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BAKIND
Well-Known Member
I'll see about having a staff member move your thread back out of "Abandoned Journals" and into the section for current ones. In the future, you can do this yourself by using the Report Post function (at the bottom of every post on the forum).
Nice, you should be able to support a sizable plant with a reservoir of that size. And that looks like a quality tote. I like that it's both opaque and white. I've just bought whatever was cheapest (within reason) at Big Lots or Home Depot, so sometimes the colors were... well, in the case of Big Lots, lol, whatever wasn't selling that year. But for $16 to $20 on average, I couldn't complain.
A good upgrade to a DWC reservoir is a device referred to as an aquarium power head. Here's an example of one:
All it is, is a simple magnetic-drive water pump, basically. They come with a tube that can be affixed to the bottom (not really necessary, but it helps keep things mixed, I suppose). Draws water up from there and pumps it out where that deflector shield is on the front (shield is generally adjustable). See that clear tube? That goes up out of the water. The pumping causes a Venturi effect - negative pressure - which draws air down through that clear tube, whereupon it is mixed with the water that is being pumped through. They can provide some fairly serious aeration, and they're inexpensive. A local pet store or even Walmart should have one for around $23.
Were those instructions referring to just the process of presoaking your rockwool in pH 5.5 water, so as to prep the stuff in order to prevent it from possibly causing pH issues later (rockwool not exactly being a "pH-neutral" product)?
Lol, "Is it done, yet?" Patience, grasshopper. You should notice some growth by 24 hours, assuming adequate light-energy and that the roots have easy access to a weak nutrient solution that is well-aerated. But realize that much of that growth will be at the root zone, as right now it doesn't really have any.
By the way, if that's one of your air pumps that you've got stuck to the side of your reservoir, you might wish to rethink that. You want to ensure that they will always be above the top of your nutrient solution, so that if you ever have a power failure and the check valve in the pump fails, you won't return to find that all of your reservoir's liquid has siphoned out onto your tent floor. That's fairly rare - but it can happen (and does, occasionally).
I think this might be the first time that I've seen a picture where someone placed a seedling in the cup / net pot of a DWC reservoir with almost no media and the plant more or less completely inside the cup. I don't know if that'll cause you any hassle or not, to be honest. I just use those 18-ounce disposable Solo cups, mostly, put a bunch of holes in the lower half, and fill the cup with something like Hydroton (aka "expanded clay balls"). That puts the "above-ground" portion of the plant above the top of the cup, where it can get hit by both light-energy and the breeze from my fan (which is important, both for strengthening the stem and for aiding in the plant's transpiration process).
Yeah, a decent aquarium power head would give you lots of bubbles. Getting the highest level of dissolved oxygen in your solution as you can is one of the keys to a successful DWC grow.
Good luck on your grow! I've always been a fan of (reasonably) large-reservoir single plant DWC grows.
Can you please provide more details of the aquarium power head pump. I am going to look ate getting one tomorrow. I cannot see the picture you attached for some reason.
