Large hydro investment leaving me clueless!?

[Midmichkush]

Ok well this is my first post on this site if not the web altogether regarding cannabis however i have been a medical grower for 5 years now and have seen it all from mysterious viruses hiding in the cuts of cali clones i have gone across the country to get to every other problem on the list and have solved them all. I have built some of the most sophisticated rooms you can imagine. Hence never much need to ask for advice. I really am only looking for advice from long time hydroponic veterins as i know this sites reputation as holding some of the best please. Let me begin by explaining the history.

I have a strain that i have grown for years now that is purple and a large yielder. It is the only strain i am trying to grow currently. It has done very well for in promix with drain to waste watering calmag floranova some bloom booster ppms 1700ish+

I have now converted my grow room to an ebb and flow and two other rooms into dwc after seeing the exceptional growth i was getting from a previous dwc experiment in a tupperware with a different strain months prior.

I am having a terrible time getting this strain to function the same in hydro as it has in promix. I have gone through an entire dwc run with the strain now and it spent all of flowering stretching and making small fluffy buds and now in my larger dwc and ebb and flow im watching this usually bushy dense growing bud plant do the same thing!


In my following posts now i will describe the 3 systems in detail with pics please hold.. I am attaching pics of what the strain in question has done for me only a few months ago in promix.

 

[Midmichkush]

first set up a closet dwc i set up as my little hydro experiment. Linked dwc with a res see pictures. I am able to control water temp quite nicely with a radiator type system i designed into it that runs cold water/automotive coolant through the coils that sits in a res outside under my deck. controlled by an evc-1. sprayed the copper pipes that make the radiator in the nutrient solution with polyurethane to prevent copper corroding for fear of copper toxidity in the res. It appears the polyurethane has been breaking down itself in the nutrient solution slowly I have removed this part of the system now i have tried the grow with and without this radiator in place no difference in abnormal flowering. flower development is retarded serverly and stretching on a nomrally bushy indicia strain continues through out all of flowering. Initially i thought after the first run of small whispies i produced from this set up that the large root mattes that filled the buckets prevented the water from circulating. I then placed false floors in the buckets with mesh to keep a seperate circulating area of nutrients seperate from the root zone. PPM and ph equilibrate within minutes of adding to the res telling me ozmosis and that system functions properly aswell. The system holds 35 gallons roughly and am using a 35 watt air pump. Air temp is also in check for day and night. Pictures i uploaded are from the last failure with this strain in here but the ones i have in here now are flowering in there 4th week now and looking equally as dissapointing as these ones did. using flora 3 part nutrients and P-K addative have tried low ppms - high ppms different ph and have not gotten any results.

 

[Midmichkush]

The issue in the flower development im having in hydro is the caylx never develops i got no false seed pods and it fails to stack up throughout the weeks.


The second room i have converted into a custom ebb and flow first time attempting the jilly in the rocks but i am 10 days into flower with them and they are exhibiting the same unusual stretching and slow flower onset for this same strain grown in the same room in the exact same conditions in pro mix. While this appears to be working better then the other dwc i have at this system in the small room in this grow op i have set up as another dwc it still isnt growing nearly close to correctly. In each instance of ebb and flow or dwc i am able to get amazing vegative growth however alot of good it is if i cant produce dense flowers. with this set up I can flood and drain 18 5 gallon pots full of hydroton in 3 minutes flat. I have experimented with the ppms and flood cycles everywhere from every 40 minutes (thinking the more flushing the better for oxygen replenishment) to 4 times a day. They can handle higher ppms with more frequent floodings i have noticed but they look perky as hell with 40 minute flushes or 4 a day flushes when the ppms are in the correct ratio. I can precisely control humidity and day and night temps in this room and co2 levels and it is all in check, daytime leaf temp averaging 77* co2 at 1500ppm humidity 60rh, night temp at 74* 210 gallon res at full capacity

 

[Midmichkush]

