Blue Dream and Girl Scout Cookies 400w DWC

First hello all, this will be my first post and also my first grow. I have been trolling the forums for quite some time now following journals, reading up, and getting a good wealth of knowledge from everyone here and at other boards as well. I am grateful for these resources. I have been reading about cannabis cultivation since Overgrow was around just never had the opportunity to try my hand at it due to my occupation. Now It's my turn to contribute. 
 
This is a California Medical grow hopefully if I run into any problems and I can't find the answers someone can chime in.  
 
Equipment List:
Secret Jardin L120 Flower space = 3x3x5
400w MH/HPS iPower  w/dimmable ballast and cool tube
DIY 5g 6” Net pot x2 DWC 40g Whisper Air Pump 4” Air Disc x2
VenTech 190cfm exhaust fan w/ carbon filter (not attached)
6” Clip fan
Hydroton
 
Nutrients: General Hydroponics Flora Micro, Flora Bloom, Rapid Start
¼ strength Lucas Formula with ¼ ml of Rapid Start   
 
Temperature and Humidity
Low 65 High 78   Low 30% High 48%  
 
Light Cycle: 18/6
 
Strains: Blue Dream and Girl Scout Cookies Clones purchased from local dispensary
 
Day #1: 02/15/15 from clone in Rockwool cubes transplanted into 5g DWC buckets with 5.8 PH and 400ppm nutrient solution at the bottom of 6” net pots
 
Day#4: 2/18/15 water level dropped 1” below net pots, PH 6.3 adjusted to 5.8 PPM raised slightly due to water level drop to about 450-470 in each. GSC showing 3 root shoots and BD showing 1 both about 3 CM stick out of net pot.
 
Tent is inside of a large closet.
Top fed by hand on day 3 with water from reservoir. 
 
My temperature was reading 84 degrees which I knew was completely off due to radiated light and not the actual temp in the tent. I used the cardboard box my air pump came in to cover the thermometer and the temp came right back down to 75. 
 
Everything that makes vibration is hung by bungee cord, the fan, ballast, air pump, and 6" fan. Only real noise complaint is the air rushing from the tent/closet. I may get a duct noise muffler, but we will see. Noise levels read at about 78db according to a smart phone app.  
 
That's it for now, I will update as frequently as I see significant changes and have time due to university. Take care all and happy growing.
 





 
*After looking, I think I put this in the wrong place I probably should have posted this in the Hydroponic Grow Journal section. So sorry. 

 

 
Thanks for stopping by  
 

 
Thanks hopefully all that hw pays off haha. I agree Blue Dream is great, I picked up an oz of it a few months back, loved it so much it didn't last very long. I have noticed most grow journals I've seen for BD has mostly indica traits. Mine appears more sativa leaning which is fine by me. Makes me wonder what pheno the flower I had before was. 

 

Thank you Karbide, I do not mind at all. Welcome, make yourself at home.
 
 
 
 
- Day #5 I wasn't going to post an update today, but when I went to check PH, PPM, Water Levels and Temps I was surprised at how much the roots had grown from this time yesterday. To me it seems pretty quick, on day one the roots were just barely poking from the bottom of the rock wool. I did add back some PH adjusted RO water to even everything out PH is sitting at 5.5 today, no added nutes plants arent using them yet.  The cool tube is 10" above the plants bulb 12". I could probably get it closer as the cool tube is fairly cool but I'll play it safe. 
 
New growth seems to be healthy and growing fast, all seems good except for one little mishap I had yesterday. I had the timer on my Exhaust fan set wrong and the fan shut off in the middle of the cycle -oops- luckily I was home working on homework and recognized that I didn't hear the fan before anything too bad happened. Temps got up to 90 before I came to the ladies rescue. Reset the fans and lights timer to ensure they are both on the same page. Gave a little bit of wiggle room as well, the fans now come on 15 minutes before and shut off 15 minutes after lights on/off.  
 
