Noob Grower Bruce Banner Auto RDWC With Rainwater

[420user123345]

AUTO BRUCE BANNER 1st attempt in over 20 years of anything.
In Australia start of summer today's top of 80f or 26c and about 30% colder at night
RDWC Current Culture 420 from Cali
Using Rainwater captured by home tank has 0 PPM at start
1.45mx2.9mx2.3m High (5x9ft) grow tent
2 x dim-able 630w progrow model s lights
humidifier added
Co2 exhale bag
200mm (7.9") in and exhaust fans plus 1 small fan inside tent
Air is drawn from open garage
CANNA AQUA will be nutrients
Has a Bluelab doser but really it just monitors after getting the right ph up and down after i was using a citric based acid one which was dissolved within hours from the air bubbles.
RH is set at 60 .and pretty much stays around that.
I don't have a de humidifier yet as it doesn't seem to go up to much as i seem to draw dry air in from the garage
TK1000 water chiller keeping it at 20c or 68f

28th 2 x seeds put in paper 3pm

30th both germinated
31st 2 x added to dome in rock wool
The dome is inside the tent on the floor LUX is around 5500 light is 130cm or 70" from plants ppfd is 280 light is dimmed at 380kw
1st 1 x added to clay balls but left in propagation dome
2nd 40 2nd added to clay balls and put in dome also
3rd looks Ok.. removed the dome lid
4th 50ml and wet clay balls

6th 40ml
7th 50ml on clay balls only true leaves starting
8th moved to oxypots watered rock wool and clay balls root outside of rock wool 1cm and a long one at the bottom 3 or 4cm reaching bottom of oxypot already
water on OXYPOT PH 6.2 150ppm cal/mag no other nutrient added
9th watered clay balls with ph'd 6.1 water
10th

Also in the room is 3 x bubblegum auto one is in the coco. I upped nutrients and it locked out cal/mag in RDWC somehow i think i accidentally put in wrong amount.. bad day effected all 4 plants.... plants are recovering Ok after swapping out water for PH 6.1 and calmag only .. adding 1/4 nutes during the week.. please send them some love

there is also 2 x og kush photo period I plan on moving out to different room at the very back in rdwc

Added picture of set up and close up of the 2 Bruce Banners with one looking a little under the weather.

Looking for any advice cheers .. EG Do I start with 1/4 Nutrients now ? or should I wait ?

 

[Porky82]

I'm in Australia also and am going to go straight through summer but I'm in perlite and south coast NSW so it gets hot but not too bad!
What part of OZ are you in mate?
I haven't run RDWC for years but heat was always a problem. Most run a water chiller these days. I used to add 1ml per 10lt of H202 every week or so if water temps got above 21c to keep roots healthy.
I had the old CC setup with a mate.

 

[Roy Growin]

Just finishing a BB Auto in coco - I grow in small pots, solid bud

bruce-banner-frosting-231103.jpg

• Roy Growin
• Nov 3, 2023
• auto bruce banner coco frosting

 

[420user123345]

I'm in Australia also and am going to go straight through summer but I'm in perlite and south coast NSW so it gets hot but not too bad!
What part of OZ are you in mate?
I haven't run RDWC for years but heat was always a problem. Most run a water chiller these days. I used to add 1ml per 10lt of H202 every week or so if water temps got above 21c to keep roots healthy.
I had the old CC setup with a mate.

Love ya work mate... I'm just South of Newcastle .. I forgot to add that I have a water Chiller it's a TK1000 .. thanks for bringing that up I add h202 to my oxy pot and even a frozen bottle of water to try keep it down.. Are you using tap water or rain mate ? and how old are the plants vegging ? I grew similar to this over 20 years ago but just 1 plant at a time.. northern lights .. sempt easy as I was always partying and never looked after anything haha but had awesome yields

 

[420user123345]

Just finishing a BB Auto in coco - I grow in small pots, solid bud

bruce-banner-frosting-231103.jpg

• Roy Growin
• Nov 3, 2023
• auto bruce banner coco frosting

Love it.. is it #4 ? I was on your Journal checking it out earlier I'm an old fart and the memory is bad so I'm pretty much full restart haha

 

[Porky82]

Love ya work mate... I'm just South of Newcastle .. I forgot to add that I have a water Chiller it's a TK1000 .. thanks for bringing that up I add h202 to my oxy pot and even a frozen bottle of water to try keep it down.. Are you using tap water or rain mate ? and how old are the plants vegging ? I grew similar to this over 20 years ago but just 1 plant at a time.. northern lights .. sempt easy as I was always partying and never looked after anything haha but had awesome yields

The pics are about 5 years ago. We just used tap water. It was usually pH 7 to 8 and low ec of 0.1 so was a good to use.
The plants in the pic veging would be about 3 weeks old!
As long as the water stays cool enough has enough oxygen and circulates well through the system you should be fine!
When it got hotter we would change the res ever week instead of ever 2 weeks in the cooler months!
Happy to help ya if needed just tag me in here!

 

[Sativa1970]

What filtration are you using to get rain water down to 0 PPM or am I reading that wrong? Your rain water will collect natural minerals, molds and fungus from the air. You need an aerobic res environment and some way to keep your sterile res, sterile.

