First Time Growing - Advice Welcome

[cmay]

Ok village so keep the PPM around 250-500 still? Ill assume you can let me know when would be good to up the PPM. Im curious as to where do i top these and are they ready to be topped. The Fan leaves are huge to and are bigger then my hand right now. Im posting a lot of pictures today hoping anyone can help me if they see something im missing since these are my first two plants ever grown. How long do you think at this point i should let them veg til before i switch to bloom. They are already starting to smell and im going to be installing the charcoal filter system.

 

[Papageno]

You could top them now.

I wont be able to tell you when to up the nutes. it has to do with the level of photosynthesis and stunting going on. It is a combination of factors like temps and humidity and lighting and plant size. If you over stress it byt topping it harshly then that will slow it down.


What you are supposed to do is measure the res daily at the same time and monitor the difference day to day. Then by knowing the res level, temps, PPM and pH you can easily determine what needs to be added each day. Some days just water, some days a nutrient solution. Sometimes in the very beginning you can go a day without adding something.

Here is a journal I recommend you take time to read. I explain everything you need to know about DWC at some point in here.

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


Following a feeding chart without having built it yourself is a path to failure. They are guides based on having professional setup and controls and doing everything right. Unless you are doing everything right you need to back off usually 50% of what is recommended to keep things happy.

 

[cmay]

Ok now i know im suppose to keep a log about daily levels. thanks man

 

[cmay]

Does anybody know what happen to this fan leaf? It just looks different.

 

[cmay]

More updated pictures

After adding the new nutes and being in them for 2 days i noticed my roots went from white to yellow/brownish. What does this mean?

 

[LiquidBud]

Hey man,
You're in the same sweet spot as I am. What nutes are you using? And what rez temps ? Is it some kind of goo on the roots or just colour?
Because as I know, and I know very little ;} That some nutes tend to color roots, but thats not harmful in anyway. Things to lookout for would be, slime, algae, root rot... and so on.. Signs of swimming particles, water smell could make it easier to tell
When I saw my roots getting amber color slime, I panicked and did a series of a very bad things. So don't follow my mistake and don't do moves under the influence of panic. Try to think and scale everything, think of what could have caused it, and possibilities.
So what I did was. *My plants was just after "topping", and they were stressed, cause I did a bad topping job somehow..* Took my plant's and bathed them in h2o2 + water . I used 3% h2o2. Then bathed them in only 3% h2o2. And this whole bathing pool took same as it took my grow room to completely clean ±3hours.

1st pic same plant 2 weeks before accident. You can see little color variatons on roots already, later I got whole roots with them.
2nd pic plant after 2 weeks. Roots havent improved any, only yesterday these white new sideroots is starting to show.

This is how bad you can go, if you don't do enough research, or have an expert to say what to do, or so
And after all this I got the same amberish goo.

So to answer your question, I think it's a nute coloring

 

[cmay]

I was thinking the samething because they did look white two days ago and the res water is really a pink-ish red color. So maybe this is too many nutes this time around? I will back off the nutes next change. My other question to anyone is im keeping a daily log of my dwc every morn. So if one day im at 500ppm and 5.9ph then the next im at 6.1 and 480ppm what happen over the day? What do i add or take away? Im totally lost on that to be honest. thanks in advance

 

[LiquidBud]

With my knowledge, it's just a basic sign that your plant is feeding himself.
Plants can tell where is water and where is food, basically you add food (nutes(increase ppm's)), you add water, you're adding drink for a plant. So when you see drop in ppm's - plant is feeding. Drop in water lvl without ppm drop - plant is drinking *caution* ppm's can raise and burn your plant. Just be cautious and take readings as you would regularly do . Please correct me if im wrong some one ;}

 

[sciguy]

I'm subbed!

 

[cmay]

thank you for explaining that to me..Now if the plant is feeding and I see the PPM drop which nute do i add when im using a few to top off the dwc?

 

[LiquidBud]

This is a good question, and I dont have an answer for this

 

[LiquidBud]

What I would do, I would feed only when I change the res, and I do change-outs every week. I wouldn't top off nutes if they're missing
Well I would only top up my nutes only if I see really low ppm's or plant would show nute deficiencies. But I'm sure guys with more experience will chime in soon to answer your question correctly, and im also going to use that answer

 

[cmay]

What I would do, I would feed only when I change the res, and I do change-outs every week. I wouldn't top off nutes if they're missing
Well I would only top up my nutes only if I see really low ppm's or plant would show nute deficiencies. But I'm sure guys with more experience will chime in soon to answer your question correctly, and im also going to use that answer

What do you keep you dwc at as far as PPH. You see the size of my plants they are still small but what range would "you" have you ppm in?

