Snype's Guide To RDWC - Part 1 - Featuring Chemdog Double Diesel & 2,000 Watts!

[JamesFarmer]

I do keep a running log of PH,TDS & additions of water, nutes etc. They have been feeding well at a bit below 400ppm. I see 3 day drops of 30-60ppm. PH has been relatively stable except for one incident where it dropped by a full point in 24 hours. That was accompanied by an an unusual uptake in nute solution(about 6 gallons overnight).

I have been targeting 5.8pH.

I have checked calibration on my pH & TDS meters.

I am not clear on your reference to kool bloom. Whatever it is, I am not using it. Perhaps you meant Flora Bloom? I am running GH Flora Bloom and Flora Micro.

I was hoping the pics would give some indication. I hate flying in the dark

 

[Snype]

I do keep a running log of PH,TDS & additions of water, nutes etc. They have been feeding well at a bit below 400ppm. I see 3 day drops of 30-60ppm. PH has been relatively stable except for one incident where it dropped by a full point in 24 hours. That was accompanied by an an unusual uptake in nute solution(about 6 gallons overnight).

I have been targeting 5.8pH.

I have checked calibration on my pH & TDS meters.

I am not clear on your reference to kool bloom. Whatever it is, I am not using it. Perhaps you meant Flora Bloom? I am running GH Flora Bloom and Flora Micro.

I was hoping the pics would give some indication. I hate flying in the dark

If you look in my RDWC guide Part 1, you will see that I also use Kool Bloom. If you didnt use the Kool Bloom then your ratio would change to something close to 1 part Micro to 2 parts Bloom.

The reason why I cant answer your questions accurately is because when you are at 5.8, you are on a thin line. Meters have 0.1 level of error so when you are at 5.8, you could really be at 5.7 which would cause problems. Thats why it would be better for you to be at 6.0 so there is no room for error on making a poor diagnosis. Im scared that as your plants use solution, your pH drops. If thats the case then your pH should be higher. I like how your PPM is going down like you described though. If you are not in flower yet, your formula may be right though.

Your problems could have easily come when your pH dropped a full point.

 

[JamesFarmer]

If you look in my RDWC guide Part 1, you will see that I also use Kool Bloom. If you didnt use the Kool Bloom then your ratio would change to something close to 1 part Micro to 2 parts Bloom.

The reason why I cant answer your questions accurately is because when you are at 5.8, you are on a thin line. Meters have 0.1 level of error so when you are at 5.8, you could really be at 5.7 which would cause problems. Thats why it would be better for you to be at 6.0 so there is no room for error on making a poor diagnosis. Im scared that as your plants use solution, your pH drops. If thats the case then your pH should be higher. I like how your PPM is going down like you described though. If you are not in flower yet, your formula may be right though.

Your problems could have easily come when your pH dropped a full point.

Well that speaks volumes!!

I missed the Kool Bloom component when I read. Or I simply forgot.... Either way I F'd up. I will go back and re-read your guide.

I have 2 pH meters, both Milwaukee, that will read spot on 4.0 & 7.0 with calibration solution but disagree by .1 to .2 when measuring a sample in the 5.7-6.0 range.

Todo:

1 - Read Snype's guide again & pay attention this time
2- Add Kool Bloom
3- Target 6.0 pH instead of 5.8

Thank you for your assistance. I think I am headed back in the right direction.

 

[Snype]

Well that speaks volumes!!

I missed the Kool Bloom component when I read. Or I simply forgot.... Either way I F'd up. I will go back and re-read your guide.

I have 2 pH meters, both Milwaukee, that will read spot on 4.0 & 7.0 with calibration solution but disagree by .1 to .2 when measuring a sample in the 5.7-6.0 range.

Todo:

1 - Read Snype's guide again & pay attention this time
2- Add Kool Bloom
3- Target 6.0 pH instead of 5.8

Thank you for your assistance. I think I am headed back in the right direction.

