First Time DWC Grow Here! - Tips & Critiques Welcome!

about AN's perfect ph stuff, I asked about it over a year ago and was told if you put additives in it you still have to ph, is this true ? I add a bunch of shit to mine, probably more than I need to or maybe not enough. I use GH floranectar, armorsi, fulpower, and floralucious plus. In flower I add terpinator as well. I have a sample of heavy 16 fire that I'm going to use. Don't know if I'll do it next week or just try it on 1 plant first(which will have to wait, since I'm using a RDWC)...Yes back up pumps are a must, i'll be in trouble if one of my big ones go out, at cost to $80 each, sometimes having a backup doesn't fit the funds...Do you get unk build up on your roots with AN? using a water chiller? or I'm doing something wrong? I just started using h2o2 with every res change, roots are whiter than I have ever had but, still get gunk here and there. Stay away from Aptus, that shit does not like dwc...
 
I don't know about using other products with it as I use Big Bud, Rhino Skin and OverDrive. The CalMag I use is a different company but I doubt it matters much for the little I use. I haven't seen gunk on anything for a long time. Nice clear nute water with a tint to it. I just pumped out half the tub to lower the ppm further as I'm chopping her soon.

$80 for an air pump? I pay about $35 for these Maxima dual outlet ones and they seem to work great, I've had to replace a couple of the rubber cups in the last 5 years but it's a 5 min job and they just seem to get weaker as the cup develops cracks and don't just quit altogether. A guy should just replace them every year or so of steady use to keep them working good.

Most everything I have I've got bit by bit the last 15 years or made it myself. Made a chiller out of an old water cooler I was gifted and just had to buy a $14 fountain pump to circulate the nutes through the cooling tank. I would have had to buy the 3/8" tubing but already had enough from something else. Could keep 3 or 4 tubs cool enough but with a timer on the chiller I'm keeping my one tub at 17C or about 65F. Haven't used any peroxide at all since I rigged up the chiller.

L8r
 
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Okay this is where I'm at so far, still have to go to post office and hopefully be picking up the rest, which is the fan and filer plus the light and tent,, today I picked up...
The whole line of Dnf which consists of, A&B bloom, A&B veg, Dnf black, Dnf gold, Dnf veg fortifier, Dnf bloom fortifier, Dnf carbologic, Dnf enhance. And also some instagreen by grotek, they said it's amazing. Plus some Dnf h202 hydrogen peroxide, and some Ph up.
I grabbed a pump they recommend, it's rated for up to 60 gal and 2 6" air stones one for each bucket... So that should be enough? Also grabbed 2 5gal buckets with 6" net pots with some clay pellets and macroplugs for my seedlings.. So far so good? Oh also a pH/temp digital pen lol.... Sorry for angle of photos! Next time I wont screw that up
 
Your setup should be fine for a couple plants, later on though you should look into getting a bigger tent and use this one as a veg tent. Having 2 tents and a cloner box really comes in handy for perpetual grows so you can harvest every few weeks instead of every few months.

Heres a list of basic things needed for a DWC grow.

Bubble buckets ( make your own, or buy them online )
Air hose for buckets
Air pump for buckets
PH pen
PPM pen
Calibration solution for pens
Base nutrients for plants ( I use General Hydroponics 3 part FLORAMICRO FLORAGRO FLORABLOOM )
Nutrient additives ( rapid start, CALMAG, SWEET, Liquid KoolBloom, )
PH up and down
Lights
fan
vent
light timer
carbon filter
inline fan
rockwool cubes
seeds

That's just a basic list. You can see my grow journal in my signature, also in my journal I have tips and tricks for DWC grows. There are other nutrient lines, but the general hydroponics line is easy to use and gives proven results. However since it is DWC you will need to use additives or else you will show either toxicities or deficiencies in nutrients. Most of those toxicities and or deficiency signs are actually cause by lack of calcium or magnesium, when the plants don't have those they cant soak up the other nutrients in the nutrient mix.

Just a personal question, why not use LEDs instead of MH or HPS? They save time and money, and give you more space to grow since you don't need those big bulky hoods, you can yield more since youll have more space, also save money since you wont need to run extra equipment for your lights like running the ballast. And LEDs full spectrum panels are pretty cheap online, usually around $100US.

Your grow buckets may be on the big size for that small of a tent, I would have used a 3.5 gallon grow bucket with a netpot lid that's 10in across and 4.5in deep. That way you can use 4in rockwool cubes that will help with the base structure of the plant. When growing in a smaller space and growing limited plants with LST, a scrog is always a good idea, just a thought. You can turn one plant into a monster with a scrog setup instead of growing out a lot of plants to get a high yield.

temps in your tent should never get to high, as well as temps in the buckets. please make sure to have good airstones as those get clogged and no air coming out of those will kill your plants.

