Hi guys, got a rdwc going, only started about a week ago and have had problems since day one. I read that it’s pretty important to keep res sterile if not using bennies, so when I first filled res, I ran bleach for 2 days before starting. Drained that then mixed up nutes, called professor nutrients, went a very week mix of a and b, and some ph down. Now the water went slightly cloudy that night, and hasn’t changed since. The ph is rising like crazy, been adding 15ml of ph down every day and it’s a constant battle. Using tap water 45l res. Just checked the water this afternoon and was cloudy like normal but now has semi clear white flakes in it? I feel it can’t be root rot as the plants only germinated last week... there is a slight slime build up on air hoses within the buckets, but how did this manage to happen straight away? Temps are a little bit high but the air temp in the tent has been around 25c lights on. Might start chucking frozen bottles in the res, is water temp my issue? Any help is appreciated
Forgot to mention after I added nutes etc to res I added a couple drops of bleach and have done so most days after... also forgot to mention after an hour of everything in the res it produced a little bit of yellowish foam from the air stones, assuming colour was just from nutes
I'd start using a different fertilizer. GH MaxiBloom, Greenleaf Megacrop, and JR Peters have some good and cheap stuff. The GH 3-part liquid is good, but over-priced. I use Megacrop and clorox, never change out the whole reservoir, and have never had problems.
how does that MC drift for you? is it pretty stable? i am getting ready to run it in my RDWC setup. i have a mentor helping me and he uses it as well. just lookin for others input.... also GFF is a cheaper option to hydroguard, southern states Garden Friendly Fungicide.
also your water temps are gettin to high even for hydroguard or GFF, your always gonna have an issue until you can keep temps below 22c. caveat: i am currently about to be on my first RDWC grow, and the information i have provided in my two posts, is information that was passed to me from much wiser people, and i am passing it to you.... someone may say i am wrong and i may be
I have 15 gallons of fluid in each of two multiple plant reservoirs, so the larger volume is easier to keep stable. I need a dropper-full or two of pH up or dn every few days, depending on growth stage.
what size dropper do you use? and ill be pushing 20gal with chiller..... right now i am at ~17gal with 4 sites and the res, all 5gal buckets.
oh i know that, i was just making sure, the last ones i ordered came with a flipping 3ml pipet, couldn't believe it!
You were correct to ask. I have some smaller tincture bottles whose droppers don't hold that much. I store pH up/dn in 4 oz tincture bottles, and then either add by the drop or by the dropper-full. The 1 mL droppers contain about 18 drops at 70 F.
nice, i am hoping the addition of up/down is relatively easy. my mentor says MC at full dosage should hang around 6.5 no up or down, and i hope it does that for me too, cause that would make me not stress as much! lol
I will leave this here, I might have misunderstood the conversation as I quickly skimmed it over but 6.5 is high ph if you running that in dwc Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Whatever ur air is, its gonna be ur water temp unless you chill/insulate. I keep my water temp at 65-67f with a probe chiller drilled into my 5gal bucket. My air temps are 76-78. So my chiller is almost constantly chilling 10 degrees f. Also consider that your water has air going through it from your airstone (dont know if u airstone or waterfall or agitate lol) so it's constantly and directly being exposed to your air temps. "The ph is rising like crazy, been adding 15ml of ph down every day and it’s a constant battle." I've read you shouldn't add ph up or down directly to your res. You dilute it, then add that water. As well to not combine ph down and ph up in the same res. im a noob, Grain of salt, do ur research edit: Ive read and experienced drastic pH rises might point towards algae, which needs light to live, so check light leaks into your res.
I actually thought it would be a lot better, but it does the job. And it wasnt $300-1000. Just $140. I havent tested it, but it most likely wouldn't work as well in such a large res. If I were to switch to a large res, since I already have one probe, I'de probably buy another and test it. I put one in a 5gal and like i said, it works. Keeps my water cold as long as my air temps arent ridiculous. No insulating was necessary for me, but shoot, that would probably make it even more effective. The only two reasons I didn't want to get a water chiller is cause the space and the price. The probe was perfect for me and my bucket size.....for now... xD Novatec Iceprobe water chiller but again, this option is prob not for you. If you have the space and willing to spend the money, investing into a water chiller might save you from much struggle.
Well I was just curious cause to me they seemed to good to be true.... for a fish tank or one 5gal bucket it makes sense but not for 20gal plus..... but they do say they can cool up to 20gal tanks efficiently.... and I do think another guy runs them On his system.
I agree! If I ever test two in a 20gal, I'll try and let you know how it goes. Also I hate the idea of more and more stuff to plugin if I were to use multiples of those probes. Someday might go with an expensive water chiller but I don't wanna. Sent from my SM-A102U using Grasscity Forum mobile app