Hydro DWC, 1 x Pure AK, 0.36m2, 130w LED Citizen COB

Hello, It's my 1'st time hydro, after growing few years in soil and coco, I've decided to try growing in DWC.

Strain: Female Seeds Pure AK

Tent: 0,6m x 0,6m x 1,5m height

Light: Spectrolight starter 130W: it's Citizen 5th gen. LED COB + some switchable Osram SSL red diodes for bloom phase.

DWC system: 19L/5 Gal system (Oxypot brand)

Feeding: GHE Grow, Micro, Bloom + BioRoots, BioBloom, Diamond Nectar, Mineral Magic, Plagron Sugar Royal (half dosage, in second period of flowering)

FP: 18/16

I do not change water in the container, i just add new water with fertilisers and regulate PH.

Thanks to LED, temperatures are low: water has temperature of 21 - 23 C degree, plus Mineral Magic provides silicon which protects roots from rotting, and has fungistatic capabilities.

That's why IMO changing the water is not necessary for me, until plant is feed in the right way.

It's 41 day of plants life and 5th of bloom phase, im generally blown away by the rate the plant is growing.

It was first 12 days in basalt cube outside of the system, beign kept wet, until the root system was start to overgrow the cube in every corner of it. Plant was very small at that time, just developing the third node, so all the growth took place in the last 29-30 days.

I need to provide a lot of magensium thou, not only because of rapid growth, but also my favorite citizen COBs are creating high demand of it.

Looks very healthy man. What are you running your citizen at(driver watt,m.a,volt) if you dont mind me asking? Im using diy builds i made (cree3590s and xml2s, luxeon royal blue, now some far and photo reds) just wondering how you like the citizen, and may i also ask how your for certain yourleds are demanding magnesium? Ive had the most trouble with identifying my nute deficiency switcging to led. For some reason or another they just react differwntly to led rather than the hid ive grown accustom to. My gallery has some recent builds if ya wanna check em. Ill be happy to provide specs or whatev.

Thanks.

I had to buy new bigger tent (now 80x80x180 cm) and move plant to it, because plant has overgrow the previous one :/

I doesn't know specifics of the LED, it draws about 120W, here's producers page where more details can be found, you can also email them:

https://spectrolight.pl/starter-130/

But I can say those are the best LEDs i ever grow under, hands down, I have also 240W ver. for 1m2 tent and it's better than HPS 400W.

I've tryied Mars-Hydro, some other better high bin mono LEDs, then COBs - CXB3590, pretty good, but the Citizens are the best!

First of all: demand for all kinds of fertiliser/food is almost doubled when compared to HPS, need for magnesium is relatively high, but demand for Phosphorus is HUGE.

Second: you need to keep those LEDs high above canopy - especially with 90 deg. lenses, 20 cm or less = leaves burnt (10-15 cm for 120 deg. lenses).

Today is about 50 day, 16 day of flowering.

She looks fantastic man. Im sure you will be very surprised by your yield if everything keeps going swimmingly. Keep us posted man.

Hey Fazor, looking good mate. Ive just started growing in DWC after many moons of soil growing. I built my own 12 pot system using 20 liter buckets and connecting them all to an air pump with their own air stone in each bucket. Im gonna upgrade the system to a recirculating one for ease next time round. After soil growing for over a decade im overwhelmed at the rate and vigour of growth. I have some GSC in soil next to some GSC in the DWC and they've caught up with the plants they we're taken from as cuttings. The leaves are much bigger and the stems are stronger and more vibrant green, I can't wait to see the yields. I think I'll get 4 times as much from the plants grown in DWC, I just hope the taste, aroma and bud quality is there as my soil grown plants.
Ive been raking my brain on how to support the plants in DWC. Normally id just stick a bamboo cane and use string or cable ties, but obviously this isn't as easy with DWC. So I came up with using metal screw hooks screwed into the rim of the bucket lid horizontal and inline with the branches that'll need support. I'll just use string to anchor the branch taking the weight off with the support.
For me DWC is pretty simple and im really gonna master this technique as I cant see any other hydro system competeing with how explosive the growth is, apart from Airoponics but there's too many parts that can fail ruining the crop.
I will be pulling up a chair to see how this turns out, so good luck and let us know any pointers a newbie to DWC might not know.
Good luck
Peace

Thanks Rageous.