I wouldnt use the Kool Bloom with a Blueberry strain. I would just add more Bloom instead. Also, I have a RDWC part 2 that im completing. I changed the liquid kool bloom to powder. So i dont use the liquid anymore and only the powder at the rate of 5 grams for every 4 gallons on top of the 1 part micro to 1.5 parts bloom. Not for Blueberry but try it if you want. I would much rater be organic with bluebery but if I couldnt, i would veg with 1 part micro to 1.5 parts bloom and flower with 1 part micro to 2 parts bloom.

 

[JamesFarmer]

Thank you for the clarification. I have been going over the guide trying to figure out application rate for Kool Bloom.

Looks like I may have shot myself in the foot on this one. My girls have looked healthy up to now but flower development is looking much lighter than I am used to with this strain. Likely due to K & P not being ideal.

I have added 2ml/gallon of Flora Bloom to my system and pH'd to 6.0. I doubt I will recover what I lost by overlooking the Kool Bloom or additional Flora Bloom.

Why do you recommend against Kool Bloom for the Blueberry genetics?

 

[Snype]

Thank you for the clarification. I have been going over the guide trying to figure out application rate for Kool Bloom.

Looks like I may have shot myself in the foot on this one. My girls have looked healthy up to now but flower development is looking much lighter than I am used to with this strain. Likely due to K & P not being ideal.

I have added 2ml/gallon of Flora Bloom to my system and pH'd to 6.0. I doubt I will recover what I lost by overlooking the Kool Bloom or additional Flora Bloom.

Why do you recommend against Kool Bloom for the Blueberry genetics?

For some reason Blueberry strains have always been difficult for me. They never really did well with refined nutrients and did real well with organics. Cant really explain why but maybe because some lines were built with organics for many years that its marked this way or maybe I just never figured out a good formula that works. Really dont know but if you use the KB, let us know how it worked for you.

 

[JamesFarmer]

I have been doing ok running Lucas formula with the Blue Widow. Allways looking for way to do it better. That's why I'm here

I have flushed my system switched back to a 1:2 ratio of Micro:Bloom. This should address any K or P deficiencies caused by my oversight on the Kool Bloom from this point forward.

The girls are tall full and healthy looking as far a vegetative growth. Unfortunately the flowers are not developing like they should be. At week six I should have big fat buds. They are a bit thin and underdeveloped. Very likely because I starved them of K & P.

I expect that I will have to chalk this up to a learning experience. Unless..... someone has a suggestion as to how I may be able to bulk up the buds in the last 3-4 weeks of flower??

Thank you again for all of your guidance.

 

[Inspired333]

...The majority of my thoughts have to do with cannabis. The rest of my thoughts have to do with analyzing the human race and comparing them to animals if that makes any sense to anyone.

We have that in common

...You pretty much have it except I top off with water. When my system gets down to a certain PPM/TDS/EC, I add back nutrients. Data has shown that after the water top off has reached twice the system, it must be drained out and refilled with fresh solution.

