DWC 300W DIY LED SCROG Grow: AK47 and Mazar

[PetFlora]

Yep. Since playing with DWC 2 grows ago, I noticed that my rez goes flat, so to speak, after 5-7 days.

Since mine is only 2G that's not a biggie to keep plants happy, and another reason for adopting My DIY 21st Century F & D set up

If interested see signature

 

[hempfield]

I must say that Canna Aqua nutes disappointed me, as I don't see any improvement in speed grow or plant health, and is quite difficult to keep the pH steady.

Previously I used Micro-Grow-Bloom from GHE with excellent results, with no signs of deficiencies at all and less pH swinging and I was changing reservoirs every 3 weeks ore more.

Last night my phone's battery was dead so I could not take pics, but here they are (AK47 in the front , Mazar in the back):

AK47 and Mazar - 10 weeks and 4 days:

 

[PetFlora]

Check out various threads here about HYDROPONIC RESEARCH veg+bloom

AWESOME Stable pH dry mix

 

[tenthirty]

Check out various threads here about HYDROPONIC RESEARCH veg+bloom

Zero complaints form me as well.

 

[repuk]

Happy New Year hempfield!

Cannot wait to watch your training once you flip!

 

[hempfield]

This is my first experience with Canna nutes, so maybe I am not on the right way and for sure there is always place for learning and improvement.

I think the cause for my pH problems is the air pump, which not provide enough air for the reservoirs, but I think I will buy a more powerful one.

In addition, the pH UP I used seems to interact a little bit different with Canna nutes, as the pH drops dramatically 12 to 24 hours later after I correct it, which makes me thinking that the buffering capabilities of the pH UP exceed the buffering capacity of the nutes.

Happy New Year hempfield!

Cannot wait to watch your training once you flip!

Happy New Year to you too !

And yeah, will be interesting indeed to keep the canopy flat and to avoid over crowding the 'Edens garden'

Peace !

 

[PetFlora]

Yep mo bubbles, mo bubbles, mo bubbles. They also serve to richly oxygenate the air above the water line. The more you do that, the lower the water line can be, the easier/better it is for the root mass above the line to feed on high bio-available nutes

Since switching to Hydroponic-Research VEG+BLOOM, my pH fluctuations are a distant BAD memory

 

[hempfield]

11 weeks update

11 weeks update

Hi folks,

I just realized that a new week has started and I forgot to post the official weekly update.

The plants are on their last week of vegetation as both became a little bit crowded and hard to train, so next Saturday I will do the flip, exactly 12 weeks from the moment I put the seeds into moist paper towel to germinate.

I don't have to much things to say about them, the grow on the last weeks was quite impressive, especially on Mazar, but AK47 developed a very uniform canopy, not to crowded.

I discovered today that the one way valves I was using to prevent water siphoning were clogged ( crappy chinese valves) and they was reducing a lot the air flow in the reservoirs so I removed them and hang the air hose to the screen to avoid any accidental leakage and now I have a lot of bubbles again (I must check the air pump membranes to see if they were damaged by the bad valves).

Today I spent almost an hour training Mazar, as her top tend to overgrow, searching for the light, and my fingers were covered in sticky smelly resin.

Here are some pictures (it's almost impossible to take pictures from above to capture the entire screen) :

 

[GP73LPC]

looking really nice there...

 

[Phychotron]

This is my first experience with Canna nutes, so maybe I am not on the right way and for sure there is always place for learning and improvement.

I think the cause for my pH problems is the air pump, which not provide enough air for the reservoirs, but I think I will buy a more powerful one.

In addition, the pH UP I used seems to interact a little bit different with Canna nutes, as the pH drops dramatically 12 to 24 hours later after I correct it, which makes me thinking that the buffering capabilities of the pH UP exceed the buffering capacity of the nutes.



Happy New Year to you too !

And yeah, will be interesting indeed to keep the canopy flat and to avoid over crowding the 'Edens garden'

Peace !

Send canna a message (you gotta create an account). I was told not to use an air-stone in my tank as it would affect the pH, to just use a pump for a short time a few times a day.

 

[hempfield]

Send canna a message (you gotta create an account). I was told not to use an air-stone in my tank as it would affect the pH, to just use a pump for a short time a few times a day.

This is a very interesting fact. I always thought that nutrients on hydroponic systems (especially DWC or aquafarm) must be saturated on oxygen.

I must confess that I did a simple test, with two 5 liters bottles filled with nutrient solution - one with an airstone bubbling , one without. In 24 hours, the nutrient solution on the bottle without air bubbles became cloudy, smelling bad, and some brownish slime settled on the walls and bottom of the recipient.

On the other bottle, which had plenty of air bubbles , the solution remain clear , without any trace of funky smell, and I noticed some traces of precipitations on the bottom, but not to much.

I don't know what to believe, but I think the funky smell and the slime was caused by the reaction of the Rhizotonic with Cannazym (the only organic components on the solution).

I don't think I will use Canna Aqua again into a DWC system. Maybe my system is not dialed for those nutes or I am doing something wrong, but I saw MUCH better results with tree component Micro - Grow - Bloom from GH.

