Simple Feeding res change that works

Perfect Sun LED

Well-Known Member
I start my plants in a 5 gallon bucket, but then move to a 18 gallon tote with panda plastic on it to keep the light out.

Anyway, here is the simple method that works for me. Green, healthy, no signs of deficiencies, no burnt tips, etc. Nice white roots.

Feeding goes like this. 400-500ppm of base nutes, in my case, vf-11 for one plant and General Hydroponics for the other. With General Hydroponics, I only use the micro and bloom. No veg. They have enough nitro in them together. Save money.

6-9 ratio of micro and bloom, at about half strength per gallon, which should give you about 400-500 ppm, depending on your water's ppm. 6-9 ratio means, 6ml per gallon micro and 9ml per gallon bloom. However, I divide that by 2, to get half strength. In dwc, plants don't need much ppm to get everything they need. I've learned this the hard way.

So I guess the ratio per gallon is more like 3ml and 4.5.

Then I add about 100-150ml of botanicare Sweet. You can substitute with 100-150ppm of Epsom salt, then about a table spoon of sugar per 2 gallons of water. Around there. The carbs are just for sweetening and densing buds.

Then I add a cap full of full power humic acid. I am sure any brand of humic acid will work. This makes it easier for the roots to suck up the nutes.

I run this under a 400w, 600w, and even outside. PLANTS DO NOT NEED much nutes in dwc.

I run two large air stones with a cheap pump from the hydro store.

I change the res every 7 days or so.

I also add the recommended dose of drip clean per gallon as on the bottle. I also add about 1 table spoon per gal of 3% h202 because I can no longer buy anything higher, because of some new law. I often go without the h202, unless I feel any slime at all on the walls of the bucket/tote.

When I change the res, I spray out the res well. I check to see if the walls feel slick at all, like slime build up. If so, I clean with h202 or soap and water.

I have an extra clean bucket to transport the plant into, roots and stones together, while I check or change res.

I check the ph every day. I try to keep it around 5.8-6.2. The white panda plastic helps the res not get hot out in the sun as well as if under a light bulb.

You can also use vf-11 at 400-500ppm and cal mag at 150ppm, plus humic acid, drip clean, h202. vf-11 during veg is working better than general hydroponics right now. I will see what preforms better during flowering.

That's pretty much it. I keep it simple.
 
Oh, I forgot to talk about how high I keep my water in the res. First, I use 8inch net pot, bucket lids. I cut a hole in the 18 gallon Rubbermaid tote.

I fill the water levels up to cover a good amount of the net inside the net lid, about half way up. I also keep the bottom of my coco perlite root system (plants were grown in a plastic cup in coco perlite), about half way up inside the net pot, so there is a good amount of hydroton below the main root ball from the cup.

If you place your main root ball when you transplant into the net cup, at the bottom of the net cup, then only fill up to the bottom of the netcup.

Basically, you don't want the water covering your main root ball from transplant.
 
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