[FONT=&quot]Hey Snype – brilliant, thorough, awesome thread. Thanks for all the hard work you’ve done here (and in your other sig linked threads) I just got to the end of this one last night.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I see that you add back plain water throughout your grow until you reach double what the system’s total volume is. I get that you observe fairly small changes in your ppms and use that to determine what level they want to be at. (I have a bluelab truncheon so I can only see ppms in increments of 50 or EC as 0.6 or 0.7 kinda – you know). [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]And I’ve looked through your data going from say one day and then two days later etc and I have questions about how you go about it (as far as adding water, ppm and ph needed mostly):[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]For example:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Date: January 2, 2012[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Stage: Day 2 Flower[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Heights:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Top Off: 5 Gallons[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]pH pre: 5.8[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Adeed (pH): 10 mL pH Up[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]pH post: 5.7[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]PPM pre (500 scale): 570[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Added (ppm): 150 mL Micro, 225 mL Bloom[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]PPM post: 810[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Water Temperature: 74[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Air Temperature: 65 - 76F[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]rH: 60[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]CO2: None[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Pump Cycle: 24/7[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Other Information: [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]On the above date/data sample:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-You observe all data first (ph, ppm, etc) at controller?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-How do you know how much water needed? Do you have a line showing I need 5 or 10 gallons, or do you add from a measured bucket and see that “ok I ended up putting in say 5 gallons to get the system topped off?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-What/where do you add nutrient and ph+/- too? That’s got me confused. Do you see you need 5 gals and add 5 gals of plain, meaning un ph’d un ppm’d, water and then let it circulate and re-check values and add a squirt of bloom and a squirt of micro, all while trying to keep them in ratio and trying to hit some target value, and then adding a ml at a time (or whatever) of ph+/- until you reach an acceptable/target ph?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]OR do you take 5 gals of plain water and ppm it to some mathematically calculated level that will bring your systems levels to where you want, and then ph it also to a predetermined level, and add that 5 gals to the system?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The procedure has me confused as heck.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-How’d ya know you need 150ml micro and 225 ml or is that just what you ended up using? Same question with ph+?[/FONT]

[*edit: also the data from Feb/03/2012 is another curious thing I'm probably misinterpreting. You added 8 gallons of just pure plain water and it doesn't affect your ppm or ph pre/post numbers? I don't get it.*]

[FONT=&quot]I tried to not be too wordy there and had to condense, I hope ya see where I’m missing something [/FONT]J

[FONT=&quot]My system:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]one site RDWC is a 5gal bucket controller, and “tough tote” kinda container of about 26gals – the system holds 60liters or about 15 gallons. Containers connected with 2” PVC.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Air pump is 45Lpm, Water pump is Danner Mag Drive 500Gph.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I have good tap water; around 20ppm and 7ph (6.9-7.2 maybe), no fluoride, but chlorine. Truncheon ppm ‘wand’ haha, as mentioned, and bluelab ph pen.[/FONT]

Strain: C4 by Chimera

Oh - also..

[FONT=&quot]When you do a full res change:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-Do you remove all solution (except that bit that remains) and add back plain water to a system with girls in it and then nute the system and ph it as its running? That is what I had been thinking I’d do and did do and I do not think they liked that; enormous swings in..everything really..stressing them, and also having to stand there dropping in a bit of this and waiting, then a bit of that and waiting. OR do you mix 40Gallons system capacity elsewhere and then add all that to the system? Is there a proper way to do the first method? It seems like really stressful. And how would one account for the leftover solution after draining the system on a full res change or is it insignificant in your mind and/or in your system?[/FONT]

Thank you Sypne and Snypette.

 

[Snype]

I have been doing ok running Lucas formula with the Blue Widow. Allways looking for way to do it better. That's why I'm here

I have flushed my system switched back to a 1:2 ratio of Micro:Bloom. This should address any K or P deficiencies caused by my oversight on the Kool Bloom from this point forward.

The girls are tall full and healthy looking as far a vegetative growth. Unfortunately the flowers are not developing like they should be. At week six I should have big fat buds. They are a bit thin and underdeveloped. Very likely because I starved them of K & P.

I expect that I will have to chalk this up to a learning experience. Unless..... someone has a suggestion as to how I may be able to bulk up the buds in the last 3-4 weeks of flower??

Thank you again for all of your guidance.

Not sure. Everything is dependent on strain.

We have that in common



[FONT=&quot]Hey Snype – brilliant, thorough, awesome thread. Thanks for all the hard work you’ve done here (and in your other sig linked threads) I just got to the end of this one last night.[/FONT]
Glad you like the threads!
[FONT=&quot]I see that you add back plain water throughout your grow until you reach double what the system’s total volume is. I get that you observe fairly small changes in your ppms and use that to determine what level they want to be at. (I have a bluelab truncheon so I can only see ppms in increments of 50 or EC as 0.6 or 0.7 kinda – you know). [/FONT]
That grow was a while ago. It's just something for you to look at and study. I don't just add back water, after I add my water, I add my nutrients if I need to.

