Ok, so here's my stats. I'm doing a bucket dwc in a cabinet 20 inches deep, 30 inches wide and 60 inches high. Going to have a reflector hood 240 hps up top, which I originally was going to set on the top shelf with the hole cut out, but now I'm thinking it's going to be on chains suspended from the ceiling, and I will remove the top shelf altogether. The reason for that is so I can suspend a carbon filter at the top of the cab, which I will exhaust out through a hole in the side. Probably put an inline fan on the other side of the cabinet wall to pull the air out of the cab. Ventilation will come from the holes drilled in the bottom of the cabinet. As you can see, the bottom is large enough to hold 2 buckets. The air pump will be housed in the cabinet next to the grow cab. So here's my questions: 1. I've got some feminized seeds, Barneys LSD and a Northern Lights x White Widow cross. I wanted to do both, either in 2 separate buckets or together in one. If I do 2 buckets i don't think a scrog is useful, but it probably would be if I put both plants in one. 2 Buckets leaves me little room for a fan though. Thoughts? 2. I want to germinate then place the germ'd seeds in rockwool in my bucket. Do I need nutrient in the water at this point, or should I let them go a week or two before adding nutes? 3. How long should I let them go 24/7 lights before switching ti 12/12?
1 - go with one bucket and a screen. you'll be able to control the nutes for both plants in the same reservoir too. 2 - most don't add nutrients to their water until their plant is ~2 weeks old. sprouts burn easy. 3 - until they're 1/3 to 1/2 as tall as you want them to be when you harvest, or until you've got your plants starting to fill your screen in. check out this guy's grow. he's working with very similar circumstances, although with a bit more firepower in the lighting department. very successful. he's just about to harvest, too; you'll see just how successful in a couple days here.
And so the experiment begins.... After several unsuccessful attempts to start a plant in rockwool, I finally gave up and stuck my germinated seeds in some soil. I don't know what I was doing wrong, I soaked the rockwool in low ph water, but whenever I put my germinated seeds in they just did not sprout. Lost all my white widow seeds and a Barney's Farm LSD to boot. Now I have two seedlings that seem to be doing quite well after a week of veg, one Barney's Farm LSD and one World of Seeds Madness. I thought my light output was a little low from just a 250w HPS, so I am supplementing with 4 75w 6500 CFLs and 4 100w 2700 CFLs. No fan yet to draw out the stale air, but soon I will add a fan to draw the air out and into the cabinet next to the grow where I will have a mountain air filter for the smell. Once the roots have developed I will remove the seedlings from soil and put them into my bucket bubbler.
Going strong now....a little yellowing that I think was caused by some nute burn. Saw a root emerge from the bottom of the cup, so I think I will put it in the bubbler this weekend.
Made some changes to the cabinet, new door, added an exhaust fan. My babies are doing well but I am having trouble dialing in the pH and nutes and to add insult to injury, I dropped my Milwaukee pH pen in the bucket, killing it. Just ordered Nutra-drip's trimeter so I am hoping that will help me refine the grow. Both plants have survived my over-fertilizing, now maybe under-fertilizing, and they are still getting bushy. I will post more pics shortly.
Having some problems now, I think its an over-nute situation but without a working pH meter its a little hard to say for sure. PPM's are around 280, and the leaves are yellowing and dying. I really can't wait for my trimeter to get here so I can get a handle on this. Any thoughts you may have, don't be afraid to share. The plants are under 250w HPS and 8 cfl's, 4 6500 and 4 2700.
There's nothing more humbling than your first grow. My "over-nute" problem was an under-nute problem. Adding nutes made everything better, although until that damn meter comes in I still feel like I'm gardening in the dark. It also has illustrated the problem of growing two different strains in the same bucket. While the LSD is only barely drooping from a lack of nutes, the Madness took a much bigger hit. Oh well, live and grow and learn.
plants take what they want out of the water, be it the dissolved solids or the water itself. what you should be aiming for is having the nutrient solution in the exact same strength as what is inside the plant to make it as easy as possible for the plant to uptake the nutrients. the way to figure out this magic number is to first add nutrients at a guesstimated strength. then let the plant use what it wants for 24 hours. test again, if the solution has gotten stronger it means the plant has used more water than solids so you need to bring that figure down a bit by adding more water. if the solution has gotten weaker it means the plant has used more solids than water so you need to bring that figure up a bit by adding a little more solids. once you have it so even though the nutrient solution's level drops day by day but the actual strength stays the same, you have it in perfect balance. as the plants get bigger they will prefer a stronger solution.
Awesome suggestion thanks. I am going to change out my reservoir today and will take my first reading. Still waiting for my damn trimeter to come (thanks a lot USPS) so will just have to guess on the pH for now. I'll submit a follow-up on what I find.
Great advice by GoldGrower. Have my solution stabilized at 580-600 ppm and it stays constant as the water level drops, so hooray for me. Plants are really taking off now, and my screen is built and installed. Not sure how well its going to work, as the Barneys Farm LSD has much slower growth due to my carelessness with the nutes than the Madness. Looks like the Madness may take over! (heh heh) I will post pics tomorrow.
Here's some pics from my setup. Its basically a shelving unit that had three separate sections to it. I made two separate cabinets by putting a back panel on and a door on the front, which can be locked. My babies are in one side, under 250 hps and 8 cfl's, with a 4" duct fan pulling air from the grow cabinet into the second cabinet, where I have a carbon filter and 4" inline fan that exhausts to the outside. I was running both the duct fan and the inline fan at once, but I've turned off the duct fan as too much smell was escaping, even though I had the duct fan blowing over a tub of ONA.
2 plants in there, a barneys farm LSD on the left, and a world of seeds Madness on the right. The Madness is much more tolerant of nutes, hence the much greater growth. And I didn't think there was/would be enough room for the fans and filter in the first room.
You should've planted them separately so you can care for them individually. plus the healthier plant may choke out the weaker one.
Yes that's a possibility. Didn't have enough room for two buckets, and had 2 seeds germ at the same time so decided to just go for it. Going to do some trimming of fan leaves to create some more light penetration.
your fan leaves collect light energy, and "breath" for the plant, cut them off and your growth will slow. fill your light foot print to maximize efficiency. higher up leaves receive much more intense light than lower leaves that are further away. if you really must cut leaves off, cut off the lower ones that do not work as hard. but it's far better to leave them all in tact for them to do their job so the plant has many resources to use to make more bud
OK going to leave it alone for now. Pulled the LSD plant down with a weighted string for some LST. Screen is filling and hope to put into 12/12 in the next week or so.
