dwc with tap water, new city. full of new problems.

captainrelief · Apr 25, 2019

Hello Icmag community, i salute you from the far north of our globe with i have been running my homemade dwc system in the past like duration of 6years with in my opinion good success. but recently moved to another city and started the hobby again and for the 6months and counting im basicly still stuck in the early early grow stage, after 3 different seedlings...

im pretty sure there is something different in the tap water in the new town which is fucking up all my past knowledge how to run things.

70liter tank last like a week or two before gets all dregged and slimy. rendering the roots useless and dysfunctional. which form poorly after coming out of the netpot and contacting the water anyway. in the past the root growth has been much more firm right from the start.

during the good years a tank didnt require a forced total reset, only fill up corretly as consumed.

for the last 6months i have used the same AHH nut set as before, after the last reset i changed them and waiting for the results. more to follow on that one.

tap water here is run through slimestone deposite according to the water department, tho in EC meter the numbers are not alarming, like 0.14-0.15 on the past versus 0.17-0.19 atm.

im no chemist, i dont have a clue what might be the reason for the water + nuts + air acting up so differently on the res, and on this i would like to have some much needed feedback..

also can be stated that all the regular basic enveriomental aspects should be in order. light,temps,ec,ph,humidity etc etc

captainrelief · Apr 25, 2019

pic 1 showing what i used to be after 4weeks of verg.

pic2 third hopeless seedling at the begining when roots came off from the pot.

pic3 21days after and after removing 30% of useless sic foliage.

following the same unfortunately patter and the 2 successor tryouts.

captainrelief · Apr 25, 2019

*You may not edit your posts* sorry for the typos.

Douglas.Curtis · Apr 25, 2019

Tap water is nearly infinitely variable and almost always contains elements cannabis will/can not use. I've used r/o filtered water with DWC for over 15 years and would not recommend tap water to anyone. You water should be <14ppm after filtration. With a ppm this low, you'll only have to 'learn hydro' once.

You'll be able to go just about anywhere on the planet, and get the same results with the r/o filtered, <14ppm water there.

captainrelief · Apr 25, 2019

thanks for the quick reply, R/o indeed is the logical answer i guess. if i wouldnt be hopefull to get a workaround without it i wouldnt be banging my head to wall still after 6months.

after all i do live in the country of thousend lakes and purest water possible but as it stand managed to get the pipelines of 0.01% folks here get. this shouldnt be an issue but what do i know

R/O systems ingeneral are a empty page in my knowledge book. never had to take a look on it. still kinda hope i wont. stubborn bastard as i am.

captainrelief · Apr 25, 2019

also feedback on issue of ultrasonic humidifiers would be welcome , if i run those things on the same tap water using in the res, is it in general possible that airborn bad chemicals coming from the tapwater can be making dramatic changes on operation of the leafs. tent is small and i have two of them suckers running, raising humidity from around 20 to 60 while in use. somewhat constantly plasting the leafs by the effect of in tent fans.

havent dared the drop them out of the formula yet, by gut feeling 15/20 room humidity isnt acceptable

Hydro8 · Apr 25, 2019

If you are using city tap water it should be chlorinated and come out of the tap free of micro contaminates.

You could add a small amount of household bleach to the water, put and air stone in it for 12hrs(to evaporate it) and see if you still get funky water. Or buy 5-10 gallons of clean water leave it out without a lid, see if it gets funk in your grow space.

Their is a decent chance that you could have funk/micro contaminates in your grow space that are contaminating the water after it is out of the tap. Moldy drains, moldy walls are all about the same temp as dwc water. Having remodeled homes and tearing out wall I have seen some nasty funk hidden in homes.. the older they are the more nasty stuff is hiding in the walls.

Douglas.Curtis · Apr 25, 2019

Some cities are also using chloramine now, which does not bubble or evaporate out. Funky environment can indeed mess up clean water after the fact, good point.

While you do research on r/o machines (they're rather simple to buy/install or DIY), you may be able to find r/o vending machines around town. I used to fill 5gallon jugs before I picked up my own filter unit.

1. Cannabis is a plant which is great at phytoremediation. Read up on it and you'll see what I mean. The less in your water your plants will not use, the higher your end quality can reach.

2. R/O hydro growers can readily exchange useful information. Tap water users cannot. What I do with r/o in my hydro setup will work almost 100% the same in your setup almost anywhere on the planet.