[FONT=&quot]And I’ve looked through your data going from say one day and then two days later etc and I have questions about how you go about it (as far as adding water, ppm and ph needed mostly):[/FONT]
I have different techniques depending on some things that will be too long to write at the moment but here's the basic idea. You should be able to determine how much PPM your plants want to be at by looking at your past PPM data. When you add water, the PPM will go down so you need to add back what you lost from the previous days of your plants eating.

[FONT=&quot]For example:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Date: January 2, 2012[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Stage: Day 2 Flower[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Heights:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Top Off: 5 Gallons[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]pH pre: 5.8[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Adeed (pH): 10 mL pH Up[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]pH post: 5.7[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]PPM pre (500 scale): 570[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Added (ppm): 150 mL Micro, 225 mL Bloom[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]PPM post: 810[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Water Temperature: 74[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Air Temperature: 65 - 76F[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]rH: 60[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]CO2: None[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Pump Cycle: 24/7[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Other Information: [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]On the above date/data sample:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-You observe all data first (ph, ppm, etc) at controller?[/FONT]
Yes, at the controller is where I take my PPM, pH and top off data.

[FONT=&quot]-How do you know how much water needed? Do you have a line showing I need 5 or 10 gallons, or do you add from a measured bucket and see that “ok I ended up putting in say 5 gallons to get the system topped off?[/FONT]
Before I put plants into the system for the first time, I measured all water that I put into the system and marked lines in the controller so I know what's what. So there is a top line in the controller that tells me where the solution is supposed to be at the highest top off. When I need to top off, I add my water back up to the line. When I add the water back, i use a 5 gallon bucket that I have marked lines in that state, 1 gallon, 2 Gallon, 3 Gallon and 4 Gallon. I always know how much water I add back to the system. The problem with just blindly pouring water in the system without measuring it or just filling it up to the line, you won't know how much you added because of the displacement of the roots. As your roots grow, they will displace the water in the system and the system will hold less solution than before the plants were in there. Fill up a glass of water in your sink. Then try and stick your hand in the glass and you will see the water overflow the glass due to displacement.

[FONT=&quot]-What/where do you add nutrient and ph+/- too? That’s got me confused. Do you see you need 5 gals and add 5 gals of plain, meaning un ph’d un ppm’d, water and then let it circulate and re-check values and add a squirt of bloom and a squirt of micro, all while trying to keep them in ratio and trying to hit some target value, and then adding a ml at a time (or whatever) of ph+/- until you reach an acceptable/target ph?[/FONT]
This is exactly what I do! You will get used to how much nuts will equal 100 PPM in the system or 200 PPM and so on.

[FONT=&quot]OR do you take 5 gals of plain water and ppm it to some mathematically calculated level that will bring your systems levels to where you want, and then ph it also to a predetermined level, and add that 5 gals to the system?[/FONT]
You can do it this way too. I also use this technique sometimes. Many ways to choke a chicken.
[FONT=&quot]The procedure has me confused as heck.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-How’d ya know you need 150ml micro and 225 ml or is that just what you ended up using? Same question with ph+?[/FONT]
I know I need that much because I've done it many times. I know how much nutrients that I need to bring up my solution to where I want it for those specific plants.
[*edit: also the data from Feb/03/2012 is another curious thing I'm probably misinterpreting. You added 8 gallons of just pure plain water and it doesn't affect your ppm or ph pre/post numbers? I don't get it.*]
Very good observation! There is obviously a typo there and I'm glad that you found it. Here's the problem, my original data is in a computer that won't work for the last month. Snypette just bought me a new laptop and I have to wait a few more weeks to get my information out of my other laptop to see what the real numbers are. Thanks for finding that mistake!
[FONT=&quot]I tried to not be too wordy there and had to condense, I hope ya see where I’m missing something [/FONT]J

