Max Reefer's First Grow After a 20 Year Hiatus

[Max Reefer]

Max, do you check the pH of the nutrients AFTER you mix them up? Using just General Hydroponics Grow/Micro/Bloom along with some silica and cal/mag during veg never changed my pH, BUT since I started using GH budding enhancers I have to raise my pH after adding them! Went from a 6.5 (ideal for soil) to a 5.3!

every time I change the nutes on the dwc I adjust the ph to 5.8-6.0. when I water the soil grow plants I have, I adjust the ph to 6.8-7 before dumping it in the soil.

however that being said, I did not check or adjust the ph on the water I just diluted high brix into and poured over the soil.

I am however about to go out and check/adjust the ph on the dwc, after adding high brix.


MR

 

[Max Reefer]

Max, do you check the pH of the nutrients AFTER you mix them up? Using just General Hydroponics Grow/Micro/Bloom along with some silica and cal/mag during veg never changed my pH, BUT since I started using GH budding enhancers I have to raise my pH after adding them! Went from a 6.5 (ideal for soil) to a 5.3!

I should have said I always check adjust my ph after all the ingredients are completely mixed. I have noticed that with the gh hydro trio, the higher the ppm, the lower the ph. meaning I have to adjust the ph up with higher ppm. my tapwater is right at ph of 6.0 when the ppm is around 1200 from adding nutes, the ph ends up at about 5.3 and I raise it to 5.8-6.0.

MR

 

[ishowyou1]

looking like the other ready to flowers are doing good if not better than the ones frome clonetix!!!!

 

[Max Reefer]

looking like the other ready to flowers are doing good if not better than the ones frome clonetix!!!!

welcome to the forum ishowyou1.

that's because the clonetix plants have suffered through the shock of transitioning from soil to hydro, root aphids, powdery mold and high temps that nearly killed them all. the water temps are still too high but that will change when my led lights get here on Monday! the deadwood and one of the golden goats appear to still have some aphids but everyone else looks happy and are starting to develop healthy roots. in retrospect, I should have vegged them for a couple weeks after the soil/hydro transition to overcome the shock and develop more roots before thrusting them into flowering. just one of the many lessons learned.

MR

 

[Max Reefer]

2 days after getting the hose, I can't find a single mite. gonna keep an eye out for them for a couple more days though to be sure they are gone.

MR

well 2 more days and still no sign of mites! I am super stoked about that!

MR

 

[Max Reefer]

I wish I had a before pic to compare this to, but you can see all the way through this plant now. before, it was a different story. defoliated and semi lollipopped blue dream. this plant was so thick with leaves when i got it that you couldn't tell how many stalks it had. I just pulled 12 cuttings off of it at 18 days into flowering.

MR

 

[Max Reefer]

ugh! what is this gooey glob?! it is plugging up air stones.

anyone had this problem? what is it? what did you do to fix it?

MR

 

[Max Reefer]

bump

 

[BunkerMonkey]

Damn. All I can say is that it's an air loving bacteria. Probably harmless. What is the temp of your water in the buckets? Do you use H2O2?

 

[Greensmurf420]

How were they cleaned before use? Some times I get Nute buildup on mine

 

[BunkerMonkey]

Sorry Max, I should have looked at your DWC list before I asked about the H2O2. I went back and looked at your photos again and this time I noticed all that foamy shit. I've only seen one DWC rig besides YouTube videos (mine) and none of them foamed except when HygroHybrid put some damned unnecessary additive in the nutes and it foamed up before he put it into the reservoir. I'm running the 3 basic GH nutes along with Rapid Start and some Cal/Mag and Silica some H2O2 and a splash of Super Thrive (Hygro's recipe and everything 1/2 what it says on the bottle) and there's no foaming at all. Those sweethearts are the best looking plants I've ever seen of any kind. They GLOW with vigor and I've topped, FIMed and LSTed the hell out of them in preparation for SCROG. Anyway, I babble...I just Googled Hydroguard and you apparently have healthy masses of Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens taking over. Maybe it has something to do with the Aquashield. It is derived from chicken shit for what that's worth. Good stuff out here on the farm but maybe not in a DWC rig along with the GH stuff and the Hydroguard. If it were my rig I think I'd clean the stones and the buckets and pull off any loosely attached globs and go with the recipe I'm using - H2O2, Cal/Mag, Silica, GH Grow/Micro/Bloom. I don't think you can go wrong with those and add some GH Rapid Start too and everything at ONE HALF (1/2) of what it says on the bottle. I'm running 600ppm (RO started at 10ppm) adjusted to pH 6.0 and I haven't changed the nutes in a little over a month (just added a little water and H2O2 once and checked pH and ppm weekly) and the buckets and roots are pretty clean except for a few off broken root fragments...or something whitish. I should look more closely, huh?