In the smaller room next to the ebb and flow original built as a veg room is being flowered simulatniously with a make shift dwc and a top off system modified from my old automatic water the promix pots with nutes while im outta town set up. These plants have great root systems below the buckets and vegged wonderfully, they stretched more then the ebb and flow. So far now being 10 days into flower the bud development looks behind in this set up and stretching is far worse similar to the stretching in the closet dwc two posts up. I should also mention the flower fails to turn purple completly in the dwc closet run along with the underdeveloped calyx. anywho I am leaving the door open between the two rooms in this set up so co2, temp, and humidity are relatively close. I have plenty of air circulation in these rooms. While so far this ebb and flow is looking the best for my hydro attempts with this strain so far, the best is still far from what i am attempting to get this plant to do, which is grow even bigger and better buds using the advantage of superior growth in a hydro system along with the ability to not have to stop by to water every two days hell maybe take a vacation with the use of this hydro system if i ever get it dailed in properly.

Only have one pic of the dwc in the smaller room while it was vegging but i assure you they look stretchy like the other ones now that flowering, thats regardless of trying 800ppm-1600ppm also attached pics of the set after initially built before i realized white pots are a huge mistake, the pots are now all black on black, thats what i get for trying to save a couple dollars. Like i said best vegging i have ever done now if only people smoked the leaves id be set but thats not the case. As one can see i have alot of time and money into this conversion

Things please dont reply:

If that strain works so well in promix go back to promix.

Try another strain that works better in hydro.

This strain has gotten close to 2lbs per light in promix i know once dialed in i can exceed that. Looks like the stretching is AS bad in the ebb and flow making me think this strain is exceptionally oxygen hungry in flower? I am experimenting doing minimum amounts of flooding right now and lowering the dwc water levels to halfway but still no break through. Any veterins oppinions on what else to experiment with would be greatly appriciated at this point.

 

[highonmt]

In the smaller room next to the ebb and flow original built as a veg room is being flowered simulatniously with a make shift dwc and a top off system modified from my old automatic water the promix pots with nutes while im outta town set up. These plants have great root systems below the buckets and vegged wonderfully, they stretched more then the ebb and flow. So far now being 10 days into flower the bud development looks behind in this set up and stretching is far worse similar to the stretching in the closet dwc two posts up. I should also mention the flower fails to turn purple completly in the dwc closet run along with the underdeveloped calyx. anywho I am leaving the door open between the two rooms in this set up so co2, temp, and humidity are relatively close. I have plenty of air circulation in these rooms. While so far this ebb and flow is looking the best for my hydro attempts with this strain so far, the best is still far from what i am attempting to get this plant to do, which is grow even bigger and better buds using the advantage of superior growth in a hydro system along with the ability to not have to stop by to water every two days hell maybe take a vacation with the use of this hydro system if i ever get it dailed in properly.

Only have one pic of the dwc in the smaller room while it was vegging but i assure you they look stretchy like the other ones now that flowering, thats regardless of trying 800ppm-1600ppm also attached pics of the set after initially built before i realized white pots are a huge mistake, the pots are now all black on black, thats what i get for trying to save a couple dollars. Like i said best vegging i have ever done now if only people smoked the leaves id be set but thats not the case. As one can see i have alot of time and money into this conversion

Things please dont reply:

If that strain works so well in promix go back to promix.

Try another strain that works better in hydro.

This strain has gotten close to 2lbs per light in promix i know once dialed in i can exceed that. Looks like the stretching is AS bad in the ebb and flow making me think this strain is exceptionally oxygen hungry in flower? I am experimenting doing minimum amounts of flooding right now and lowering the dwc water levels to halfway but still no break through. Any veterins oppinions on what else to experiment with would be greatly appriciated at this point.

