First Timer Hoping For Magic With CFLs - DWC & Bag Seeds

Albatross

Albatross

New Member
What strain is it? Bag seed
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? Well find out
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? Veg
If in Veg... For how long? 1 week
If in Flower stage... For how long? -
Indoor or outdoor? Indoor
Soil or Hydro? Hydro, DWC
If soil... what is in your mix? Hydroton
If soil... What size pot? 5 gallon bucket
Size of light? 4 23watt 6500k for now
Is it aircooled? no
Temp of Room/cab? 80-85 day 74-76 night
RH of Room/cab? -
PH of media or res? 5.5-6
Any Pests ?
How often are you watering?
Type and strength of ferts used? 1/4 flora micro and gro ( bloom to come once they get used to nutes)

They germinated on march 3rd, and were in coco coir for the first 9 days, then they were switched into the DWC on March 12th, I took the two best specimens and decided to try to grow two out at least to see if one would be a female. I recently went out of town for spring break and in doing so that's when i decided to transfer my plants over; I did this for two reasons, A to hopefully stress the plants for a few days so that my pH imbalance wouldn't kill them and B so that they wouldn't have dried out and died. I was planning on going DWC just would have probably liked a few more days in the medium first.

When coming back into town I noticed some discolorations as well as the leaves turning up and browning on the edges. I figure this is a pH problem due to the fact it was a little over 7 on my return ( lower than I thought it would be). I also raised the lights to about 7 inches when i left so that any growth wouldn't burn the leaves. I cleaned out the reservoir and added floramicro and floragro (bloom broke my bank I'm gonna pick that up next week) Then i adjusted the pH to around 5-5.5. And lowered the lights back to about 2 inches from the plant. The plants are about 2.5-3 inches out of the hydro ton, and they have some toothpicks and twist ties for support for now.

Anyways I am sure I'm forgetting something but feel free to chime in and give me your .02$ I can snap some more picture this week and will continue to do so as it progresses

Set up close up
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Aforementioned seedling
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Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

And for now i'm slowly making the switch over from tap(letting it sit out) to distilled but the tap water is as follows...

All results in mg/L-

Calcium 27.0
Magnesium 17.0
Sodium 11.3
Chloride 27.1
Sulfate 71.8
Ammonia 0.24
Nitrite 0.03
Nitrate 0.02
pH 8.6
Hardness as CaCO3 132
Alkalinity as CaCO3 55
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

Don't wait, change the water out. If using DI or RO water I will suggest you ad Cal/Mag or some source for those minerals. Your tap is alkaline, main reason it has a high ph. Correcting it does nothing for the alkalinity. It will return. You will encounter swings and a multitude of symptoms making it difficult to tell which is which. The object is a consistent and manageable source water.
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

I got an extra air stone( 6") works wonders compared to the old one, and some cal/mag. I also found a place that has water for 5 gallons for .99$ so i think thats a clear winner. I was going to flush the system and add new water however I'm not familiar with cal/mag dosages so any advice on that would be great. How long should I expect the airstone to peak my ph too?

Moved it to a slightly larger place. Night temps are 65 and the day temps ill post when they plants wake up

Edit* im going to flush it for a day or so with R/O phed water to try to get any nutes out then I'm going to start to add calmag and low nute doses
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

I have never run DWC but I will endeavor to help if I can.

This is how I understand it...

Air Stone - purpose to oxygenate the reservoir. Some cases it also aids in microbial activity. More is better usually.

Cal/Mag - dosage on bottle I believe is 5ml per gal, 10ml in worse case. That works for me. You have to make the call. Give it a week and adjust downward if recovering. Damage is done it will not repair. The affected leaves will wither and die.

