Hello all, I have started my very first grow and thought it would be a good thing to start a grow journal. I have been on the forum reading others journals and posts to learn all I can about growing. I know I have a long way to go before I perfect any of this but so far I am enjoying the ride. Below you will see my grow information, please feel free to follow my progress and make suggestions that will be BENEFICIAL to my experience. Grow start date: 1/9/2017 - planted Ice in 1" RW 1/12/17 - Ice seed sprouted 1/14/17 - placed Ice in DWC; planted WWxBB in 1" RW cube 1/19/17 - WWxBB seed sprouted 1/20/17 - WWxBB placed in dwc Strains: Nirvana Ice; White Widow x Big Bud hybrid (can't remember the seed bank at the moment) Space: Closet; 4x2x7 tent Method: DWC/ scrog- top feeding by hand w/ H2O from res until roots emerge from net pot Light cycle: 18/6 currently Reservoir: two 5-gallon buckets w/ 6" net pot lids (Lowe's blue buckets) Lighting: 600W Viparspectra LED, 19" away from seedlings Fans: Apollo Horticulture AH IF6 +6FC 6" 440 CFM Inline Fan w/ 6" Carbon Filter (placed outside of tent for more space) ducting is hanging from top port into tent 1- 6" clip fan (non-oscillating) & 1 - Honeywell Turbo Force Air circulator Fan Nutrients: GH Flora Trio, RAW solubles Sea Kelp (used for soaking Rockwool cube prior to adding seed), HydroGuard Reservoir PH: 5.5-6.5 (struggling to keep pH below 7.0 right now for some reason. I think it's a temp issue) Tent Temp & Humidity: 71-82F / 52-69% Reservoir Temp: 73-75F w/o frozen bottles 61-69F w/frozen bottles Reservoir H2O change: every 7-10 days Water: rainwater pH 8.0, 9 ppm I placed my sprouts straight into the system as soon as they emerged from the rock wool. This has created a challenge with ensuring root growth for me because I had to figure out the exact level to have water without over or under saturating the rock wool cube. I ended up leaving it about 1 inch into bottom of net pot since no roots had emerged from the RW cube. I have just been top feeding by hand with a little res water when the cube looks like it is drying out. Hopefully I will see roots soon with this method. My WWxBB sprout is younger than the ICE but I believe it will catch up. Pics of my setup are below. Should I drop my exhaust duct all the down to the floor? I have it up at the top moreso thinking since heat rises it will extract most of the heat best from that position. Im having to use the exhaust to keep the tent cool because it is in a small closet. I had the black turbo fan on the floor but decided to lift it up to help circulate the air better and to give both sprouts a gentle breeze. My clip fan is not the best and its hard to get it to blow on both without falling off its post. So this is it, what do you all think??
Also I should add... I have been having issues with my reservoir pH increasing beyond 6.5 over the course of the day. I think it was due to a combination of things 1. the beginning development of a pinkish brown biofilm in my buckets (evident on my tubes and aerators) and 2. high reservoir temps (above 68F). The water color was also starting to turn a bit cloudy so I knew something was up. I changed the water out completely and sterilized EVERYTHING with bleach. Yes, I used bleach but made sure to get rid of it by rinsing everything SEVERAL times before reassembling. I used fresh rainwater and added about 15mL of Hydroguard to one reservoir and about 15mL H2O2 to the other. Assuming I successfully cleansed the setup from the bacteria that was causing the slime, I wanted to see which one would be better at keeping it from reoccurring. Also Ive made sure to try to maintain sterility (clean up spills immediately and wear gloves) whenever I work in my tent or have to actually go inside the reservoir. Cleanliness goes a long way in any environment . Hopefully by practicing that in addition to adding frozen water bottles to lower the res temp things will stay in the ranges necessary to minimize growth of unwanted microorganisms.
UPDATE: I just added a new air pump to my setup . I was using a basic 6w aquarium pump (15L/min). I am now using an 18w eco plus pump. It is making a huge difference with my res aeration! I am using 9.5" Redfrog aerators and one 2" airstone in each bucket. I hope this helps speed up my seedling's growth. They are starting to worry me, lol. Don't seem to be doing much up top. Wondering if I should start adding nutrients now? or just keep waiting until roots grow out from the net pots?
