novice grower trying DWC

Many years ago (like 20) I grew outdoors and had an indoor cabinet only for mother and starting clones.

Recently I got the bug again and decided to start an indoor grow. I purchased a 2' x 4' x 5' tent. Heres the list of goodies;

400w ballast and tube type fixture with cooling fan and ducting
1 MH bulb
1 HPS bulb
150 cfm inline fan with 4" ducting flowing out from a charcoal canister
1 CPU fan drawing air in
8 hole DWC with 3" pots and two large air stones

I have X nutes that I acquired for a song, so I plan to use them. Growth, Bloom, and Micro.

So far I have set up the tent and tested the temps with all possible fan configurations. The light alone with no fans gives me an ambient room temp of 95f. If I run only the duct fan on the light I drop the room temp to 85f. With all fans running the ambient room temp is 79f with a temp of 85f 10" from the light. I also found that without running the charcoal filter fan the room temp does not warm up much at all, I think I can save that electricity for bloom time. So the temps seem to be in a good range and controllable.

Next I am checking out relative humidity. With no water in the system at all the room is 25% RH. So I filled the DWC and turned on the air, about an hour later the RH was 26%. I will check this again in a day or so as i would like it higher. If need be, I do have a cold air humidifier that I can run in the room.

My water here is relatively soft with a PPM of 150-175 out of the tap, unfortunately that comes with a Ph of 9.0-11.0 I do not have an RO, or the money at the moment to purchase one so i will be letting the water sit for 24 hours and then adjusting Ph levels. I have one batch of nutes ready to go in an 8 gallon reservoir at 5.6Ph and 971 PPM. Sadly the grommet is leaking on the res so I had to dump that all into the DWC which was clean and dry. Oh well, at least its not a complete waste. It will just have to sit there for a week while the plants get closer to ready for the tent.

Now, onto the plants.

I started 5 seeds yesterday after 24 hours of soaking in the shot glass method they are now nestled in rock wool in a room temp dark place. I was a bit shocked at how much the rock wool affected the Ph dropping it down to 2.1 overnight, so I bumped it up into the proper range. No nutes, just plain water for now. The seeds are; 2 -Barney's Farm g-13, 2- Homegrown Fantaseeds Northern Lights, and 1- DNA lemon Skunk.

I will eventually post some pictures but right now there is really nothing to see.

My only question at this point is, should the air stones be running 24/7 or is it best to put them on a timer?

Any insight or comments are welcome. This is my first hydroponic attempt.

Many years ago (like 20) I grew outdoors and had an indoor cabinet only for mother and starting clones.

Recently I got the bug again and decided to start an indoor grow. I purchased a 2' x 4' x 5' tent. Heres the list of goodies;

400w ballast and tube type fixture with cooling fan and ducting
1 MH bulb
1 HPS bulb
150 cfm inline fan with 4" ducting flowing out from a charcoal canister
1 CPU fan drawing air in
8 hole DWC with 3" pots and two large air stones

I have X nutes that I acquired for a song, so I plan to use them. Growth, Bloom, and Micro.

So far I have set up the tent and tested the temps with all possible fan configurations. The light alone with no fans gives me an ambient room temp of 95f. If I run only the duct fan on the light I drop the room temp to 85f. With all fans running the ambient room temp is 79f with a temp of 85f 10" from the light. I also found that without running the charcoal filter fan the room temp does not warm up much at all, I think I can save that electricity for bloom time. So the temps seem to be in a good range and controllable.

Next I am checking out relative humidity. With no water in the system at all the room is 25% RH. So I filled the DWC and turned on the air, about an hour later the RH was 26%. I will check this again in a day or so as i would like it higher. If need be, I do have a cold air humidifier that I can run in the room.

My water here is relatively soft with a PPM of 150-175 out of the tap, unfortunately that comes with a Ph of 9.0-11.0 I do not have an RO, or the money at the moment to purchase one so i will be letting the water sit for 24 hours and then adjusting Ph levels. I have one batch of nutes ready to go in an 8 gallon reservoir at 5.6Ph and 971 PPM. Sadly the grommet is leaking on the res so I had to dump that all into the DWC which was clean and dry. Oh well, at least its not a complete waste. It will just have to sit there for a week while the plants get closer to ready for the tent.

