search Results for 6" duct fan at The Home Depot

 

[SurfBuddy]

here's one simple link. maybe it will help. you can check stock online at local stores for lowes or home despot:
Search Results for 6" duct fan at The Home Depot

LOL, you know I went to the local HD, searched in HVAC, electrical, plumbing, bathroom fans, and everyone told me they didn't have it, and I said, "I saw it online and it said you had it in the store" I busted out my phone, showed the guy the HD website, of their store of the sku of the 6" fan I needed, and he put it into his little handheld, and it came up zilch. I got one coming now, I just wanted to put it in today

Thanks for the link BM, I appreciate you lookin' out.

 

[SurfBuddy]

ppm 229
Found an interesting post in 's journal referencing The Gas Lantern Routine, which pointed to this blog by 12twelve, and since I'm struggling with daytime temps, I'm going to give it a go.

Oops, I meant Twelve12
Thanks!

 

[Bassman59]

ya np. I only linked it because my stores when I went last year had tons of them of various sizes.

 

[SurfBuddy]

Hey does anyone know if you turn off the water pump for DWC when the lights are off?
I'm going to start digging...

 

[CronicHempHog]

sorry cant help there i dont use water pumps keeping mine as simple as possible
dwc bubbler no res no pump no extra hassle
main reason is, if the power ever goes out i can use battery powered air pumps to keep em alive and hope the power dont stay off for too long, not much i can do about lights unless i buy a backup gen which i might do for the fridge, so i might have an extra outlet to run my low wattage lights..............

 

[SurfBuddy]

wow, you lose power that often? sux man. I hear you on keeping it simple... I got a little ambitious after reading some impressive threads here... that and my natural inclination to experiment has taken me far away from simplicity

I did have two seeds in the small bin, without drippers, and I just set the water high enough so that the splashing from the bubbles would get all over the cup/hydroton and the rockwool got plenty wet that way... I have read that rockwool should not sit in water, so be careful!

 

[CronicHempHog]

i dont think its a big issue every 3 days its about a gallon down in the bucket so it never stays on the rockwool for more than a day
do weekly res changes /flush roots/ clean everything.........
and the most ill have is 3 buckets going so it isnt too bad
if i had setups like some of these guys with the amount they have then id go with seperate res and stuff but since im only minimal is why i keep it so simple
power doesnt go out that much, knock on wood but i live close to the transformer station and i have had it go out a few times during the years that ive lived here
other places have been getting it worse lately but its always a possibility so i just wanna make sure im ready for it..........

 

[SurfBuddy]

Right. Prepare for the worst, expect the best.