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ogatec
just be carefull w/ th adititives, thats where most people mess up a good thing... only try 1 at a time just in case things go south, you will know whaat caused the problem...
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Newbie hydroponics grow, need help getting started/selecting equipment!
- Thread starter SoEx
- Start date
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eLiguL
SoEx said:Well I had remembered seeing a few threads when I was browsing around that the floranova discolored the res water/made it brownish/clogged things up. I don't know if that's substantiated or not, but I decided to play it safe and stick with what seemed to have worked before.
On a more annoying point, I had to trim one of the plant's roots.
The rootmass from this one plant:
What I trimmed off:
I had to trim quite a bit off before water would continue flowing... But I *HAD* to. The roots had completely clogged the pipe and basically when I wasn't paying attention the water spilled over the rim of the 2L bottles and got ALL over and into the damn airpump. Could've been quite bad. Whatever, I only need this system to last another week before I take clones, then I can start vegging things in a new DWC bubbler.
I'll have some shots of the flowering plants soon, hopefully. Things have started progressing in the flower room too
Have you tried using a paint strainer to keep the roots contained in the 2 liter bottle???
When you get the time could you weigh out the Pro's/Con's of this system in your opinion??
I hope you dont mind me picking your brain for a few. I only ask because my DWC run has officially ended (91.6 grams dried from 2 plants if anyone is curious) and im gonna be starting construction on one of these contraptions.
Edit: I just thought about it and its never good to ask for something and not give back. So I thought I would share my DWC experience with you.
Pro:
- Relatively easy to maintain. Checked on the PH every 2 days and just added water/nutes as needed.
- Plants grew vigirously and looked very healthy
- Having only 1 rez made it easy to maintain.
Con:
- Once I was in full bloom, the roots carpeted the bottom of my rez and I noticed a layer of sediment on the bottom of my rez after I chopped. (I am using FNB and it is a thicker nute, this may have been why it did that.)
- I have a 10gal rez and keeping that amount of water oxygenated took a commercial style pump. This pump was too noisy for my taste.
- I also vegged in a smaller 2gal rez, this thing was a bitch to keep under control. I would have constant PH swings and temperature problems. Moving forward I would never go with a rez smaller than 5gal when doing DWC.
- I didnt like the fact that I couldnt reposition the plants because the roots were tangled in the rez. This also turned out to be a bitch when I couldnt remove the root mass for the 6 males I had. I just chopped the tops and allowed the root mass to continue growing. The stumps began to mold a little in weeks 5-6 and I had to chop off the roots and pull out the stumps.
Overall I would say DWC is good hydro method. I would run this again if noise wasnt an issue and I had a bigger veg DWC unit.
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ogatec said:
Yeah, I'll try to be careful, thanks. As for smell... I can't say I notice anything from afar, but when I get close up they do smell very, very dank.
eLiguL said:
Nah, I didn't try using a paint strainer. I superglued a little chunk of plastic (like an I strip) on the bottom so that the hydroton wouldn't fall out of the 2L bottles, though.
An interesting thing to note was that the roots were mostly straight down. I pulled up the males and it was like a bit of a clump/ball of hydroton (easily seperable by just massaging it) then just straight roots out into the tubing.
Pros:
-Fairly low maintenance, and very easy maintenance.
I put an access port at the top that I flipped up/down, and whenever I needed to fill water I could very easily get to it beacuse the 2L bottles were so much higher than the res itself. Made things nice.
-Very little occupied space/small res
-Not too hard to make
-Fairly cheap
Cons:
-Roots go into the tubing very quickly.
-Roots can clog the tubing and this will cause the water to flow over the sides of the 2L bottles and spill everywhere.
-With 7 plants, toward the end, they were drinking quite a bit. I'd have to refill the res about every other day at one point.
-If water gets too low the pump will try sucking up air (bad for the pump) and the plants will get no water and will droop. This can obviously be corrected, just something to look out for.
-If the roots get into the tubing moving the plants/transplanting is a major bitch.
-Trimming the roots on one of the plants seemed to stunt it considerably.
I did enjoy making the device and getting it set up, and it did what it needed to do -- kept some plants alive and ready for me for about 2 months while I wait for the flower chamber to be done with its current harvest.
To be honest it was a bitch at times. And then it did have its advantages other times. It was mostly maintenance free, except for the hiccups along the way. If there was a way to keep the roots from going into the tubing (while still not clogging things up) I think I would have keep it as a system.
Vegging, I can see working well for this system. I'd say it can go 1-1.5 months max before you run into issues with the roots.
Good luck, though, I'll post a bit more up later if I can think of anything else.
D
Don Cotyle
Hey SoEx, If you keep the home made ebb&Flow you might want to try some spagnum moss in the bottom 2 inches of the pop bottle. Mash it in there pretty tight, it'll let the water thru but will keep the roots at bay longer from going down the tubes! I finally went with all moss as a medium for that reason! You can go longer between flooding cause it retains the water longer too.
JMHO Don
JMHO Don
eLiguL said:
Air pump or water pump? I'm using 12 gallons in an 18 gallon tub with a 40-60 gallon Whisper brand air pump. While Whisper is not a word I'd use to describe the noise level, with the cab door closed, I can't hear it.