 

[420user123345]

You are reading it right.. I mean it would have standard house strainers that look like a tea pot strainer in the pipe and at the top of the tank just a mesh gauze.. I live no where near a city a.. and In Australia our air quality is very good. So only strainers to remove larger objects like leaves twigs and maybe insects.. Infact imma go down and take pictures so you can see for yourself. From what I have read it is depending on where you live on what ppm you get.. eg near a city or in the country ? But I'm the noob and I am not questioning your question.. adding pictures now of only filter to water tank. Would it be easier for me to simply go back to using tap water ?

 

[Sativa1970]

I am sure it is less polluted than a lot of the world but there is still dust, pollen, mold spores and such everywhere. 0PPM is cleaner than pure filtered then distilled water. The rain water is most likely better for growing but I would double check your meters calibration before trusting it with nute levels. Use hydro guard or hydrogen peroxide to keep your res clear of rot just in case you pick up random spores from the air.

 

[420user123345]

Ok I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong then so I have attached some pictures to see what you think !...
PICTURE 1..... Here is the PH reading and you can see the truncheon is not registering.. there may be minute traces in but not enough to get a reading yet ? 0 EC 5.6PH
ADDED Some TDS numbers RAINWATER PIC 2. reading is 012 from the rainwater shown in the 2nd picture
PIC 3 is just showing TAP WATER TDS is 114 to see a comparison .
I will definitely get some HYDROGAURD . Done some homework on it and I think it can only help .. Cheers.
I also just got off the phone to my plumber to make sure there wasn't any hidden filters.. It does have what the call a first flush filter that takes the first 10L of water and removes any birdshat or larger debris but no so much minute minerals or anything you can't see. So there is 100% no filter.

 

[Sativa1970]

Ok, that makes a lot more sense and your meter is ok. Pic one shows less than 100PPM since that is the low end of the scale. The 5.6 PH is from the alkaline iron in the red soil dust. So we know there is iron, and that is good.

The second pic with PPMs of TDS is 12. 30 PPM is a US suburban average so 12 sounds right. Friend in LA had his rain water test at 150PPM. His tap water is undrinkable in the 800sPPM. He freaked out when visiting because I took a drink strait from a spring head. I'm in the Ozark Mt. Range. Where they bottle Ozark Mt spring water from the same artesian spring. He just knew I was going to die from it. LOL

Your tap water looks great too. I get an annual mineral PPM break down from my municipal water co. but there are plenty of places you could send a water sample for the same report. My tap water is 140PPM with all the micro nutrients, 80PPM of that is cal and mag, and we don't chlorinate our water here. It's UV purified so my res stays sanitary without any H2O2 or hydroguard. May be worth looking into as a possible backup plan B. If you rain barrels run low or fungus becomes an issue.

 

[420user123345]

Ok, that makes a lot more sense and your meter is ok. Pic one shows less than 100PPM since that is the low end of the scale. The 5.6 PH is from the alkaline iron in the red soil dust. So we know there is iron, and that is good.

The second pic with PPMs of TDS is 12. 30 PPM is a US suburban average so 12 sounds right. Friend in LA had his rain water test at 150PPM. His tap water is undrinkable in the 800sPPM. He freaked out when visiting because I took a drink strait from a spring head. I'm in the Ozark Mt. Range. Where they bottle Ozark Mt spring water from the same artesian spring. He just knew I was going to die from it. LOL

Your tap water looks great too. I get an annual mineral PPM break down from my municipal water co. but there are plenty of places you could send a water sample for the same report. My tap water is 140PPM with all the micro nutrients, 80PPM of that is cal and mag, and we don't chlorinate our water here. It's UV purified so my res stays sanitary without any H2O2 or hydroguard. May be worth looking into as a possible backup plan B. If you rain barrels run low or fungus becomes an issue.

Ok thanks mate... so I guess I should state ec is 0.1 lol ... i not iced 1970 in your name.. year I was born and I'm guessing the same for you !... Keep up the good work young man haha .. cheers !

 

[420user123345]

DAY 5 after germination.
Started with 1/4 nute feed yesterday 5ml/L rhizotonic and 2.5ml/L veg into the oxypot. ppm = 500 with 1ml/10ml calmag added..
Noticed a root out of one pot reaching down into the water already approx 5cm long or 2 inches. Once all plants roots are reaching the water i will transfer them to the RDWC system.
Plants look a little funky but so far all my Auto babies seem to start weird.. genetics or me ? or both ! maybe slightly high water temp 24c or 75f ?

 

[Sativa1970]

looking nice and stout.

 

[420user123345]

Day 8
Fresh water change using rainwater with added calmag bringing EC up from 0.1 to 0.3
10ml a+b aqua / 10l and 40ml Rhizotonic
total EC was 0.8 so i diluted it slightly back to 0.7
PH 6.2
lots of roots appearing.

 

[420user123345]

I'm in Australia also and am going to go straight through summer but I'm in perlite and south coast NSW so it gets hot but not too bad!
What part of OZ are you in mate?
I haven't run RDWC for years but heat was always a problem. Most run a water chiller these days. I used to add 1ml per 10lt of H202 every week or so if water temps got above 21c to keep roots healthy.
I had the old CC setup with a maH

Hey mate, I have these 2 bubblegum auto's goin .. they germinated 16th Oct so coming up to 6 weeks .. would you defol ?