Need some info on my 5gal DWC set up

[BagseedBoy]

I need a lil' knowledge from anyone out there who has ran a DWC set-up... I have a lot of experience in growing just new to growing in water. I have a couple 5 gal buckets taped up, with net cups in the lid and air stones in umm(basic DWC set-up)...I use PBP grow, liquid karma, and cal-mag plus+.. also have the PBP Bloom the hydro formula(2.5-2-5)... Also I don't have a EC or TDS pen or meter(or what ever they r called), so I'm winging it and doing dam good at it. It's a trial and error thing right now, and there has been no error( I know soon one will come)I'm going to invest in a meter soon just a lil' low on funds, I know it will make things a lot easier then guessing, but I can tell if the plant likes what I'm doing, cuz I can tell you.... when you get it right you can practically watch the plants grow, every time you take a peek there's more leaves and new nodes. I just let my tap water sit for a couple days and been working my way up on the nutes. They've been working great, I have one that I just thru into flower that's been vegging for 3 wks, and another vegging for two now. Anyway the question at hand is how much of the roots should I allow to sit in the water. I know when starting off with one of these you start the water level at the top and lower the water level as the roots grow down into it, see my roots go all the way to the bottom and the larger portion of the mass is at half way. So I keep the water level at half. I know some should sit in the water, and still want more leads of roots to grow from the cup, but then again I don't know if leaving the mass of it submerge will cause root rot??? My buckets are light proof and I put black bags over the lid so no light will go thru the net cup and hydrotron or clay pellets.. Like I said I'm a newbie to growing in water and I always could use some advice... I KNOW I NEED TO GET ONE OF THOSE METERS!!!!

 

[BigGreen]

Yep get 2 meters at least a ph meter if any. Keep the water line 1 to 2 inches below the bottom of the net pot and make sure you always keep them bubbles rockin. Good luck

 

[MAZEinaHAZE]

do NOT cheap out on the air pumps and stones -- they are your most critical items besides light and water of course...........

 

[Mickymouse]

Doesnt need a PH meter.I bought one and never use it.Just get the drops.There cheap and they will never lie to you like a meter.

 

[BagseedBoy]

yeah I got a great air supply and the bubbles are always rocking.... I can tell when the ph is off. When I do my water ex-change every week I notice some leaf curl, but it doesn't seem to effect it.... much......lol(I really don't know since its my first time... Hell the plant could be twice the size it is right now if I had an exact on everything or a meter to tell me what is going on in the water, but I don't so I go off how the leaves, and how the whole plant looks...and what I know).~~~ So what I was asking is how low should the water be to the main root mass, or does it even matter as long as some of the roots r in the water in case of a power outage??? Or will having too much of the roots submerged in the water supply cause root rot???

 

[BagseedBoy]

Big Green- Nice pics... Your set up is beautiful.... I don't have my own place so I don't have the luxury of having an open space like that, or even a room dedicated to growing. Anyways you said keep the water level one to two inches below the net cup...Your talking about at the start????

 

[FreezerBoy]

Seedlings need roots submerged. Once roots are long enough, allow a 1" gap. Some will maintain the gap with daily top-offs. I top off every two weeks with the gap sometimes reaching 6-8 inches.



A 5 gal bucket will be lucky to hold 3 gal of nutes. The smaller the bucket, the faster the disaster. I'd consider bigger buckets.

You can go without measuring EC (avoid PPM and TDS as worthless bullshit and lies) but, no pH control could be trouble. Feed at 1/4-1/3 recommended feed rates, chart pH and feed in the direction of pH movement: pH up-feed more, pH down-feed less.

 

[cygnus]

I have been growing DWC for 5 years. When the plants are flowering I fill the bucket up to an inch or even two above the net pot. Thye are sucking water down so fast by the next day they are and inch or two below the pot. You really can't screw up in DWC. I took a bunch of shit here on time when I said it was fine to grow with out a PPM meter. If you foll the directions and know how to measure you can get away with it.

 

[Mist]

Sounds like you have a good handle on it so far. As was said above, there is only a couple major factors to deal with in DWC. Ph and lots and lots of bubbles. Always go with about twice what you think you need and you won't regret it. I was doing DWC when it was just starting 10 years ago and nothing has really changed in the basic system. That is because there is nothing to change. It all works good and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. LOL!
You can see from this post of mine from CC in 2000 that it is still the same>

http://forums.cannabisculture.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=69116#Post69116

 

[BagseedBoy]

thanks for the help guys!!! The girls r doing great and yeah I think i should go get one of those ph meters/strips/drops, or what ever I can get a hold of. So All you guys out there think I should fill the whole 5gal up to the net pot in flower???? I have a couple going so I'll run some experiments. Yeah all my buckets have pumps rated for 15 gal fish tanks... The bubbles rock oh and I got these kool 4" round air stones,they're good cuz they r heavy so no weights or glue.. I got all the pumps and stones at the local Pet-co or what not... I'll get some pics up here soon!!!!!s

 

[Mist]

Good deal on the high bubble output. There are actually two reasons for the airstones in the bucket. One is of course to bring oxygen to the roots and the other, which is hardly ever addressed, is to break the surface tension of the nutrients in the bucket. If you ever have an airstone clog up on you it will be obvious what I mean. A bucket with no bubbles will get a layer of scum on top of the nutrients in a matter of hours. And if you ever see your lower leaves starting to turn bright yellow for no apparant reason check the airstone first thing. It is usually a sure sign of very few or no bubbles.
It is a good idea to change out your airstones, depending on how long you vegg for, at around the middle of the grow. It will become harder to do this later in the grow when the buckets are crammed full of roots.