[FONT=&quot]My system:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]one site RDWC is a 5gal bucket controller, and “tough tote” kinda container of about 26gals – the system holds 60liters or about 15 gallons. Containers connected with 2” PVC.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Air pump is 45Lpm, Water pump is Danner Mag Drive 500Gph.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I have good tap water; around 20ppm and 7ph (6.9-7.2 maybe), no fluoride, but chlorine. Truncheon ppm ‘wand’ haha, as mentioned, and bluelab ph pen.[/FONT]

Strain: C4 by Chimera

Oh - also..

[FONT=&quot]When you do a full res change:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]-Do you remove all solution (except that bit that remains) and add back plain water to a system with girls in it and then nute the system and ph it as its running?
This will depend on water temperatures of your tap water. If it is winter time, my water can be at 40 degrees F so I have to let the water sit in a container overnight to warm up to room temperature. If your tap is right, you drain out the system and if you want to be anal, you can use a shop vac in the controller to get out a little more water but I let the rest of the older water in the other buckets stay there. Then I add in all my water and then I add my nutrients and pH product. The plants are obviously in the system when this is going on so I try to act as fast as possible so I'm not sitting around smoking joints when this is going on.

That is what I had been thinking I’d do and did do and I do not think they liked that; enormous swings in..everything really..stressing them, and also having to stand there dropping in a bit of this and waiting, then a bit of that and waiting. OR do you mix 40Gallons system capacity elsewhere and then add all that to the system? Is there a proper way to do the first method? It seems like really stressful. And how would one account for the leftover solution after draining the system on a full res change or is it insignificant in your mind and/or in your system?[/FONT]
The remaining solution in your rez will make your PPM higher than your actual tap water. All this means is that your formula will be less than the first time you put in the solution for the first time. So if your tap is 20 PPM and you drained your system but there's still the remaining solution in there, your water may read like 100 PPM. So add back what you would need to make your solution 100 PPM less than the first time. By recording your data over and over and over and over, you should know how much you need to add to 100 PPM water to make it what you need. It's real simple.
Thank you Sypne and Snypette.

Replied above in bold. Sorry about the delay, I didn't even see it.

 

[Inspired333]

Wow - thanks for responding to all those questions I asked you Snype. After I posted I thought "damn, that was probably way too much to ask"; so I figured ya might just not want to because you answer a lot of questions etc. So thanks again.

I have been reading more on the Lucas *ratio* lately and I think I'll try something like that. I was reading about the calculated add back method and looking at the math "equation", if you will, for that. Something clicked. I think it makes sense now.
It does however seem strange that you calculate for "8ml of micro" to see how much of that is required and then you simply double it for "bloom", because bloom wasn't accounted for in the actual equation.

But to put the equation in words, as far as my understanding, would be:
"the difference/change in PPM [target - current], divided by the target PPM [/by target PPM], equals "rate of change" [RoC]. The rate of change multiplied by the application rate [AR] (8ml/gallon in this case) gives you the correction rate [CR]. Then that correction rate multiplied by your system's water volume [WV] equals your total correction dosage [CD].
I hope I got that right; it may be more complicated for those who just wanna "follow the formula and be done with it" but I had to understand.

I tried it, though with GH maxigrow. And though I had to adjust cause the dosage there for 1000ppm is 7g/gal; I do 600ppm which is about 5ml/gal (or per 4L usually) - 5ml is roughly a tsp. So I did that and didn't even tough the tap water's ph. It went from the 300 to 550 , and I had some addback water left because I over estimated the addback amount needed. My target was 600 - that's pretty awesome. Ph was where it needed to be too.
Very cool.

