its ok to addback as long as your nutrient tank is well mixed before you begin. the idea is to keep the 2 part concentrate separate, if you dont give each part a good mixing and time to react then they will react with each-other form into sediment. If whats in your tank has already activated and diluted then this should not happen.
Excellent! Just what I wanted to hear. By the way Ben, you've got quite an impressive set up. I really like your doser too! Great idea. What controller are you ordering to run it?
Week 2 flowering update Plants are growing fast. Had to add tomato cages to support branches. Root development is very healthy and white. I was a bit concerned that I was going to be spending a fortune in nutrients. The plants are using food and water fast but the overall ppm requirements have been relatively small. Week 2 ppm 440. toward the end of week 1 I pumped up the nute level a little bit but some minor cupping and other signs of over feeding presented themselves. Backed off and things resumed as normal. Hope you like the pics. The purple tint pics are taken with a filter to block HPS red light. ~HD
Hydro Druid. I am new to this forum and to DWC and UC. I have ben a top feed Rockwool guy for many many years, and I have just switched to this method. I am currently vegging in DWC and have my brand new Current Culture 12xl 13 built and ready to go. My veg looks GREAT in the DWC and I am looking forward to transplanting my girls in the new CC system next week. But I have a BUNCH of questions. (I actually sent you an email earlier about Advanced Nutrients, but I see the preferred nutes are from H&G, which I now plan on using). I hope all in the forum forgive what to some may seem like silly questions. Just want to get this right. Here's the questions: 1. My CC rig is max capacity of about 130 gallons. I have a nice root mass on my girls in the DWC in veg and they look great. What do you think I should start at as my working water level (in gallons) when I transplant them? The CC I am going to run has 13 gallon buckets. I was thinking about 105 gallons of total water. 2. I have talked to the guys at CC as well as Advanced Nutrition and have a call into H&G. I am still a bit confused as to the nutrient levels, change outs, etc. Getting different stories from all regarding the CC. How often are you draining the rig and refreshing with new nutes? Also, are you increasing the strength of the nutes on each change out? I understand the system runs best on half the recommended strength. I just need a good formula and schedule based on what I have utilizing the H&G nutes. 3. I have connected the rig to a 75 gallon "top off" rez. Am I just putting fresh PH balanced water in that rez? I understand the concept of utilizing the rez as PH balancer, but what about nutes? Keep nutes out of the rez? 4. How do you feel about Hygrozyme and SM-90 in the rig? 5. What about other additives like Phosphoload? Thanks in advance for the answers. I really do appreciate it. TyBud
Hi Tybud11, I got your email but I couldn't respond to it. You had GC email disabled. The UC system is a beast. During Veg I allow the water to be right at the base of the net pot but during flower I've been allowing the water level to be half way. My thought was to let more air surround the roots during flower to control root rot. So far it's been working very well. During Veg I set the ppm at 300 and didn't change the water for almost 21 days. I had a minor Cal/Mag deficiency pop up. Next time I may change the res every 11 days instead of 21. During flower they use nutes and water a lot quicker then veg. I'm topping off with the same ppm solution to keep water level the same. If I topped off with water at the rate they are using nutes the res would be seriously diluted with in a few days (2-3). I would fill the 75 gallon res with the same solution that you're feeding that plants each week and drop ppm manually if you see it rise. I'm increasing my nute strengths by 40-50 ppm each week until week 6-8 where ppm from A&B will remain the same and I will use my PK booster to fill in the rest. I'm not sure what my max total ppm for weeks 6-8 will be yet. I've used hygrozym in the past with great success but like Multi-Zen much better. Cleaner and smells better. SM-90 and I don't have a great relationship. I lost a prized mother from concentrated SM-90. Triethanolamine is super Hygroscopic, flammable and will eat right through steel if given enough time. Using it on my medicine just doesn't make sense. I know people use it and some love it. Just not for my garden. Never used Phospoload before but did use the original formula Super Bud. Super Bud wasn't very stable and created a strange sludge in my res and a lot of cupping in my plants. I hope they fixed their formula. Thank you.
Today I woke up to a flooded warehouse. One of the UC buckets cracked at the base along the bottom of the uni-seal. Plants were ok. The UC leaves a small amount of water in the bottoms, similar to the dutch buckets. Good thing. Yay-- I love a fresh batch of nutes wasted. Pulled damaged bucket...replaced with a 5 gallon round bucket and order additional buckets. Will swap once they arrive. BOO ~HD
NO! You've got a drain in your floor right? If not that could be a little more serious then the wasted nutes. When you do a res change do you flush also? I know a few fellows that will run just plain RO water through their systems after draining it to carry away any left over buildup or remaining nute mix. I know it's a huge waste of water but for someone like me who only has 2 ladies, each in 5 gallon buckets it wouldn't be all that bad.
flooding sucks, good thing everything survived. I flush my system with RO and get everything down to 0ppm before adding nutes back at a change. Having 50 gallons of RO water ready makes it cheap/easy.