Use the flora nova, and floralisious plus as an additive. The GH 3 part is a serial dissapointer for new hydro grows. I still have some bottles I tried in a coco/hydroton drip. IT SUCKED. Flora nova is a great nutrient system for DWC and is a great way to grow in hydro period. I used to grow in DTW soiless and the biggest mistake I made when switching was using the 3 part gh mix. With NOVA and FL I harvested 900g my first try with bubba kush lol. You can switch right now. Just flush the media and switch. start off about 1.0ec and bring it up a little bit at a time let your ph drift from 5.3-5.8 and watch your plants usually the optimum is 1.300-1.500ec. Good luck my friend Remember to relax and make changes slowly in hydro.

 

[Midmichkush]

thanks for the input but i have to rule out the 3 part as the culprit for two reasons. I have grown a full room of this strain in that same room in promix substituting the nova only and did just as well. Also let me show you what got my ass hooked on the idea of hydro about 10 months ago in that same little closet set up i had a 5 dollar 8 gallon tupperware and some dixie cups with trainwreck clones i was playing with and decided to try flowering them for the hell of it i didnt have a use for them. well i had to change the water daily in flower but it was an interesting first time hydro i did 500 ppm with the flora 3 part and got 1lb 10oz of great stuff out of that same closet! Instantly i was off to build that sophisticated rdwc after that and put my flagship purple plant in it and got a fluffy 6 oz with that nice set up. Im starting to think the sucsess of the tupperware was due to the shallow roots being able to be out of the water partially throughout the large surface area of the spread out bin.

 

[Midmichkush]

subsituting the nova only with the 3 part***

 

[highonmt]

Couple more tips...in hydro you have to allow your ph to drift from @5.2-5.8 to allow the plants to utilize the nutrients. It is a common mistake to keep your ph rock solid at say 5.8 which will slow nutrient uptake. As your promix dries the ph swings as the nutes concentrate. Also a bubbler is often not enough to oxygenate your rez effectively try adding a water fall of some sort. I run my feed pumps to a tee. One end of the tee has a valve and the other runs to the plants. The end with the valve runs to the top of the rez and breaks surface tension by spraying on the surface. Use the valve to regulate flow to your plants. I have used bait aerators (thanks DHF)in large reservoirs and they work really well. Keep alive makes good ones. Floraliscious is really a good companion to the Nova use it. Also grab a PK booster of some sort and use sparingly in flower. I treat em at day 25, 45 and just before flush. Interesting your observation about the roots being out of the water. I have switched to nft and it is by far the best yeilding and simplest set up I've run.

 

[cravin morehead]

fwiw- a long time ago, i used gh 3 part in a dwc tote. some strains i grew worked just fine. then i threw in some blueberry x ak47 cuts. through veg it all seemed good. lots of branching, good color, strong stems, etc... when in flower, the buds got loose and airy. the temps at the canopy were in 73*f-80*f range. so not so bad. i couldn't figure it out either. a few runs later i switched to lucas formula. it worked good for other varieties. then i tried the bbxak47 again. this time it grew with nice tight buds. i feel the 3 part had too much N in it for flowering this variety. it has been my experience that strians containing blueberry were sensitive to N in flower. i also noted that warmer res temps got me loose buds on a number of varieties. i've had good success with nova and liscious in dwc with blue varieties too.
just my experiences, hope you get something useful out of it,

cm

 

[Midmichkush]

hmmm interesting at this stage in flowering i have switched to the lucas formula now and i have always implimented floro plus into my grows. Like i said originally on my ebb and flow system i was flooding every 40 minutes with the lights on and 4 hours with the lights off. With a total flood and drain time of 3 minutes i figured hey my collective flood time is still under what most have with a slow 20-30 min flood and drain system. Well im starting to think some strains are MUCH more sensative to the roots having the chance to breathe oxygen and not oxygenated water. Perhaps night time allowing the roots to dry and breathe is a criticial for this strain. Either way i changed the flood to 4 times in the day and none at the night and they are now start to showaccelerated flower development now in comparison to its DWC counter part in the next room. at day 12 now. Im considering spreading the water time out even more to allow even more drying out time. Which is extremely dissapointing saying i spent alot of time running 1-1/4" pvc dual sump pumps etc to be able to flood super fast with the idea of frequency of flooding being a super advantage. Im not considering for the next run removing the 5 gallon inner pots of hydroton and replace them with 6" net lids for dwc. Set up the system to flood and drain every 40 minutes again and it will essentially be a flood and drain with no medium constantly washing the roots off and an NFT of a sort, there is always a couple inches left in the bottom of the bucket between flushing, I would run this without airstones in the buckets to avoid flushing out the humidity from the buckets between floodings.