I would hit them with RO and Cal/Mag, you need to halt the progression asap
no nutes... and ph it 5.8

It will fluctuate based on the consumption of nutes, which is also relative to age and cycle. Keep an eye on it and the ppm to see how much they are using. Same can be said for the Cal/Mag application I speak of. Check it and again daily to see what is changing. You will learn the strains pattern.
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

The white thing is a thermometer(which is directly closer to a light then the plant) , night time temps drop to about 63.8 while day time peaks around 77.6; There has been good growth since the r/o flush a new set of true leaves and they are looking good, as well as the leaves are regaining turgidity. The res is being kept alot colder then it was, and the R/o water minimizes the pH fluctuations much better thus far. So far the R/o has been helping thanks smoke you were right + reps
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

i hope those plants pick up for ya. are you seeing any progress on the recovery?

those test strips are a hit and miss with me. actually i hate em their never a hit lol. my test strips almost cost me my crop. spend what ever you need on that meter. you PH is WAY too important in DWC to trust a disposable piece of plastic.

im subbed albatross, im growing DWC also and would like to keep an eye on yours to give you tips along the way if you dont mind
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

So far they look good today new growth and all ( ill take pics later), they are sleeping right now so I am adjusting some things, such as combining the two air pump nozzles into one tube to hopefully optimize my air stone.

I have 2 of those drop pH kits for now, I was going to pick up a digital one yesterday but the store charges 4x that of any website so it was hard for me to make the purchase, but it will be my next purchase if i don't order one of amazon first

Sounds good chief, I would like all the help/input I can get
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

So me and my buddy decided it would be best to make some sort of grow box, so with a few dollars and some elbow grease this is what we came up with.

Box from afar, we found a cabinet and made some changes its 39x19x48(weird dimensions)
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We used mylar insulation on the doors and mylar emergency blankets on the walls. We used aluminum tape to touch it up and seal it.
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The exhaust is a fan i got at Walmart for 6 dollars. Took it apart and mounted it into place in the holes via zip ties.
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Intake for now is just a screen
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Plants are looking much better and have some new growth as well. Ill post information on the heat and such tomorrow once it records.

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again sorry for bad pictures

Alba
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

Today was a great day, there was lots of new growth as well as making a lot of changes to the box configured yesterday. I decided to run a drip system over the DWC for now until the roots want to swim. I used an air pump and some suction to force the water up and through the 2 tubes i created from tubing i found about the house. (I had an old water pump laying around... was terribly inconsistent, clogging, loud, vibrating, etc etc... much happier converting my other air outlet into a drip system for now (Once roots start to swim I'm gonna dump the drip). Its pretty neat now it just spurts out a splash of water every 5-15 seconds or so.

anyways, put some work into the drip as well as completely shutting the front cabinet. I drilled holes in the side/bottom of the black drip irrigation lines extending outward. For some reason i keep destroying the other plant ( last week broke a leaf off, today ripped it outta the net pot :( )

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Nearly everything I have came from an idea or a post on here, I have some people I owe mad credit to. I managed to build/scavenge/buy pieces/ come across the rest of the build If you need more pictures or how to's send me a pm(and ill do my best to help out, and send pics/diagrams for a somewhat similar build) In the mean time I'm going to post some pictures.

They are secured through the net pots with some twist ties. The Outlet coming from the inside of the bucket and is regulation fish tube size (IDK what size but everything Ive bought fits each other thus far) the adapters are .49$ and are easily converted into pumps if you happen to have a lead fishing weight handy, tie it to the < ^ > shaped plastic piece to drop the drip features below water level.

water5.jpg
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

cool setup hope it works out
about pumps I recently added an airstone to my resvoir in my waterfarm and had to get another pump thought it would cost me around 20 to 30 but general hydro makes a simple one that cost only 7 bucks plus the price of piping which I thought was a steal and it's pretty quiet don't know if you have any good hydro shops around u but they would probably carry it
 
Re: First Timer hoping for magic with CFLs, DWC and bag seeds

the plant looks like it starting to get their now, im also using cfls to grow with and its the first time using them, at first i was watering to much but im using compost so slightly different, i didnt expect to get the growth i have got using cfls as a lot of growers say their no good, but from my experience my plants have not stretched at all and node spacing at stem is very tight, im going to try fim technique tomorrow and see what happens, but you seem to have got yours back on track and the new growth is looking ok so looks like you got it sorted in time,
 

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