Also, I have been milling around the idea of doing a SCROG with this grow, problem I am running into in my head is how I would go about doing res changes and flushing. One solution would be to drill holes in the bucket and add a view tube for water level and also a drain and add back valve.
Other solution  would be to add a 3rd bucket with tubing going to each and do all of my changes and checks from the control bucket. The theoretical problem with this is since I'm growing two strains that I don't know what they want yet, their feeding habits could be different. But would it be a significant difference? Flowering times are similar Blue Dream = 55 days Girl Scout Cookies = 60 days, so I don't think flushing the whole system for flowering would be an issue.
 
Finally Pics
 

 

Small update
 
Day #6 checked on my sexy ladies this morning and the little bit of leaf curling that can be seen in the pictures above got a little worse over night. I was trying to LITFA and assumed the droopiness was due to the roots not hitting the water yet, but I am guessing the curling is due to N toxicity, I dumped the res and put new nutes in. Before they were at 400-405 PPM today I dialed them back to 202-204 PPM, and will see how that works out. I will take readings when the light comes back on and see if my numbers go up or down and take it from there.
 
PPM 202-204
PH 5.5
Water Temp 72f/22c
Tent temp 76f

 

Thanks I didn't want to jump the gun, but I also didn't want it to go too long unchecked. Don't want to kill them with too much love. 

 

So, here we are in Day #9 since the res change things seem to be better now. PPMs are stable and not climbing or falling. New growth is green and stems are green the old growth has the claw, a few burn spots, and the stems are purple/striped so my nutes were too strong and I was nuking the babies.  Other than getting the nutes sorted out not a whole lot has changed.
 
The BD has some nice tight growth and the GSC is a little slower. 
 
Pics.
 

 

So, it's been a few days since I've posted anything. 
The garden looks a bit different today than last time you all saw it.
 
Few things I've done, since I was contemplating doing a SCRoG grow I had all the parts needed to add a reservoir (control bucket) and a screen so I went ahead and constructed all that and put them into place even though at this point in time it's not necessary. But I had some free time so hell why not?
 
While checking PH and PPM yesterday I noticed a strange smell in my grow buckets, it's an earthy almost fish tank type smell. I have done a ton of searches and I'm kind of at a loss. My water is clear, not foaming, and my roots are not slimy. They are a bit tan/brown but I am using GH nutes so it could be dyed from the nutes. I have no idea what's going on. It is entirely possible that hair could have gotten into the res as I do have a large dog who sheds a lot (Rottweiler).   
 
So, other than scrubbing down the buckets and adding H202 to the res is there anything else besides making a beneficial bacteria tea? I had thought maybe that stuff you put in aquariums to kill algae might help but I don't know and don't want to try it.  My buckets are black, so I don't see how any light could have gotten in there. My water temps have been higher than I would like 75 I don't have any way to lower the water temps other than a red neck water cooler frozen water bottle. 
 
Anyway on to some good stuff  the SCRoG net was made out of 3/4" PVC pipe I used 2'5" squared and it's 2' tall I drilled a small hole every 2" and put some lath screws to bound the string to. 
 
my Control bucket is attached to both buckets using a ball valve and 3/4" flex tubing and barbed connectors. 
 
I did some LST on the blue dream as it was getting taller than the GSC just to bring them on the same height. Both plants are taking nutes at the same rate. +/- 5-10 ppm. 
 
Hopefully some suggestion about the res smell would help a lot.
 
Pictures are from the 24th to today in order.







 

 

Thanks Hydro I've been having fun with the DIY aspects.  
I can definitely raise the light a little bit, I will raise it to about 15" and see how that affects temps. Ice cubes are doable, only time I've noticed my rez temps getting above 70 is in the afternoon around 11am-2pm I'm on the 2nd floor and it gets pretty warm up here not to mention the sun hits my side of the building during the hottest part of the day. I recently upgraded my air pump on or about the 21st to a 45 lpm Hydrofarm with the 4" air discs and 1 Medium stone in each res. 

 

What are you using now? I've looked at your threads and I can't really tell by the pics. I chose to go with the PVC because it would be easy to just add a coupling and then adjust to make the net higher or lower how ever I see fit.