 

[cravin morehead]

i hear you. my only experience with F&D type hydro was when i used afnan valves(bell siphons) to drain. so my pumps ran 24/7, actively suctioning water out after achieving a pre-set depth. worked great with a gravel medium. i would probably try to flood less often with lights on to see if they will dry out between floodings. sorry, im not more help, my F&D set-ups were different, now i run RDWC, bio-buckets
hope you get some help here, and get it figured out,

cm

 

[Midmichkush]

cravin what level do you run the water in your rdwc? Do you lower the water level during flower? what percent of that root ball is exposed to the surface during flower would you guesstimate?

 

[ZinksInk]

Hey Midmichkush, Try lowering the PPM. 1700 PPM is a bit high for Hydro. I run a greentrees Ebb n' Flow system and i've had some of my best results by keeping the PPMs lower than i would for coco. Multiple feedings though out the day can help compensate for this.

I feed 3-4 times a day and once in the middle of the night.

Keep an eye on the PH, it can drift quick. Id also monitor water temps.
Most of the time i have problems its due to ph being out of wack for a day or two.. if i step out.

Some people recommend using a lower water level during flowering feeds but I keep it constant.

 

[Midmichkush]

with each pot having 5 gallons of media in it and the water lingering in the bottom of each pot after the drain i calculated the total water available to each plant held in the bottom and substrate is about a gallon between each watering. with that in mind it sounds pretty similar to watering each promix 5 gallon pot once a day in flower. So I am experimenting with once a day flooding now i just set it to get its first and only flooding at 5:45pm 15 minutes before the lights come on, tomorrow 6pm will mark the rooms first day of single watering, I can tell you i just looked in there at 5am right an hour before lights go out, its only watering was 11 prior to that and they were looking extremely perky. Hopefully this will stop the stretching and shove them into flowering hard

 

[Midmichkush]

the ppms have been creeping up each day and i have been consistently lowering since i have been doing the decreased waterings, i was at 1500ppm as of its last watering yesterday 6pm come sat 6pm itll be flushing from a 1300ppm res. When i was flooding them every 40 minutes they were handling 1800ppms and the ppms dropping each day, when i switched too every 4 hours the ppms rose each day at 1500ppm. same res all other conditions the same virtually, trying to wrap my head around the reasoning. ph remains pretty constant no matter what

 

[highonmt]

the ppms have been creeping up each day and i have been consistently lowering since i have been doing the decreased waterings, i was at 1500ppm as of its last watering yesterday 6pm come sat 6pm itll be flushing from a 1300ppm res. When i was flooding them every 40 minutes they were handling 1800ppms and the ppms dropping each day, when i switched too every 4 hours the ppms rose each day at 1500ppm. same res all other conditions the same virtually, trying to wrap my head around the reasoning. ph remains pretty constant no matter what

It is called a buffer system. Resists ph changes

 

[cravin morehead]

hey mid- my bio set-up is a little different. my net pots are filled with lava rocks and screwed to the underside of the lid. the water level is up to 1" from the top of the netpot. so my medium is submerged all the way except for the top 1". i keep water levels the same for the entire grow. i agree with the suggestion of maybe lowering your nute strength alittle.
good luck, i'll keep up with this and hope you get it figured out,

cm

 

[Hydro-Soil]

1. I've yet to find a strain that liked over 750ppm with Lucas in DWC. Found plenty that would 'eat' more... but never optimally. You've most likely run more strains than I have.