R/o is super easy to manage. Tap a water line with an ice-maker kit for a fridge, run it to your r/o unit (use a booster pump or valve to control pressure at 60-80psi). Use a 1:1 restrictor, so you get 1 gallon of wash/garden/lawn water for each gallon of r/o water. Plumb the line to a float valve in a dark tank. Use a submersible mag-drive pump and hose to pump it where you need it.

I use a 50gal drum and a $10 mag drive pump, works a treat.

captainrelief · Apr 26, 2019

Hydro8 said:
If you are using city tap water it should be chlorinated and come out of the tap free of micro contaminates.

You could add a small amount of household bleach to the water, put and air stone in it for 12hrs(to evaporate it) and see if you still get funky water. Or buy 5-10 gallons of clean water leave it out without a lid, see if it gets funk in your grow space.

Their is a decent chance that you could have funk/micro contaminates in your grow space that are contaminating the water after it is out of the tap. Moldy drains, moldy walls are all about the same temp as dwc water. Having remodeled homes and tearing out wall I have seen some nasty funk hidden in homes.. the older they are the more nasty stuff is hiding in the walls.

well i made a patch to balcony plants from some free sample hydro a b nut set (not full range ahh) and its been sitting outside the tent for 1½weeks now, water seems to be clear and ok still even it gets light from the tent. tho you can easily see the white sediment on the parts of the bucket that have dried out after beeing in contact with the water by air stone generated water movement. same shit is clearly visible when the water dries to kitchen metallic worklid i would quess its coming from the limestone deposite, which in my knowledge is mostly cal and mag. what else is there who knows.

also when water have gone bad and had black/reddish funny particles generated to the insides of the ress/airstones roots there isnt really a noticable smell generated by it. which i find kinda funny would assume there is. that had happend with ahh nut set.

have to look on those ro machines and see how the new nutes (growth technology ionic grow + superdrive liquid oxy) manifest them selfs in the latest drive on in upcoming week or two. tho im not really counting on miracle recovery.

thanks for the ideas and opinions.

captainrelief · Apr 26, 2019

removed second wing and bulb from the tent to tune down the electric consumption and noticed the wings were covered with white chalk like dust

goddamn humidifiers. removed both em too. dry days ahead. but what a hell, its allabout managing to get even some normal growth out them, optimal results are long gone anyways. summer is coming also so fast the cold nights are lost too. without ac 2x 600w is a no go anyway. 1x 250w mh is way to go atm.

on a side not the ress seems normal after 4days and the liquid oxygen did what it was supposed to, removed the black reddish shit from the roots. what else it bleeches, i guess everything? never had to use that stuff either in the past.

Douglas.Curtis · Apr 26, 2019

Yep, another reason I love r/o is the lack of residue. Use r/o in your humidifiers and they'll stay clean. R/o keeps your bong free of crusties as well.

Careful with the h202, it's great stuff but will definitely damage roots if too strong.

You're running your lights at night, yes?

captainrelief · Apr 26, 2019

ye i tend to, any way i can with 18/6 rhythm.

i bought to oxy for root blenching only, not planning to use it like the chart suggest, ideal to add daily

if not possible 2 or 3 times a week with boosted dose.

suggestion seems odd to me.

also by quick look on the local osmos dealers, setup costing 200-300e which seem to have good output values to my needs all state in the specs that after they do all the cleaning they put the minerals back in... in mycase the cal mag from the limestone deposite?

Douglas.Curtis · Apr 26, 2019

Personally not interested in having minerals put back in before using it. My philosophy is to build your nutrient or amendment profile to work with clean water. I want to know everything I'm making available to the plant is useful in creating awesome quality flowers. Anything 'variable' causes different reactions.

Here's a thread I suggest, for more info on hydro and why I recommend r/o.

captainrelief · Apr 26, 2019

ok thanks, will check it out. and ye it sounded odd that they add back the minerals rendering the work useless the machine had just done. but i guess they have pure drinking water on mind, not purest of pure water in general which we want in this scenario. indeed to get rid of all extra variables and tackle the problem better.

and by no means i dont mean to lay shit on oxy usage, like i said i havent had the need to use it before. and there for i dont know much of its practices. if someone would ask i would give shy answer that it bleeches off everything, the good and the bad fellas. some sort of of hard reset there also in some sense.

have to take a good read on it too.

lots new stuff suddenly on my ass but what can you do... atleast i yet again have a hobby! shame its all head scratching fucked up experiments