Not trying to hijack your thread Max, just showing you that Hygro's recipe works like a charm with me. They should be huge by the time I'm ready to put them in the budding room.

 

[Max Reefer]

Sorry Max, I should have looked at your DWC list before I asked about the H2O2. I went back and looked at your photos again and this time I noticed all that foamy shit. I've only seen one DWC rig besides YouTube videos (mine) and none of them foamed except when HygroHybrid put some damned unnecessary additive in the nutes and it foamed up before he put it into the reservoir. I'm running the 3 basic GH nutes along with Rapid Start and some Cal/Mag and Silica some H2O2 and a splash of Super Thrive (Hygro's recipe and everything 1/2 what it says on the bottle) and there's no foaming at all. Those sweethearts are the best looking plants I've ever seen of any kind. They GLOW with vigor and I've topped, FIMed and LSTed the hell out of them in preparation for SCROG. Anyway, I babble...I just Googled Hydroguard and you apparently have healthy masses of Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens taking over. Maybe it has something to do with the Aquashield. It is derived from chicken shit for what that's worth. Good stuff out here on the farm but maybe not in a DWC rig along with the GH stuff and the Hydroguard. If it were my rig I think I'd clean the stones and the buckets and pull off any loosely attached globs and go with the recipe I'm using - H2O2, Cal/Mag, Silica, GH Grow/Micro/Bloom. I don't think you can go wrong with those and add some GH Rapid Start too and everything at ONE HALF (1/2) of what it says on the bottle. I'm running 600ppm (RO started at 10ppm) adjusted to pH 6.0 and I haven't changed the nutes in a little over a month (just added a little water and H2O2 once and checked pH and ppm weekly) and the buckets and roots are pretty clean except for a few off broken root fragments...or something whitish. I should look more closely, huh?
Not trying to hijack your thread Max, just showing you that Hygro's recipe works like a charm with me. They should be huge by the time I'm ready to put them in the budding room.

thanks for the reply, I was too busy yesterday to reply to your post. I have come to the conclusion that the molasses I put in the res coupled with warmer than optimal temps that caused the slime to bloom. I spent most of the day yesterday cleaning and removing all the rotten roots and repotting them in fresh hydroton. I also am still battling the dreaded root aphid so they also got a bath in gognat. and each res was refilled with a solution of gognat for the week with no nutes. everything I have read about the dreaded slime keeps bringing me back to this...

https://www.--------.org/t/dwc-root-slime-cure-aka-how-to-breed-beneficial-microbes.361430/

I am thinking I will make this tea later this week for when I change the gognat out.

here is a pic of my chem dawg swimming in gognat before getting repotted. I did this with all 8 of my dwc plants...

while I was working with the wet girls, the dirty girls got to stretch their legs and bask in the sun, dance in the breeze and sing in the rain.

MR

 

[Max Reefer]

I didn't include this blue hawaiian in my journal at the beginning because I thought it was a goner. she is one of the ready to flower trees I converted to dwc from soil. in the beginning she was outperforming her sisters but one day she was looking rather limp. after frantically google searching the issue, I changed the nutes and the next day she looked to be her old self. well two days later she was back to looking limp. so I repotted her and removed some rotten roots gave her new nutes and the next days she was back to her old self again. but then she did it again. at that point I tried repotting her in soil after another root cleaning. this seemed to have no effect, so after a couple days I figured she was dead, but she refused to turn brown. so instead of pulling her up, I decided to put her outside and start a foliar feeding twice a day. after ony a day, I could see some signs of improvement. by yesterday she was definitely showing signs of life again so she got to go back inside yesterday.

this pick is if her when she went outside...

here she is 3 days later ready to go back inside...

MR

 

[Max Reefer]

How were they cleaned before use? Some times I get Nute buildup on mine

they were new out of the package. I didn't clean them before using them for the first time. in retrospect, they should have been sanitized in some h2o2 before going in the res.

MR

 

[BunkerMonkey]

Dammit Max, you sure are having problems...all of them at once! Look at the bright side buddy, you're learning a lot. You'll get things straightened out, just keep at it.

 

[Max Reefer]

Damn. All I can say is that it's an air loving bacteria. Probably harmless. What is the temp of your water in the buckets? Do you use H2O2?

Dammit Max, you sure are having problems...all of them at once! Look at the bright side buddy, you're learning a lot. You'll get things straightened out, just keep at it.

no question I am getting a lesson. I never had any of these problems my first time around 20 years ago. I am too stupid to give up. ha ha

MR

 

[Max Reefer]

the dirty girls got to go outside again today.

here is the chernobyl...

the nysd seems to be having some problem. notice the curling claw like leaves. anyone know what's going on here?