2. Highonmt is spot on about the pH swing being important when using Lucas. somewhere around 5.2-6.1, as you already know, the optimal range varies with each strain and setup. You're running flood and drain so your pH is going to be higher... somewhere between 5.5... rising to 5.8 or so. The pH swing happens as the medium dries out... in this case it will be a drop in pH but you'll still need a small swing in the res, should take about 4-7 days to happen.

3. The wispy, non-building buds definitely speak of too much N.

You'll get it.

Stay Safe!

 

[DHF]

thanks for the input but i have to rule out the 3 part as the culprit for two reasons. I have grown a full room of this strain in that same room in promix substituting the nova only and did just as well. Also let me show you what got my ass hooked on the idea of hydro about 10 months ago in that same little closet set up i had a 5 dollar 8 gallon tupperware and some dixie cups with trainwreck clones i was playing with and decided to try flowering them for the hell of it i didnt have a use for them. well i had to change the water daily in flower but it was an interesting first time hydro i did 500 ppm with the flora 3 part and got 1lb 10oz of great stuff out of that same closet! Instantly i was off to build that sophisticated rdwc after that and put my flagship purple plant in it and got a fluffy 6 oz with that nice set up. Im starting to think the sucsess of the tupperware was due to the shallow roots being able to be out of the water partially throughout the large surface area of the spread out bin.

Lotta good info here Bro , and it`s pretty simple bout what`s happenin as has already been stated above.......

Your ppm`s are outta control ......even if the plants are handlin the juice , they`re not metabolizing it/transpiring properly at accelerated rates high enough to get rid of the excess ppm`s....and what happens ?.....

They store the residual till the next lights on sequence where it begins all over again , and toxicity with ph lockouts and imbalances will ensue at some point in the game guaranteed.......and.......

By your own admission bout the lil tupperware thingy yieldin like a bitch and thinkin it could`ve possibly been shorter roots and smaller airgap , in actuality it was from runnin lower ppm`s across the board.......

Here`s the thing in a nutshell with fast hydro........As the plants eat their nutes , ppm`s drop and ph rises gradually.....and that`s what was stated above about "ph swing" bein a good thing cuz macro`s and micro`s are best assimilated and used for optimal plant benefit at differing ph levels from 5.2- 6.1......

5.8-9 ish is the sweet spot before needing topped off/added back or swappin/cleanin out rez and startin again , but my big tanks usedta get up to 6.1-2 before swapouts without issues on a weekly basis....

Bottom line....less is more......Guaranteed you`ll see nug density and yields improve if yas dial shit down to never over 750 ppm`s/1.5 ec on a .5 conversion.....anyways....

Good luck and holler if I can help......

Peace....DHF..........

 

[BBKush]

hey midmich....if I were you I would not have changed from promix with the results you were getting. But in my experience here is what I can see going on.

1) in promix you might have more beneficial bacteria located in the root zone, thus making more of your nutrients available to your plant.

2) everyone else that said let your Ph float up from 5.2-5.8 is absolutely correct, I use the same 3 part you use (liquid and dry koolbloom as additives) and get solid results in a custom ebb and flow system.

3) 1700 ppm is way to high in my opinion, I slowly raise my ppm to a max of 1300 in flower (but everyone has their preference and it is also strain dependent)

4) your feeding schedule....I have always been a solid believer of flooding ever 3 hours, but changing it to every 2 during "lights on" would not be a bad move, and only doing 3 during "lights off" would not be bad either.

5) how long are you allowing your nutrient solution to flood for? I use a 15 min total cycle, I find anything over that cuts down on the aeration to the root system. (but again its all experience/strain dependent/preference)

I would suggest more aeration to your rez, running h2o2 to keep things clean and cutting way way way back on nitrogen in flower (almost zero "grow" after 12/12 light schedule).