Theres a site modular hydro . com they are a company based out of las vegas nv. its a online store, they won a high times award for their hydroponics designs. they sell bubble bucket systems, he has a 4 bucket system that comes with everything needed including high power pump for $120. They also come with what he won the high times award for, his AIT spyder system, its basically a fancy airstone that never gets clogged, and it creates like a boiling cauldron of bubbles increasing oxygen at the roots.

He also has a compact RO water system, where you don't need a res tank for it, you just hook it up to the sink faucet with the adapter and turn on the faucet all the way, there a drain line and a RO line, use the RO line to fill water jugs or other containers. Its a 3 stage system and works very well. the entire system was less than $80.

Ph during veg should be between 6.0-6.2, and during flower 5.7-6.1 for optimal uptake of nutrients.

Remember to switch from calmag during veg, to sweet during flower, since it uses calcium during veg and more carbs and sugars and magnesium during flower.

Switch to flower once you reach half your max growth height, unless growing sativa dominant plants, then only grow them out 1/4 of the way, since they really tend to stretch during flower.

And most importantly, be patient!
 
Even my bottom bud have brown hair but thier still flufy but look like 2 weeks in. On the bottoms 8 months for the hole grow. But if the bottoms aint like nugs but have brow. Hairs is that bad
 
All my top colas look good but i git a lot of brown hairs and my tricromes are half clear and milky . Is she done i was going for 50 /50 MILKY BROWN IN NEED OF HELP NOING WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN HARVEST TIME IS. IM REACHING OUT TO ALL U FOR GUIDANCE THIS IS MY FIRST GROW . ITS A HOBBY . LOVE IT THANKS EVERYOME how do i add pic
 
depends on what your looking for in a high. You also have to keep in mind the cure will add potency as well. So a good cure is always advised.

You can harvest now if you want to, if its 50/50 milky and clear. if you want more of a deep body stone with almost narcotic effects, I would wait till you see about 5% amber 70-80% milky and the rest white. once you see those amber trichomes I would start to harvest as long as the rest is mostly milky. Once the trichomes turn from clear to milky, they are at their highest point of THC production. Once they have turned amber in color they have degraded from THC to CBD.

So really as long as your in that harvest window, you can chop anytime. But the best advice I can give, if in doubt, wait it out. You will be surprised at how much yield you can lose harvesting early, so be sure that the trichomes are actually milky. I wouldn't wait for most of them to turn amber as you will lose a lot of THC waiting for them to get to that point. Or is that the goal, some smoke with a ton of CBD compared to THC. If that's the case, you do know that there are CBD strains, that you grow instead of ruining the bud in my opinion letting it grow past THC production and into CBD.
 
If you do do a scrog. I suggest you make a recirculating system or you will have hell tring to change your water. Under a scrog you wont be able to just lift the plants out of the bucket to change your water. I think the 6" net lids are better, you can still get your hand with a meter in the bucket without taking the plant out(still a pain in the ass). an 8" I made a huge mistake by tring to it on the edge and balance the ph, plant fell over resulting in the root system becoming weak and within days the whole root ball broke off ): It was my best looking plant out of my current group. It did survive though and its been over a month, but it's still trying to make roots. Hopefully it will be ready in a month with another plant I got in veg that is being a superstar compared to the others. If you start having trouble with the base leaning because you are using such small lids, use your tie down spots to support it. I myself just started putting screws in my lids for tie downs, I was super cropping and using stick to support them after to make the big knuckles, but I tend to get too aggressive like that, as I don't have the touch for that. Tie them down seems to be working better for me. My pumps are $80 because I got the big 100/lpm 12 outlet ones. I have 2 of those and the smallest 6 outlet version of them that was about $30. Do you have a shop vac ?
 
Ah wha that's no good, I sure hope I don't run into root issues. They seem to be a major issue for hydro grows tho, going to definitely tty my best. But I'm sure I'll have my share of scares, as for a shop vac no I don't have one at the moment I think I knownwhrre your going with it. I definitely need a shop vac lol would make cleaning the buckets out easier
 
only problem with using the shop vac is, that it will kill your filters. just the other night I took my dead filter that was starting to fall apart and zip tied the blue foam stuff for swamp coolers, I had some leftover from a homemade swamp cooler. Hopefully it will dry out better than the regular filter and no stink so bad. Even with a recirculating system, you will still have a little bit of water left, just that little bit of water will still kill a filter |: Black friday is coming close. 2 or 3 years ago I got the 5 gallon black friday special that lasted 2 weeks from Lowes. I returned it and they didn't have the crap special ones left. So they gave me the closet thing which was a $100 vac and I picked mine up for $30 or 40, ended up being a win...
 

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