Jedi - instead of supporting stems, you can and you shuold use some form of silicate.

Silicate is abundant in soil, but water lack's it, and that's why plans cultivated in DWC has weak stems if no silicate is given.

Plus, silicate:
* stablises PH
* has fungistatic capabilities - which means no root rot, which i heard, often is a problem.

I recommend GHE Mineral Magic or Potsil, it's cheap. There is also AN Rhino Skin, but I haven't used it.

Now, I will post some photos in the next week, but right now... it's insane, the Plant has overgrowed the LED Panel, some buds are over the light. If it continues they will start hitting roof of the Tent...

Maybe i've added too much of silicate, because it also stimulates growth, and plant should stop growing long time ago, that's why this growth is so weird.

fazor said:

Thanks Rageous.

Jedi - instead of supporting stems, you can and you shuold use some form of silicate.

Silicate is abundant in soil, but water lack's it, and that's why plans cultivated in DWC has weak stems if no silicate is given.

Plus, silicate:
* stablises PH
* has fungistatic capabilities - which means no root rot, which i heard, often is a problem.

I recommend GHE Mineral Magic or Potsil, it's cheap. There is also AN Rhino Skin, but I haven't used it.

Now, I will post some photos in the next week, but right now... it's insane, the Plant has overgrowed the LED Panel, some buds are over the light. If it continues they will start hitting roof of the Tent...

Maybe i've added too much of silicate, because it also stimulates growth, and plant should stop growing long time ago, that's why this growth is so weird.

Click to expand...

Hey Fazor, hope everything is growing well.
Ive been reading about silicate an silicone in hydroponics and ive read that its unpredictable in nutrient reservoirs and as its only soluble at neutral PH ( 7 ) so your plants arent gonna be absorbing it when being closer to 6. Ive only used Si when using coco as the plants arent able to assimilate it as it does so in soil. I think the best way to use in hydro is with a sepertae tank for the silicate.
Let me know your take on this as im not saying this is gospel as im just learning about the use of silicates in hydro myself.
Good luck
Peace

I also think vegging under the best light helps to keep the plants strong and able to hold more weight. Using lights with lots of blue around the 460 nanometer mark will stop the plant stretching, growing shorter nodes, thicker stems and bigger leaves. Plants in the wild are always strong due to getting lots of this light as its the blue sky frequency. Plants always want to see the sky, hence why shaded plants stretch or bend towards the light.
Peace

No Jedi, looks like you didn't read what I wrote.

It doesn't matter how much of blue light you use, it may reduce stretch but it will not make THE CELL STRUCTURE stronger.

It requires silicate which you DON'T have in soiless mediums, and you should supplement it. I've just probably added a bit too much of it.

AFAIR - when there is no silicate, pland need to replace it by Ca, and this is one of the reasons of often Ca deficency in Hydro or Coco. In Coco you need even much more Ca because of characteristics of this medium.

Also silicate acts as medium or transporter for other nutrients, adding silicate makes better absorption of it.

Edit: I think adding too much silicate in hydro, where absorption of this nutrient may be much faster than in soil, results in abnormal growth even as for hydro standards.

Few pictures of today (day 60):

This fkn bitch is flowering well despite overgrowing, i think i like DWC.

40 day of flowering, 74 day of life

Hello,

after about 53 days of flowering i've cut it down and end this test run. I didn't weight it, but after about 5 day of drying it looks like 50-60 gr. Not best score but it was my 1st time in DWC, next time i'll try SCROG.