Also how often do you guys top feed them? I been slacking on that but each day im going to just pour a cup over the pebbles to we the top of the netty pot.

 

[LiquidBud]

Sorry maybe I have missed it, but you're using rockwool as medium, or are you sticking your plants straight to pebbles?
Im using complete Canna Aqua nute pack, and I keep my rez ppm at around 800 ppm's right now, but I'm thinking to lower it down next time. Because my plants have suffered some big stress and I will give them a break with a light nute feed next time I feed them, and then UP ppm's to theyr normal. This is my plan.
And about top feeding them. Im using rockwool + pebbles (you can see in my journal) and I wasn't top feeding once for 2 weeks and roots insied that rockwool has dried up and locked himself up, almost made me throw my plants away, untill guys helped me and told that rockwool should be moist. Not soaking wet, but at least moist for good root ecosystem. Just dont take my every word for granted and doublecheck somewhere. Im noob myself, and telling you what I've done wrong so you dont have to do it
As of now, I keep my water level just barely touching net pots, so rockwool gets moist from bubbling action going on in the bucket. And plants look like they're recovering. But they're so small compared to theyr age.. 2 has started theyr week 5, and they look like week 2 ish...

 

[cmay]

Im using rapid rooters with clay pebbles in as my medium in my netty pots...I noticed new growth since top feeding them. Seems like more roots coming out the sides now and not just the bottom of the netty pot.

 

[Papageno]

Ah man the goal is to get to where you can run the whole time without a res change (as my friend does) or at least all of veg in one res and all of bloom in another. I go at least 4 weeks and try to do just 2 res changes in my grow. Dumping weekly makes it more difficult to know what is actually happening but if you run sterile you don't really have to understand how hydro works and can dump weekly and get great results.

When you get good and Hydro and understand how it works all you have to do is top off. My plants will go through more than a gallon of high concentration nutes a day when in heavy veg growth or transition and early bloom. So if you don't top of it gets critically low in a few days. That causes massive problems unless the res is supper huge. That said if plants are not running fast then you wont see this.

The nute solution is based on the stage of growth. In very early stages you want different nutes then when it is in strong Veg which is different then in transition which is different than bud formation / stacking which again is different then resin top off.

So if you go look at good fertilizer websites, like Advanced Nutrients, they have feed charts that explain how these things change for those stages. Now they say "use this product in weeks so and so and now use that product". So then you need to do some digging to figure out what that means.

In general you need no nutrients until there are a few sets of fan leaves.
Then when veg really starts you want to start low with a solution that has a high ratio of nitrogen. (The concentration you should use is based on the level of photosynthesis which is based on the number of leaves and light intensity so until there are a lot we don't want a lot of nutes in there) All the nutes are important and there are 3 main Macro and ones a ton of Micro nutes needed. You need them all through out all stages of growth but the ratio of these change.

Then during transition you start lowering the ratio of nitrogen to a very basic level.

As bloom takes off the Phos. and Potassium need to be run up.

And this is why they sell different nutrient solution bottles for different stages of growth.

Near the end you want to stop feeding nutes and have it use up all the stored up stuff in the leaves. Below is a chart that shows you a lot of data on the stages of growth but notice the EC line especially. Also the pH is not static throughout the grow. That is to aid in the proper nute uptake at the particular stage. Some nutrient companies do a good job of adding buffers to hold the pH stable for you so they have to over dose and under dose some things to get the ratios right at that pH.

 

[LiquidBud]

Lol the roots grow so quickly, that its almost impossible to believe.

 

[Papageno]

which part? I don't see how the root mass has anything to do with what I said...where are you confused?

 

[LiquidBud]

which part? I don't see how the root mass has anything to do with what I said...where are you confused?

If thats for me... I tried to reply to cmay, and my message just got below your post.. Nevermind that buddy :>

 

[Papageno]

Yeah it hit me after the fact that was for the post about top feeding... LOL


But the answer is roots grow where the stuff is. When the stuff is from below they grow down. When you top feed and soak the medium on the top and sides they grow that way. Any of the medium not on the edge of the basket is only as wet as water penetrating through and working its way in against gravity. But when you top feed middle rocks are wet and promote lateral growth.