Now, onto the plants.

I started 5 seeds yesterday after 24 hours of soaking in the shot glass method they are now nestled in rock wool in a room temp dark place. I was a bit shocked at how much the rock wool affected the Ph dropping it down to 2.1 overnight, so I bumped it up into the proper range. No nutes, just plain water for now. The seeds are; 2 -Barney's Farm g-13, 2- Homegrown Fantaseeds Northern Lights, and 1- DNA lemon Skunk.

I will eventually post some pictures but right now there is really nothing to see.

My only question at this point is, should the air stones be running 24/7 or is it best to put them on a timer?

Any insight or comments are welcome. This is my first hydroponic attempt.

welcome brother! nice to see that you have an idea of what to do and not just jumping in feet first! +rep for that!

jumping to your only and very important question...YES those airstones need to run 24/7 from start to finish!

971 tho ppm...taking in consideration you water is at (rounding up) 200ppm...you've added around 780-800 ppm of nutes to your res....way too much for seedlings...you will probably want to see that number at around 500ppm ...so with your water being at 200ppm your nutes at 300ppm until they get established...slowly getting them up to what you are at now...this will save you much heartache and headache in the beginning....

Edited by NaughtyDread, 13 January 2012 - 10:21 PM.

Thanks, i was only wondering about the stones because the tent was an all in one package and there is a second timer. No idea what to time other than the main light.

Thanks, i was only wondering about the stones because the tent was an all in one package and there is a second timer. No idea what to time other than the main light.

no prob bro...second timer is probably for the fans so they can run separate from lights....

Subscribed . Post some pictures . Speaking of PH , adjust it after you add nutrients and try to get as close as you can to 5.8 to better results .

I will eventually post some photos but like I said there is not much to take a pic of just yet.

All of the seeds have cracked and the tails are about half a centimeter at this point.

Back in the day it was 24/7 and then 12/12. Since I started looking into getting back into growing again I see many people using 18/6. My question is, has anyone ever done a study or experiment to compare the vegetative growth between these two lighting schedules? I am wondering if the extra light would cause more or faster growth, or if the plants regulate themselves.

Never mind, I found my answer in an excellent post describing the levels of stress and talking about light absorption. This forum is an excellent tool and I thank the administrators.

Edited by StlthGrwr, 15 January 2012 - 02:50 AM.
found it

Most likely 24/7 not going to make much difference VS 18/4 .I have no personal experince with 24/7 but some people who tryed that said that there is no difference .

Here's an image of the tent (exif stripped)

The lemon skunk has nearly emerged from the rock wool. I expect by Tuesday all 5 will be above grade, maybe by tomorrow night if all goes well.

Still no nutrients in the mix, only water. I plan to leave the seedlings in the small cloning planter for their first two weeks before I set them into the hydroton. This of course depends on if the roots escape the rockwool cubes or not before then. If I have roots I will move them to the DWC.

Overnight last night the rockwool moved to its new home. All of the seeds have sprouted and are now in the hydroton filled net pots of the DWC. Some are a little further ahead, but all of them are germinated and growing nicely.

Temp 86f
RH 22%
ppm 570
Ph 5.8

I am going to run the light 24/0 for the first couple of days, then drop down to 18/6 once the first set of leaves is at least 1/2" on all 5 plants.

Ph has been a struggle. It takes time for the ph up and ph down to effect the solution. Leaving me guessing for hours at a time whether I got it right or not.

Here's to hoping we are on the right track here.

PS, you can see the timer only because the cord I had holding the power strip up broke overnight. Not a big deal, just on the list of things to do today. I tried to upload images multiple times and encountered nothing but grass City failures, maybe the next post will have images.

Here's an image of the tent (exif stripped)

The lemon skunk has nearly emerged from the rock wool. I expect by Tuesday all 5 will be above grade, maybe by tomorrow night if all goes well.

Still no nutrients in the mix, only water. I plan to leave the seedlings in the small cloning planter for their first two weeks before I set them into the hydroton. This of course depends on if the roots escape the rockwool cubes or not before then. If I have roots I will move them to the DWC.

Do not leave them in ithe dome for two weeks,it is pointless it will just delay the growth. Put them under light in to dwc sys now. The will b fine as soon as temp do not go higher than 82-84F.

