DankPassengers DWC First Grow

Going for my first grow. Please look and comment,  I hope I can contribute to the overall knowladge by  updating this post.
 
Going small, just enough to keep me in supply, I had some 'highdeas' of a grand grow room, now I have a tiny taste of what it really is going to take, start small is good advice, unless you have lots of time and money. 
 
I'm working in a limited height area, the only tent I could find to fit my space was the 2x4x5 from HTG on ebay. 600 watt Apollo 6 in cool tube. I picked up the full line of GH nutes for the advanced recirculating schedule, except for florablend.
 
Please excues any mispellings,  I'm only posting from a used laptop, running live barebones linux, connected to open or compromised wifi, and tor, for privacy concerns.

 

Planted 3 fem seeds 10 days ago, in RO water and rockwool cubes,  my main source of info for germinization was from mandala seeds.  I used a 5 tbsp of cal mag and 5 ml of Rapid Start in the 5 gallons of water I prepped the cubes in ph'd water with the GH kit and some PH strips. 
 
 
I went with White Rhino from GHS, THC Bomb, and Samsara Green Love Potion.  I got my beans from Herbie. The White Rhino and Love Potion popped in 3 days the Bomb on the fourth.
 
My tent sits on a cold floor and in a basement running a couple dehumidifiers so against the recomendation of Mandala  I used a dome and a mat.
 
At this point I was/still am concerned that none of the hulls got pushed out by the new sprouts.
 

 

 

Yesterday all the starts had produced a second set of leaves so I moved them to buckets with a GH solution at around 500 PPM* or slightly less. I also bought a PH meter, how anyone can get acurate PH by any other method is beyond me, the strips seemed better than those drops from GH, looking a a vial and trying to determin if its more green than yellow, worthless. But a PH meter is a must IMO, I also have a PPM meter. *12/7/2013 that PPM was artificially inflated by me not cleaning my hydrotron well enough. I'm still a newb but IMO do not run actually at 500ppm on seedlings with the GH three part, 1 week into flower and I'm barely over 500 now on pretty healthy plants.

 

Few more pics
 

 

 

 

 

 

I came home for lunch and it looked like the Green Love Potion had nute burn, being a newb I'm not positive it wasn't the light.   I didn't have time to do much so I put it in an empty bucket and moved it to the outside, it was directly under the light.  When I got home from work I put it in RO'd water with a couple tbsps of calmag ph'd to 5.7.  And I backed the light up a bit.

 

Here is the Green Love Potion
 

 
 
This is the Bomb
 

 
And White Rhino
 

 

Have a little more time today so I'm go to make a post about a few of the things, I think I learned.
 
Ph meter is a must and get some calibration solution. The Ph up down that comes from GH has a little vial you  put drops in and it changes color, I found this incredibly hard to gauge.  The Ph strips were a little better in that they had two pads that changed diferent colors and the key had a easier to match gauge, but I stil spent a good deal of time trying to determin the closest match.
 
Get a PPM meter as well when mixing the GH to thier schedule I found I hit thier PPM for seedlings at less than 25% strength.
 
Clay Pebbles are filthy regardless of the manufactures claims,  I ended up dumping the entire bag in a full tub and straining them out and I still had that crap in my buckets. 
 
RO is slow, so slow, especialy if you water pressure is low.  And there is a tremendous amount of waste I'm guessing I dump about 3 gallons to every one I get. 

 

List of my stuff
 
HTG 2x4x5 tent, not the best tent but it's all I could find that would fit in my space and the price was right, it leaks light but not much, the frame had one support that didn't quite fit and would pop off.   I zip tied all the frame supports together and that seemed to take are of it.
 
Apollo 600w 6 inch cool tube.- so far so good.
 
Hydrofarm 45 LPM runs 3, 4 inch disk airstones. I run it outside the tent and it's a bit too loud for me, It may be the frequency, but it seems to be the most noticble sound, so if anyone has a suggestion on a better one please post it.
 
Phresh 400 6in 400cfm carbon filter
 
Phresh 450cfm intake filter
 
Canmax 334cfm 3 speed fan- I run it on high it's noticble but no louder than the dehumidfiers,
 
4in rockwool cubes in 10in net pots with clay pebbles.

 

Got some 7.0 Ph calibration solution and the Etekcity meter I had was way off after only a week, it seems to loose accuracy by the second.   It was $20 so I guess I got what I paid for.  Going to need to get a new meter so if anyone has a suggestion please post it.
 
Addtionally I've noticed my PPM's are about 350 or so after I add the calmag, so I'm confused as to if that's part of the total I want or if it should be added to it?
 
Here is a pic of the Green Love Potion today

 

Got some more clay pebbles and got the rockwool covered, lowered my fan to blow across the plants a little more. 
 

 

I checked my PPM's and PH on my buckets tonight, and I noticed I had one tiny root out of the clay pebbles, .  PPM's on the Bomb and White Rhino are about 480-450, and the Green Love Potion which is just RO water and calmag is 330,  I need to get some calibration solution for the TDS meter.
 
My PH's seems to drop from 5.7 to 5.2 ovenight, starting to wish I had gone with the PH Perfect, but hindsight is 20/20 as they say.  I raised the White Rhino bucket to 5.95, maybe the drop won't be as bad, hoping I can get this figured out, there are going to be days up to 3-4 I won't be able to tend to them not many, rigging a few more buckets and some float valves is no biggie, but if I can't keep the PH from swinging that's going to be an issue. 
 
I guess if I had anything to add I would say I wish I had cleaned up the the netpots, and what I mean is the little openings for the roots to go through.  Some seem small but more than that on closer inspection there is to be some blockage especially on the bottom  from run over on the plastic mold, I imgine a dremel tool or some small files would clean them up quickly.

 

 
Thanks I cheked out your grow, and subbed as well, looks like you're doing some good work.

 

 
 
I dumped the res and refilled with RO water with just a little calmag when I first noticed the spots, she's doing fine now, far as I can tell anyway.   I took your suggestion and backed the lamp up to maybe a foot and a half.  Thanks for the input.
 
 
 

 
Thanks for the sub, I subbed your new grow as well, look forward to learning from your experince. 
 
Good to know on the calmag, somehow I got the idea it was absoutly necessary for RO water. 
 
I do have some Subculture B and M I was just waiting for my next full res change to add it.  Would you reccomend going full strength on those since it's not actual nutes?
 
My tent temp is 77-88F and my res seems cool, I need to pick up some thermometers for the buckets.
 
Thanks for the help.
 

 
Thanks,  I didn't buy enough hydrotron, I was way off considering I was orginally planning on running 4 buckets,  but I fixed that issue over the weekend and they are now buried. I think I might cut some coardboard and cover it in mylar to fit over the hydrotron as well.

 

Appreciate all the help and subs.