BC Nothernlights - The roommate update with questions

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diesel7

New Member
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Hey guys,

Got a question regarding root rot for my babies.

Their in week 3 of veg, using 3/4 the nutes, and superman B1 which is dark in colour, i change the reservoir water once every week increasing the strenght of my nutrient solution. I PH the water to 5.8 after im done but it always seems to increase over a few days, and my ppms are at 700.

Im leaving for a week for new years and want to make sure everything is okay. Their on a timer and they auto water every morning.

I have a few questions:

1- is it okay if the ph of the water increases to 7-8 while im gone for that week?
2- i dont know of its me being paranoid but is this root rot?...it doesn't really smell and its not slimmy.
 
I would transplant to perlite soil mix, 80/20%
I start off plants in a dwc method then transplant them.

If your going away and not going to be around and sick of the ph drift then it's an easy fix.
 
The pH drift does not harm the plant. The problem is the nutes get locked out and then there is nothing there for the plant. If you catch it in time you just do a res change and you are golden.

Now in your case 1 week gone is kinda tough to say. I run a living res with bennies and such and I get a stable res that will run for weeks without pH adjustments but I am constantly topping off. I go typically at least 4 weeks to a res change with almost no adjustments but my plants are drinking so much I am out there every 3 day in veg topping of and daily in bloom. (I am not not using pH perfect as the buffers fail after 5 days anyway)

Running sterile I find to be a bit more difficult to get a stable res pH.

I would say if you don't have a stable res running then you want to put them in soil as suggested because you really don't want to go beyond 3 days in DWC with a serious problem. If you think your res can go 4-5 days no problem then you probably would be fine.

Since you are in veg it probably wouldn't be that bad. They may get stressed and such but you flush and bring them back and not a big deal. The last guy on here talking about this was in bloom when he had to leve a week and when he brought them back they immediately went Hermi on him.

It is up to you and your level of experience and confidence. But I say they are in veg so you can recover them.
 
My water levels never go low the system i am using is a mix of a deep water culture and drip stick.

The ph drift doesnt bother me, and if its okay ill keep them like that.

What about root rot do they have it?
 
looks like the beginning of rot. I don't deal with it as I have a living res. I usually have stained roots with all the fun stuff I do. LOL
 
What do you mean living res?...i have 4 air stones in my reservoir blowing bubbles.

Beginning of root rot ...could it be just causeof the superman b1 that i add into my nutrient solution?
 
ohhhhhh kay

This is a religious debate. No one is wrong and everyone is right except those who say they are right.


There are 2 ways of doing hydro: Sterile or Living

You can have a sterile nutrient water that has only nutes needed for the plant and some additives and enzymes. You run a water chiller and maybe add in some H2O2 every now and then to keep any and all bacteria that may grow in there dead. That kills the bacteria that forms root rot and other such disasters.

Or you can run a living res with beneficial bacteria which over power any bad ones and do a bunch of fun stuff to aid in nute uptake and much more...too much to talk about here, I will link you to my dissertation on living res.

But the point is if you are running DWC you MUST decide which route you want to go and commit to it. I feel the Sterile is great is you want to be more hands off because you run a chiller and dump in some chems and the things just work. I feel if you want to get the absolute best most value out of the genetics you want to go living to get the most out of the plant. But you have to know a bit more about stuff.

But don't let the guys at the hydro store talk you into buying a chiller and running sterile, then the next time you go in to ask about something and they say "oh add voodoo juice or Orca to fix that". Then you are dumping money down the drain by adding beneficial bacteria to a sterile res. Happens alllllllll the time.

Go smoke a bowl and read this...it will take you a while. But I am not saying sterile is bad. It is a very good way to get started. It is very good if you are running a bunch of systems. If you have a set up where all the buckets connect to a central res and you only run one of those then you may consider going with a living res.

Introducing Benes to my DWC for the first time
 
IMG_20151218_045739.jpg
Living res all the way, when I was Dwc I was running gogo juice, seasol and even molasses in my res,the sterile types thought I was crazy but hey it workedand it worked well.

I moved away from DWC to perlite and soil mix that I custom make and grow in polypropylene bags, reason I moved away from DWC was so I could leave if I had to and not worry about pumps and all that.

Still getting DWC like growth with what I do now like this current tree, fills up a whole 2x2 meter tent
 
So just to be clear I must chose either the sterile method or the living method and if i don't ill get root rot?
 
LOL you guys are killing me. but true dat!!!


Hey if you are new to DWC there is a journal I have been helping on that is amazing. This guys is documenting sooooo much and proving out sooooo much that people never believe me on. Go read this and you will learn a shit ton.

ClosetCase420's - RDWC - 600W MH/HPS - Wonder Woman - Grow Journal - 2015


And heyoooo Doc Green...Me too!!!! Well I still do DWC here and there and I am going to make a cool one this summer. But I make my own hybrid soil / soilless blend I developed over years of proper scientific experimentation that is much like yours. Back in the mid '90s I would take clones form the same mother and run them side by side with different mixes and found that none of the fancy stuff matters. I used it all from pumice to river rock, vermiculite to sand, and all sorts of combos with lots of various soils and stuff. You just take 1/3 perlite, 1/3 precomposted steer manure (which is NOT soil) and 1/3 super soil (which nowa days you can actually buy good stuff in a bag) and you are golden.

When I started growing again I started poking around on here and found all this soilless stuff and was like why the hell would anyone do that? I asked a few times and people were rude and like "well you seem to know it all... why don't you just go do that"...I just wanted to know what the heck was the big deal with a hempy bucket. Seemed like such a waste of time and money to me.

Anyway all that said I am trying a new blend on my next round HAHAHA...I just can't stop experimenting. There is a nearly limitless number of things you can do when you consider ratios. Just have to have a bit of knowledge about why things work and you can have lots of fun.
 
Is voodoo juice going to make my reservoir a living reservoir?

Went to my hydro store its 60$ for a 500ml...what else would i need?

The lady said if i keep my reservoir under 72 degrees I wont get root rot.
 
Unfortunately this is a complicated topic. I post for you a link previously that explains all of this including voodoo juice. Here is a link someone posted a few month afterwards that is a bit easier to read.

Tea Bag your DWC


You never want to buy a bottle without knowing what the ingredients on it are for. Voodoo juice is a typical bacteria blend and if you look on the back of the bottle it will (or used to ) explain what is in there.

This is a complicated thing...you need to read a lot and understand.

Anything that is of value to be used in growing is just basic common knowledge. None of these nute manf. have figured anything special out. Any good grower can get superior results from any brand. If you figure out what is in there you can google it and find tons of websites explaining proper usage.


Voodoo juice is awesome stuff. But you can make it yourself for a fraction of the price. All you have to do is google bacterial tea for hydroponics or something like that. But please first read the link above that explains it all. or go read the thread where I explain it and showed step by step pictures of how to make it.
 
I wouldn't know I have only used Voodoo juice. I like what I make better.

Most people will give you just an opinion on that based on little more than "I ran this and it is great". Not many people have run a side by side study to know what works best in their setup.
 

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