One image shows the grow area. The next is a close up of the Lemon Skunk

Room Temp 77
RH 25
Ph 5.8
PPM 602

Veg day 2. Photos are named for each plant. The Northern Lights is well behind the other two strains.

late this afternoon I checked the nutrient solution and found that the ppm had spiked over 700 and the Ph had risen to 6.9. I did nothing at all to cause this. They hydroton had all been rinsed well before use. Not sure why the solution changed so dramatically in 18 hours since the last check. Any ideas?

late this afternoon I checked the nutrient solution and found that the ppm had spiked over 700 and the Ph had risen to 6.9. I did nothing at all to cause this. They hydroton had all been rinsed well before use. Not sure why the solution changed so dramatically in 18 hours since the last check. Any ideas?

Add more water. Reason why PPM went up is level of water got lower . Add more water and adjust PH .

I do 18\6 on seedlings and then after roots come out the pots I go to 24\0.
Some says it promotes more root growth and don't burn the little plants.
I've done it both ways and lean more to 18\6 then 24\0 then 12\12.

Setup looks good.

I'm worried your fan that is hooked up to your charcoal filter is not sufficient enough to work. Do this test.

Turn off the fan for your light and turn on the fan for your filter.
Zip up your tent.
Observe the tent
Do the sides collapse in on the tent? The sides of the tent should collapse almost immediately.

If the sides collapse you will be okay, but I have a feeling that they won't. 150cfm isn't very strong to be pulling air through a carbon filter.

Beginning of week two water change today. I removed the plants and rinsed out the reservoir before replacing the water and nutrient solution. Still seeing residue from the hydroton, a little bit of green algae is growing on the underside of the res lid above the air stones. Not sure if this is a major concern or not, but I dont like the slimy feel of the res surfaces.

The Lemon Skunk is doing well and has a good six inch tap root hanging out of its net pot. The G-13's are both doing reasonably well with multiple roots about 1/4" below the net pots and decent weekly growth.

The Northern Lights did not survive the move to the hydroton, it appears completely lost.

New solution numbers are

Ph 5.9
PPM 1135

120ml grow and 120ml micro in 8 gallons as per the xnutrients web site. Hoping this doesnt burn the plants, but from all I have read and with a starting point of 170-200ppm water I appear to be right in there for the regular growth cycle.

First image is the Lemon Skunk, followed by the two G13 and then the last time I will show the dead NL.

Brown patch on one G13 leaf, I will keep an eye on it but I am not overly concerned yet. Should I be?

The sides are not pulling in, however the room doesnt smell of smoke minutes after I burn one even without opening the tent. Possibly too many places for air to enter the tent? There are large air intake vents along both sides and the back near the base.

Edited by StlthGrwr, 24 January 2012 - 05:43 AM.
answered another post

Lower your ppm .( add ph adjusted water). Way too high for this stage. You can shut all your air intake ports and have only one open to create negative pressure if you want.And one more thing , you need to find better water . Or get RO system . Bad water might have negative effect down the road ( nute deficiencies )

Edited by RO76, 24 January 2012 - 05:44 PM.

Good Luc Bro! ..seems like u got all ur ducks in a row.i am also giving DWC a shot ..jus got a 400 watt ballast for MH/HPS bulbs ...plenty of clay rocks..and a bunch of net pots, i am currently debating on how exactly i wanna do this though...LEAKS are not an option..so i wanna do a bubbler .(2).30 gal res. with 4 plants each ...im germinating some Green House BIG BANG seeds (jus got em yesterday via UK) ...but this will be the first grow ive ever done...looking forward to it!

Good Luck on your first grow.

I remember mine was inside a cubby hole about 3' square in my bedroom of my parents home many many years ago. The internet really didnt have any good information readily available at the time and High Times magazine was about all you had for reference material. Needless to say it didnt go as well as I had hoped. Then I did an outdoor grow with bag seed and Oh My Gawd was that stuff the purple haired BOMB!

Anyway, explosive growth since my last post. The plants have doubled or maybe even tripled in size. I am concerned however that when I pulled the Lemon Skunk to check her roots there was a white mucous slime on them. So i placed the orders online tonight to get some beneficial bacterias growing. Hopefully the slime cant do too much damage before I can get the tea brewed.