Segregating roots came up in a thread some months ago. Wish I could remember the thread as it had a few good ideas. Mine was to modify NGB's root net into individual root "socks." Another was to make tubes out of 6" PVC with individual airstones for each tube. I don't know if either of these would allow for repositioning late in a run but, they would keep roots apart long enough in the beginning for the purpose of culling males.
DWC has turned out to be the easiest indoor grow I've had. Love it.
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eLiguL
looks nice and frosty, keep up the good work 
Phantom594
Member
Superb grow, i can only pray my first run goes that well. When you say that you get close up you can smell it is that with the door closed and the scrubber running? Odor control is a huge issue for me so im trying to gather as much info as i can from everyone.
Kinda crappy to see, but I think I'm going to try to find a good trich-covered specimen and shoot it outside the grow so I can make sure it doesn't move. Got a few quick snaps, but I need to snip off a better example. Lemon Stinky:
I still have no clue if they're clear/cloudy and in what ratio as of yet... as I said I'll try to take better shots.
I still have no clue if they're clear/cloudy and in what ratio as of yet... as I said I'll try to take better shots.
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eLiguL
they look pretty clear to me
SoEx said:due to unforseen circumstances I had to use three seperate pieces of glass for the hood. Anyhow, the fan is a bit loud but it pushes a lot of air. After letting things heat up for a bit the surface temperature of the glass was 105 F. Exhaust temperatures were around 81 F.
I'm wondering, do I need more hydroton before I can start? As you can see in the last picture, there's a gap of an inch or two below which you can see the water and I imagine light could get through -- and I was told light was bad, right?
fill thoes "baskets" with hydroton....all the way...
what do mean 3 seperate pieces of glass? how does that work? must leak air like a freaking siv...
It takes care of the smell for the most part, throughout I have noticed periods where it would possibly smell a little planty outside the chamber itself. I have an ozone generator outside, though, and that seems to keep things smelling fairly normal.Phantom594 said:
DIGITALHIPPY said:
I used two half-pieces at first which leaked air and was pretty thin. Then I just added a larger piece to the bottom on top of the two half pieces and sealed it all around.
Phantom594
Member
nice show
Wee.
Took a few shots, sorry that a few of them are oversaturated.
Lemon Stinky to the left/back, only visible master kush branch in this shot is the one to the bottom right of center.
Lemon Stinky:
Master Kush:
Master Kush trichome closeup:
Still a bit blurry, but pretty damn close
Took a few shots, sorry that a few of them are oversaturated.
Lemon Stinky to the left/back, only visible master kush branch in this shot is the one to the bottom right of center.
Lemon Stinky:
Master Kush:
Master Kush trichome closeup:
Still a bit blurry, but pretty damn close
D
Don Cotyle
MMMmmm! Excellent job on those SoEx and beautiful camera work on those Macro shots! How long till their ready for harvest? You gonna burn a couple of the lowest popcorn buds to check out the high or are you gonna wait till harvest? Keep up the great work!
I just germed some of MODs Burmese Dream and some Mosca Negro HP x C99, 16 beans in all and got a 100% germ rate. Gonna try a soil grow and see how the other half lives!
I just germed some of MODs Burmese Dream and some Mosca Negro HP x C99, 16 beans in all and got a 100% germ rate. Gonna try a soil grow and see how the other half lives!
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cman2011UT
Member
hey man i just read thru ur grow its looking good....when you planning on cutting her down?
Don Cotyle said:MMMmmm! Excellent job on those SoEx and beautiful camera work on those Macro shots! How long till their ready for harvest? You gonna burn a couple of the lowest popcorn buds to check out the high or are you gonna wait till harvest? Keep up the great work!
I just germed some of MODs Burmese Dream and some Mosca Negro HP x C99, 16 beans in all and got a 100% germ rate. Gonna try a soil grow and see how the other half lives!
Thanks! Congrats on the germing the new seeds and the 100% rate!
I don't know how long it's going to be... the plants are still putting on weight (new bud growth daily). I did see a single male pollen sack at the very top of one of my LEmon Stinky colas, though! Eek. I used a tweezers and popped it off, but it kinda got crushed as I was removing it :/. I saved it and put it in some foil in case I want to pollenate a lower branch, but a bit of pollen may have gotten into the air as is already. I hope I don't have a bunch of seed bud
.I have to take some pictures soon and determine trichome color and such. I'm planning on a 4 day flush, and I'm thinking about starting it sometime maybe the end of this week (depending on what trichs look like). If I do that, I am thinking of just chopping off the tallest buds and lowering the light and waiting another week, do you think that'd be worthwhile in terms of new growth? Or will they stall after I chop some of the tops off?
I'm not taking any sneak-previews, I got a bunch of (really horrible, crappy) local bud that I have been puffing on since I want to wait until I have something flushed before I take another taste. Lots of tiny lower branches under the canopy (popcorn buds) that actually have a decent number of calyxes/pistils and have some trichs, too. Not much in weight, but I haven't cut them off because it's healthy growth.
Cheers.