Really? I think I've been doing my flushes wrong then. I will drain my system until there is nothing left and then add my new mix. I don't run any distilled or RO water between the drain and the refill. You do this to wash away anything left on the sides of the buckets and roots?
my system I cant drain "til there is nothing left".. I do this until I can pump a small amount of water through it and it comes back out 0ppm.
Hydro Druid Sorry to hear about your cracked bucket. That sucks! Thanks for the reply to my post. Great info! A couple other things I wanted to run by you to get your opinion on. 1. Why doesn't Advanced Nutrients work as well as H&G in the CC? Just curious. 2. How do you feel about "beneficials" like Piranna in the CC? 3. As for the "top off" rez, should I add the additives to it as well or just straight A&B? 4. Does the "half strength" nutes apply to the additives as well or just the A&B? 5. After calculating everything, I am going to run my rig at 78 gallons of working water. Should give me approx. 5-6 gallons per module and plenty of space for the roots to breathe. I came up with a nutrition and change out schedule and I wanted to get your opinion on it: WEEK ONE 255 ml A&B 16 ml Drip Clean 150 ml Multi Zen 43 ml Root Excel WEEK TWO Increase ppm of rig +50 (adding A&B only) WEEK THREE Increase ppm of rig +50 (adding A&B only) WEEK 4 Increase ppm of rig +50 (adding A&B only) Add 150 ml of Bud XL WEEK 5 DRAIN AND FILL THE RIG AT THE BEGINNING OF WEEK 5 410 ml A&B 16 ml Drip Clean 225 ml Top Booster 150 ml Bud XL WEEK 6 DRAIN AND FILL THE RIG AT THE BEGINNING OF WEEK 6 300 ml A&B 16 ml Drip Clean 150 ml Bud XL Add 1 pack of Shooting Powder WEEK 7 Hold ppm's the same as week 6 Add 2 packs of Shooting Powder WEEK 8 Lower ppms 50 points Add 2 packs of Shooting Powder END OF WEEK 8 DRAIN AND RUN RIG WITH CLEAREX OR SOMETHING SIMILAR FOR 2-3 DAYS. You'll notice I planned a drain and fill on week 5 and again on week 6. I did this because of the Top Booster, which appears to me to have many of the same ingredients as Phosphoload, which in my experience is never good to keep in the water for too long. Thanks once again in advance for the answers. Really looking forward to this next run! TyBud
I haven't used AN in the UC system. I ran a side by side last year with AN against H&G, Botanicare, GH and fox farm. H&G produces best product all around. I use a beneficial crown feed to the top of the root zone on UC's. I do not add it to water. It wll get nasty. I use half strength A&B but additives remain at regular dosage for water volume. My top off res is exactly the same strength both nutes/additives that i feed with. Plants use food/water so fast that adding straight water dilutes res too fast. Plants are healthy and roots are healthy. So far it's working great. You want to drain and refill every week while in flower. Only in veg do I allow it to go longer without a res change. A&B feeding looks good. I would adjust based off the way plants look and are responding. Multi-Zen looks low. Are you using the new formula or the old formula? I use old formula and apply at a rate of 3.8 ml per gallon. I haven't used new formula yet and don't know rate to apply. Yours may be correct. Week 5. Do not add top booster until 4 days into week 5. Allow plants to use food during 4 days of week 5 and once diluted down from plant use then add TB. Also raise lights 30-36" from canopy. TB will cause leafs to burn if lights are too close. Weeks 6 with 78 gallons of water you should add 3 packs of shooting powder. after you set ppm to 600. Week 7 & 8 add 6 packs of shooting powder ~HD
Hydro Druid Okay excellent. Wasn't sure about the weekly draining cuz the dudes at Current Culture were telling me to let it ride during bloom up to 28 days! I like the idea of draining weekly anyway for piece of mind. My additives I had listed above (including Multi Zen) were all at 50% calculations. I will adjust them all to 100%. That's what I thought. That calculation was for the NEW formula of Multi Zen and at 50%, so yeah waaaay low. I think I got this locked down now. Thanks again for all of your help! TyBud
HydroD, what size is your return line to your controller? It looks to be 1/4" in your pics. Shouldn't you be using at least a 3/4" line....at least this is what I use on my undercurrent system. Are you using an inline pump outside your res?