LostTribe · Apr 27, 2019

What is your rez temp? Hot temps are a breeding ground for nasty things that will F up your plants in no time.

h202 would help but you'd want to explore alternatives. I only use dwc for mom's and a quick veg before going into hydroton ebb flo buckets.

captainrelief · Apr 27, 2019

rez temps should be in order, 18-20c. have used it even with higher temps in summertimes in the past. with good air input roots have florished in great numbers and stayed pure white the whole cycle. eventually 3 plants would fill the whole rez to pretty high percentage its 90l trey if filled to absolute max. run at 70l water on avg.

what is changed to those gold memories and practices on which i rely on so deeply is the the air bump and stones, in the past i had tennis ball size round stones which would generate semi small bubbles generating fast rising air column to water. 3 or 6 of those per rezz depending if running one or two units. both have seemed to work fine with 40l/min pump (6 outs)

now its 40l/min pump with 8 outs, 6 which go to this 90liter rez and this time i have 6 9cm diameter air disk like stones which generate much much more microbubbles. the whole rez is full of bubbles size variating from both ends of a pin. 2 other outs go buckets with of other uses.

should be the most efficient air supply i have had so far, dunno then can it be some way an overkill? work agaisnt me. water movement is pretty gentle, not like it creates a storm under the lid

and then there is the new tap water, which leaves the residue behind unlike ever before, which waterdepartment says is the highquality household water, no additionals needed, only ran through limestone depo to raise ph. its numbers are clearly on the "soft" side and there shouldnt be anything special.

1 note more, when the roots begin to come of the netpot, they seems to be lacking those vertical sidehairs, its more like they were reaching out with strings only, clearly visible big hair growth was missing...kinda worrying...which gives me one more reason to blame the water, or the patch of AHH nutes i had. or combination of them.

one info article i read on h202 stated the effect in rezz last about 4days...i guess i dumb in a new patch even everything seems to be ok after last reset and nut set change.

captainrelief · Apr 27, 2019

Douglas writes in his "tending your reservoir....." info topic ...

"environmental factors such as too much aeration of the solution can also raise the pH."

here its been somewhat constant, suprisingly stable all the time, in every scenario. once again pointing out different properties of the tap water now versus back in the days. swings have been more common.

tho here plants have been so small that significant drinking and burning of the nutes havent occured i guess.

captainrelief · Apr 27, 2019

i guess ill get a new seedling and build a new semisized test setup using spring water/distilled from shop to see what happens.

should teach me something, easier and cheaper to do compared to jumping to R/o club rightaway

f-e · Apr 27, 2019

Perhaps get yourself 5L of distilled or RO water and make up a bucket. Let it sit around for a week, and see if your biological contaminate gets in it. Make up a second bucket with tap water as a control, and also to see how that does. Then you will have a better idea where the biological matter is coming from. Maybe it's from the tap, maybe you live by a green lake. Knowing where the issue is coming from is a great start towards fixing it.

I have seen people burn roots with high feed levels, which leads to unwanted green stuff living on the dead tissue, which in turn leads to the system getting slimy.

Hydrogen peroxide might be useless. It needs a big dose to kill things, which would likely kill your plants. I know it kills some things, but I don't think it's green stuff big enough for us to see. I have never seen it kill anything.

Perhaps a bio answer can be found. I have watered in green surface layers on coco and soil many times. The bio system seems to just eat it up. Your nasty perhaps loves this new aerated breeding ground with little to no competitors.

Do the buckets. I doubt it's coming in from the tap, but that needs proving. Then you can think about a system that doesn't recirculate. DWC sounds like the ideal system for growing algae like substances.

captainrelief · May 16, 2019

i ended up doing the trick Douglas.. values from tap.. ec ph 0.18 7.9 are now after running the unit for 2hours at ec ph 0.01 7.0.

will be interesting to see how it goes with your way of using natural swing and not needing ph -+. gotta get my hands on those ghe bottles also. its easy for me to believe this less is more theory. as i tend to do it earlier anyway noticing pretty sick transperation levels already in the past.

and most importantly a new subject for my practices.

lets see how fast i can manage to get hold of it and tune it in. hopefully atleast i get to see normal root development this time from the start and be free of retarded slow sic growth.

if this works. everytime a friends ask what i have that we are enjoying ill just tell em its curtis lucas. no matter what i was growing. lets see if the myth can catch up with you in the other side of the globe

dwc with tap water, new city. full of new problems.

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