I would go ahead and add some nutrients. With your setup, your nutrients should stay perfectly viable for well over than a week. By then, if your babies haven't somehow sucked it up, their roots should be breaking through by then. Maybe (if there is enough submerged stem) move around some beads to get more of the stem visible to get some more air flow and light down there. This should both strengthen the stem and stimulate some vertical growth. If this doesn't work, I'd personally move them to an easier medium where they can get their footing before putting them in the beads. Good luck!
Also subbing, sounds like a pretty organized grow and I wouldn't mind seeing what other people are yielding. Im in week 5 of fowering the wwbb currently.
**Update**-- Hello all sorry I haven't posted in a few days Ive had a lot going on lately. But anyways to fill you in currently I am still working to rid my system of the recurring slime contamination. Like i said it is my first grow so I am learning while doing most of the time. However I have read multiple posts online on how to deal with this in setups like mine and cannot seem to solve my issue. I have tried reducing reservoir temperature, adding preventive i.e hydroguard, using quality water, add more aeration but NOTHING seems to help. I thoroughly disinfected my setup for the second time this past weekend to no avail. I used bleached but made sure to rinse it completely out of both buckets and all my other equipment. I've been careful to keep net pot lids on buckets when adjusting pH etc. but today I notice the gunky slime in the bottom of my net pot. My seedlings are just babies they are going on 2 and 3 weeks from seed. Because of all of the issues Ive had with pH and temp fluctuations from day 1, their root systems are still weak and underdeveloped. They still have yet to grow out of the net pots into the nutrient water!! Although the WWxBB is showing a lot of top growth and looks to be doing ok despite these issues. However, the Ice seedling's first leaves (not the cotyledons) have turned yellow and dried up. Its second set are still green but only have a slight yellow ting on its tips. I think it may have damped off but I am keeping it going just to give it a fighting chance! I am going to wrap my blue Lowe's 5-gal buckets with Reflectix insulation and do another reservoir water change. Hopefully this will fix it once and for all. After cleaning everything, I will wrap buckets, adjust water to 5.5pH, and add 30mL of 3% H2O2. Will run for about a day and if things look ok will add nutrients back. I may not add any nutrients at all, at least until i see more root formation. So far plants have only received 1/8th of recommended nute dosage. Does my current plan of action make sense? Is there something better that I should do to fix this? I have been using frozen plastic 1 liter juice bottles to help with res temperatures. I wish I had a better way to do but this is what I have for now. I know I could buy a chiller but don't have the space for that, not too mention its expensive for a small grow like mine. Any helpful suggestions or comments are appreciated, please do share your thoughts.
So I have managed to make a couple adjustments in my setup based on suggestions from others and things I've read online. I plan to get rid of the algae in a two part solution. Here's what Ive done so far... Part I: 1. Washed buckets and aerators with bleach. thoroughly rinsed everything before reassembling 2. Cleansed all the visible slime from net pots by spraying with a high pressure shower head. I know there may still be some inside but hoping to take care of that with Part II 2. Wrapped buckets with Reflectix. Put reflective tape on one bucket to see if it would make difference in maintaining lower temperatures. I usually find that the temp has increased to 73-75F when I check res in the morning due to bottles melting o/n. I know I could solve this by using bigger bottles or changing them again during the night. Well the latter solution is a no go because I am a heavy sleeper and getting up in the middle of the night isn't practical for me. The larger bottles will take up too much space in the res and will block my circular Redfrog aerators (I'm contemplating to discontinue using these, they don't seem as strong as I'd like). 3. Placed buckets back in tent on top of concrete paver's stone. I'm hoping the concrete serves as a heat sink for each reservoir. 4. Added fresh DI h2o pH 5.5, cal-mag (wasn't too sure if i should've waited for this but went ahead), and hydroguard. I did not use H2O2 this time at all! No nutrients were added only running H2O. 5. Added newly frozen H2O bottles to each bucket 6. Raised LED to 24" Part II: had to order a few items for this so will pick up with this once everything arrives in the mail. 1. Make a microbial tea consisting of Hydroguard, Extreme Gardening Mykos, and EWC 2. Add 3 cups to reservoir on Day 1 and afterwards 1 cup every 3 days 3. Add more tubing between pump and reservoir. Hoping this will allow time for air to cool down some before reaching reservoir water. I believe this is also a heat source. Currently using an Ecoplus 18W industrial pump. It puts out a lot of air but it's very loud and I hate that about it. Will later try to figure out a way to quiet it, right now its suspended from a shelf outside of grow tent. I noticed placing the buckets on the concrete has seemed to help with the noise level some.