 

[TacoSusio]

I have been growing DWC for 5 years. When the plants are flowering I fill the bucket up to an inch or even two above the net pot. Thye are sucking water down so fast by the next day they are and inch or two below the pot. You really can't screw up in DWC. I took a bunch of shit here on time when I said it was fine to grow with out a PPM meter. If you foll the directions and know how to measure you can get away with it.

I agree, you don't need a meter, especially if your nutes have ph buffers (FNB, for example).

 

[BigGreen]

Get drops, meter or some thing to read ph. I use floranova and the ph swings with the shit. This is one thing you have to watch if your ph hits 6.5 for one or two days it could spell disaster trust me I just had it happen to me with floranova and ro water. The ph is the most important part of hydro if its out of wack it could lock out every thing then your f-cked. Good luck and pop up some pics so we all can see.

 

[FreezerBoy]

So All you guys out there think I should fill the whole 5gal up to the net pot in flower????

Not me. The point of DWC is massive oxygen to the roots. The upper roots are air hogs. If you've ever replanted a stretched out seedling low into the pot, it will stall for a few weeks to sprout roots at the surface in search of air. Some non mj plants actually grow these roots above the ground.

The real reason for surface turbulence is air exchange. That's where oxygen gets dissolved into the water, aka DO. Waterfalls are the most effective means of aeration as they are two turbulent surfaces crashing at 90º into a third turbulent surface. Air bubbles are not required. DWC uses air pumps rather than water pumps because water pumps add heat to the res and heat in the res is generally a bad thing

 

[BagseedBoy]

Yes heat combined with a lil' light can be big problems... In the winter I run some fish tank heaters to try an keep it at 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit..... I hear over 80F causes rot or fungus and garbage to grow/Bad things.......
TacoSusio- hey whats FNB?? I'm not good with half of these abbreviations..... Yeah and I keep reading that PBP doesn't swing the ph that bad, but like I've said I haven't checked it once...
Actually one of Girls looks like to be getting a phosphorous deficiency(brown spots on the older leaves then from the tips in to the stem it yellows then browns up^) My plan was going to be flush err with some distilled water from the tap(run it in the bucket for a day) then start off low and work my way up on the nutes and see what kind of reaction I get(of course it will be over a period of time with the nutes, probably take a day) but I'm going to the fish store today to get a ph kit....or the nursery.. The only thing is all the test kits I can find only check the ph between 4-8, or some where around that...... Any advice on where to find a good one??????

 

[TacoSusio]

FNB = FloraNova Bloom. It's basically the Lucas Formula in a single bottle with ph buffers.

 

[Mickymouse]

Yes heat combined with a lil' light can be big problems... In the winter I run some fish tank heaters to try an keep it at 70-75 degrees Fahrenheit..... I hear over 80F causes rot or fungus and garbage to grow/Bad things.......
TacoSusio- hey whats FNB?? I'm not good with half of these abbreviations..... Yeah and I keep reading that PBP doesn't swing the ph that bad, but like I've said I haven't checked it once...
Actually one of Girls looks like to be getting a phosphorous deficiency(brown spots on the older leaves then from the tips in to the stem it yellows then browns up^) My plan was going to be flush err with some distilled water from the tap(run it in the bucket for a day) then start off low and work my way up on the nutes and see what kind of reaction I get(of course it will be over a period of time with the nutes, probably take a day) but I'm going to the fish store today to get a ph kit....or the nursery.. The only thing is all the test kits I can find only check the ph between 4-8, or some where around that...... Any advice on where to find a good one??????

One thing you cant get RO/distilled water from the tap no matter how long you leave it out.

 

[BagseedBoy]

Whats the RO mean... Run off????? You saying that because there is chlorine in tap water, and that it won't evaporate???? I always thought just by leaving it out a couple days everything will evaporate out.... I guess I never really knew what distilled water is,, SO WHAT IS DISTILLED WATER MikeyMouse?????? Either or that wasn't the problem with the plant... the ph on my two gurls who have been going for a couple weeks was right on... Surprisingly... So with the one with the spots forming. I added some more nutes to see if it wasn't getting enough, and if the problem persists I'll flush with Tap water, and give less Nutes......

 

[Mist]

Chlorine in water will evaporate when left out. What he means by RO is reverse osmosis.
I use regular tap water also and have no problems. The chlorine isn't even a real problem with hydro.
And distilled water is water which has been distilled like you would distill liquer. Meaning that only pure water is left and all the contaminants have been removed.

 

[Hydrosun]

Reverse Osmosis (mine comes out at 15 PPM right now)

who knows what 15 left in a million parts of H2O is but who cares. Get away from tap.

Distilled H2O is another method for making PURE water (distilled used in car batteries) years before bottled water was cool.

I use Clearex to flush. Check out this product for root stimulation (it says discontinue at transition to flower)