MR

 

[Max Reefer]

Sorry Max, I should have looked at your DWC list before I asked about the H2O2. I went back and looked at your photos again and this time I noticed all that foamy shit. I've only seen one DWC rig besides YouTube videos (mine) and none of them foamed except when HygroHybrid put some damned unnecessary additive in the nutes and it foamed up before he put it into the reservoir. I'm running the 3 basic GH nutes along with Rapid Start and some Cal/Mag and Silica some H2O2 and a splash of Super Thrive (Hygro's recipe and everything 1/2 what it says on the bottle) and there's no foaming at all. Those sweethearts are the best looking plants I've ever seen of any kind. They GLOW with vigor and I've topped, FIMed and LSTed the hell out of them in preparation for SCROG. Anyway, I babble...I just Googled Hydroguard and you apparently have healthy masses of Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens taking over. Maybe it has something to do with the Aquashield. It is derived from chicken shit for what that's worth. Good stuff out here on the farm but maybe not in a DWC rig along with the GH stuff and the Hydroguard. If it were my rig I think I'd clean the stones and the buckets and pull off any loosely attached globs and go with the recipe I'm using - H2O2, Cal/Mag, Silica, GH Grow/Micro/Bloom. I don't think you can go wrong with those and add some GH Rapid Start too and everything at ONE HALF (1/2) of what it says on the bottle. I'm running 600ppm (RO started at 10ppm) adjusted to pH 6.0 and I haven't changed the nutes in a little over a month (just added a little water and H2O2 once and checked pH and ppm weekly) and the buckets and roots are pretty clean except for a few off broken root fragments...or something whitish. I should look more closely, huh? Not trying to hijack your thread Max, just showing you that Hygro's recipe works like a charm with me. They should be huge by the time I'm ready to put them in the budding room.

thanks for your interest in my grow and your willingness to help. it seems that in addition to the pests and fungal issues I am still struggling with high temps. I don't have a chiller and the room temps are hitting 90 degrees every day (even with my new led lights). if there is anything that is a killer for dwc, it's high temps. I have an idea for a diy chiller but until I have the details worked out and a functional chiller, I am not going to say what it is. if it is a success I will make a thread for it because no one has done it yet. that being said, it will require that you have a reservoir system for it to work.

would you please expound on the "recipe" you use? I am not familiar with some of the stuff you mention. cal/mag and silica in particular. how much of each ingredient per gallon, etc.. I am not familiar with "hygro's recipe" and could not find it on here. do you have a link maybe?

I am planning to turn my setup into a top drip reservoir system that has a main reservoir that all the nute fluid returns to. this type of system worked well for me in the past, so I am thinking it is the way to go.

every time I searched for a solution to any of the problems I have had, the ultimate solution was to scrap the grow, disinfect and start over. I am almost to that point with the dwc plants. they only have a couple more weeks to be done, so as long as they stay perky, I will let them go. it's a shame because some of them smell so good. but at this point they are just taking up space.

it has been really saddening to watch these plants deteriorate into what they have become...

my dirty girls however seem to be immune to the high room temps and are responding very well to the super cropping and defoliating they have been receiving. they also seem to have really enjoyed the molasses and oregonisms (mycorrhizae) I gave them.

yes, if you didn't notice, I got my new led grow lights a couple days ago. they are four 400 watt lights from lgledsolutions.com. great people to work with and nice lights too. although they do make more heat than I thought they would. but still less than the hps lights I had in there. I have 2 more on the way too. I am planning to use 5 of them in my flower room and one in the veg space.

my girls, all 14 of them.

MR

 

[BunkerMonkey]

Good luck with the temps Max, that's my biggest worry other than spidermites as spring goes into summer. I'm growing in a basement so I have a little leeway, but my temps are getting up to 87- 90 degrees by the end of the "day" (8pm to 8 am). The canopy is staying about 5 degrees cooler though. I can always dial back my variable output ballasts to 750W or even 500W if it gets too warm down here later this summer. I haven't built the recirculating DWC setup that I plan on using to continue my current bucket DWC grow that's in veg, but when I do I will put the reservoir outside the flowering room. I mounted my ballasts outside the room too.

What's you average humidity? If your relative humidity is low an evaporative cooler (also known as a swamp cooler) can help you out and it uses very little power. I uesd one when I lived in Arizona and they are fantastic in a dry climate. I'm sure they are still quite effective until the RH gets up over 50% or so.

I'm in Michigan and a swamp cooler might help me, but when it gets hot here it's also quite humid so I may have to step up to something like this which costs about the same but will use more electricity -

 

[Max Reefer]

I actually happen to have one of those "swamp coolers" I will have to get that in there after a thorough disinfecting. I think it needs some new excelsior too.

what about the nute recipe you mentioned? any details would be a huge help. and much appreciated.

I still have to get my clone/veg room built and set up so I can get my stuff out of my dining room.

wow! the buy in on that ac unit isn't cheap! but ultimately, that may be the answer to my issues.

MR