Have you, or has anyone, had issues on a res change where you add in a bunch of fresh plain, 7ph water to your system and then add stuff to it while running? Any perceived shock from going from that 7ph and 0ppm to say 8+ph with silicate/other and 100-200ppm, then back down to around target of 5.2-5.8 ph again?

Thanks.
Peace.

 

[smerkey]

Hi mate I've been following ur grow and your a wizard. My name is smerkey and I have done a few indoor and outdoor grows. Now I'm going to try dwc using the full canna aqua range the strain thinkdif from dp. My set up is 300 wat duel spec led. I also have 125 wat cfl 4 germnateing. To put along side led 600 duel spec or 400 mh or 250 hps. My growroom is 2sqm 7 ft high in loft a frame. So its trangel shaped l will be topin to keep height dwn. I have a 6 inch extraction with control with another 1 for bkup also 4 inch for intake plus oilfilled electric radiator and dehumidafir. My system has a 90 liter rez onto sits 2 subsurface trays with aquafarm I also have a 20 liter les oxypot. The problem I've gt is I need a feeding schedule for canna aqua Cud you point me in the right direction cus I'm stumped. I wud put up a thread but dnt no how to do one

 

[Snype]

Hi mate I've been following ur grow and your a wizard. My name is smerkey and I have done a few indoor and outdoor grows. Now I'm going to try dwc using the full canna aqua range the strain thinkdif from dp. My set up is 300 wat duel spec led. I also have 125 wat cfl 4 germnateing. To put along side led 600 duel spec or 400 mh or 250 hps. My growroom is 2sqm 7 ft high in loft a frame. So its trangel shaped l will be topin to keep height dwn. I have a 6 inch extraction with control with another 1 for bkup also 4 inch for intake plus oilfilled electric radiator and dehumidafir. My system has a 90 liter rez onto sits 2 subsurface trays with aquafarm I also have a 20 liter les oxypot. The problem I've gt is I need a feeding schedule for canna aqua Cud you point me in the right direction cus I'm stumped. I wud put up a thread but dnt no how to do one

Check out Lucas's old thread:
Calculating Nutrient profiles for Canna, GH and PBP
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=21119

 

[audiohi]

Great thread, really nice buds!

 

[dupester]

Hey, I may have missed it in the thread, but what is your way of connecting the tomato cages to the bucket lids?

 

[Snype]

Hey, I may have missed it in the thread, but what is your way of connecting the tomato cages to the bucket lids?

The bottom of the cages are very long because they usually go into the ground. I cut off almost all the way up to the first ring. I leave about 3" below the ring. There are 3 legs that go vertical but are slopped kind of like a triangle. I slightly bend them with my hands to make them go straight. With the net pot in the bucket, I place my cage onto the pot and mark 3 dots where the metal meets the pot. Then I drill a hole the same size as the 3 pieces of metal from the cage and push the cage through the holes. The first metal ring sits right on the net pot. It doesn't flop over at all.

 

[alilderanged]

mr snype is your research on the flood table on here somewhere very interested in that. did you run the 6/9 in that also or is the formula different. thanks lee

 

[Snype]

mr snype is your research on the flood table on here somewhere very interested in that. did you run the 6/9 in that also or is the formula different. thanks lee

I'm assuming that you are talking about the 2x4' VEG-A flood table. I add 4mL Micro and 6 mL Bloom per gallon and when I get to VEG-B in the RDWC systems, I go up to 6mL Micro and 9mL Bloom.

 

[alilderanged]

yea thanks alot

 

[alilderanged]

i tell ya mr snype its pretty cool to be able to ask you a question and get a straight up answer instead of some bullshit maybes. i ve posted questions in other forums and just get some stupid ass answers or some yahoo talking out his ass that knows less than me. so once again you are the "muhammad ali of marijuana" lol and all this help is greatly appreciated

 

[vince514]

very awesome thread snype...k++