I am not growing to much (just a grow or two per year) so it would be more complicated for me to contact Canna and to complain about their products. I will use remaining nutes to grow in soil and switch back to Micro-Grow-Bloom or even give a try to Hydroponic Research nutes, if I can get some here in Romania.

 

[Phychotron]

Oh, Rhizotonic fucks your tank up--I only use it in veg and transplant when I'm still hand watering with small batches of nutrients. . The boost will speed up tank problems as well, but not as much as the rhizo. Coco A/B + cannazym hold up just fine.

Its not too complicated to use a form on a web page, just shoot them a question and they'll be able to tell you how to use their product the best.

 

[hempfield]

In less than one week I will flip, so no more Rhizotonic from now on, as the root already filled the reservoirs and for sure they will grow bigger on the first 2-3 weeks of flowering.

I didn't like the Rhizotonic from the beginning when I opened the first bottle and the rotten fish smell punch my nose, but I said 'what the hack, if is good for the girls I will go with it'. It also messed up my pH every time I added to the nutes solution, jumping up to 6.2~6.4 and dropping as low as 5.1 in just 24h. I think that Cannazym actually decompose or alter the Rhizotonic composition, but who knows, I'm not an chemistry engineer.

Canna recommend to use Rhizotonic also in flowering (but at a much lower ratio) to keep root healthy but I think to not use it anymore in hydro ( I am not ready for organic hydro, that's for sure ! - should I mention that back in time, 2 or 3 years ago, I had the curiosity to add a teaspoon of molasses into the reservoir ? BAD MISTAKE !!! ).

 

[PetFlora]

Airstones, like everything else man made are good and bad.

Oxystones do not alter the pH. I would not run a rez or clone bubbler without them. An aquarium waterfall recirculation device would work , too

Nutrients There are several threads on IC that convinced me to switch from DM Gold- full 5 part to Hydroponic Research Veg+Bloom

Completed 2 grows and love it, pH stable, PLUS, it's a one part formula

 

[hempfield]

Unfortunately Hydroponic Research Veg+Bloom is not (yet) available on Europe (or at least I could not find a source here).

I use big air stones (not remember brand name) at this moment (in fact they are ceramic cylinders , 12cm long, 4cm diameter), but in the past I used regular small aquarium stones with great success, but the Hygrozime partially decomposed them.

 

[PetFlora]

Prior to V+B, I had my on a dry formula from the EU. Alas, I finally deleted the link from my folders. It is a 2 part price was very reasonable

 

[Grinspoon]

I can say just one thing ... 10

 

[medmaker420]

looking great

can't wait to see what they do in flower before that is some foliage brother!

excited to see the results for sure

 

[Desert Hydro]

another veg + bloom user here. im doing better than ever before with it. its simple and works wonders. your plants look great in that scrog. my LED come in on tuesday!! they are flowering under a 300w hps until the 2 300w units show up. its gonna be great!

 

[hempfield]

Flowering - Day 0

Flowering - Day 0

I waited for this day three long month, but we finally did it: last night I set the timer to 13 hours of light and 11 hours of darkness. This will be the lighting schedule for the next 3 weeks. After that, I will take another hour from the "day" and set the timer to 12/12 for 3 weeks. At the beginning of week seven the day will be loose another hour and the girls will have just 11 hours of light.

They eat a lot, that's for sure, and drink more than somebody can imagine. The Mazar drinks almost 5 liters of water each day and AK47 somewhere to 3.5 liters. I wonder what will happen in the following weeks and I am glad that I don't have to travel and to be away from them.

Because the lack of the space in my growing room I could not have a third reservoir with spare nutes solution, but I think this is mandatory for the following weeks. It's a pain in the ass to mix nutes every day or every other day and to keep the solution parameters (pH and EC) stable, so I decide to use a temporary 50Liters tub with nutrient solution, and just use this for daily topping of the reservoirs.

If I follow the Canna feeding schedule , the EC of the solution should be grater than 2.0, but this is a limit a don't want to brake, as the plants became more thirsty when the salt concentration increase, which cause also the EC to bump.

Less is better when we talk about nutes and my girls don't have any single tip burn or any sing of nutes burn, so let's keep that for the rest of this grow.

Until now I took pictures with my phone and the quality was good, but for bud closeups I will use an old Canon S2 IS camera which I recently succeed to bring it back to life (the shutter was jammed so I had to take the camera apart, to remove the lenses and to fix the shutter problem - by washing it with isopropyl alcohol). It took me ~4 hours to do that and I am very proud of the result. So we will see some nice bud closeups pictures (and maybe some macros also).

Here are the girls on the last day of summer. Notice the redish tint on the last picture ? This will be the colour o the light with all LEDs turned on, but for the first week of flowering I just use the veg lights. I have a 'Kill-a-watt' like device that count every watt my grow room burn so I will post the power consumption for the veg and for flowering , but I have to remember to read the counters today. The grow room draws 270W with the veg light turned ON and somewhere close to 440W with flowering LEDs ON.



Does anybody take a guess on the harvest ?