Do you have good airflow and ventilation? I wish I was more knowledgeable in DWC to offer more advice. With soil grows, I just constantly flush the medium until the plants show signs of recovery.
I do have good airflow. I am beginning to think I should use a regular airstone and let go of the Red frog diffusers. They do produce fine bubbles but it just doesn't create much action in my 3 gal of water.
UPDATE: I just wanted to let everyone know that things are going well now that I have began treating my reservoirs with the microbe tea. I added the first dose (3 cups )on Sunday and will add more (1 cup) on tomorrow. So far Ive not noticed any slime development nor smelled any bad scents coming from the buckets. Haven't had to adjust pH, readings have all been within the 5.5-6.5 range. I am concerned about ppm value being on the high end of 400's but I haven't been feeding no where near full strength. I think this is too high for my young plants. So I drained some of the res water out and replaced with plain water to try dilute things down some. It helped bring down the ppm's to 300 range but i checked this morning and the values are climbing back up. I hope this is not the start of a new issue for this grow. My WWxBB plant actually has one root extending from the net pot finally, hopefully more are soon to follow. The Ice plant is still hanging in there, no visible roots though. It just seems to be a bit more perky and is not drying up like the first leaf set. Hopefully things will continue to go well....
What's going on Shetokes. I just came across you journal and and interested in seeing how you do. I grow indoors using flood tables full of hydroton and have and 4x4 area that I grow in pots. My flowering tent is 8x8 and I needed and way to access all three flood tables so instead of a 4th table I went with staying in organic soil. I'm my set up I found the larger the reservoir that cooler the water tends to stay and the less issues I have. Have you though of converting your set up to heavy duty Rubbermaid tubs. I find 5 gallon buckets end up being too small to grow decent size plants without having constant issues throughout the grow. One point I would like to bring up is to remember to flush the plants every few weeks in order to remove the salt build up and prevent lock out. This will help your plants grow more quickly and finish faster. Lockout can prevent you plants from absorbing nutrients and growing which stunts flowering and results in poor quality flowers. I would shoot to attemp to keep water temp at or under 70 degrees. The cooler the water the slower algae and other thing will grow. Flushing and sanitizing every few weeks will also keep thing clean and running efficiently. 300 ppm at the time seem fine. As the plant grows I would slowly increase to around 800 ppm and 1000 a few days to week prior to flowering. This will allow the plant to absorb pliant of nitrogen prior to transitioning to flowering. One way to keep temps cooler as a last resort would be to freeze jugs of water and add them to the buckets when temps get to high. Also I read other prior posting and I suggest keeping the exhaust at the top of the tent and use an intake fan at the ground level. I would also run an oscillating fan to help simulate outdoor conditions and it helps the plant exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide. I would also dial back your watering slightly. Can you lift the plant to feel the weight. By letting the rock whoop dry out it makes the plant stretch its roots looking for water. Plants roots also need oxygen so it also benefits the roots by letting them get so oxygen between waterings. I personally on use oasis cube when growing from clones. I try to alway use clones from my ezcloner but it's not always enough so some oasis cubes get used to root clones. Beside that I only use hydroton in the individual pots and in the rest of the flood tables. This is my third grow using this set up and I have things just about dialed in. My setup requires very little work each week and all water and temperature control are done by timers. All I do it trading and maintain plants and check my water twice a week. I also do IPM once a week to prevent mite, aphids and other pest. I find using hydroton I have had less issues with most pest except the dreaded mites. Those bastard alway sneak up some how. I recently started a new grow journal so feel free to come check it out. I'll add the link in another posting. I have 7 years of growing cannabis year round so if you have questions feel free to ask. I will do my best to get back with you in a timely manner. I am very busy with raising boys and am attending college along with maintaining a fairly large indoor grow so sometimes I am not on Grasscity for a few days. I just recently started posting again after taking a break from it for a while. I used to belong to a NorCal knew and we passed a lot of knowledge between use but we ended up having some trolls and members who got out of control so it was shut down by admin so after that most of us took a break or quit the website all together. I feel time has passed and want to once again help young growers. Sorry for the long posting. My college classes have gotten me used to being long winded at times. Good luck Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
KI's 2017 indoor adventures https://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?threads/KI's-2017-indoor-adventures.1440983/ Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Hi Kronicly insane, thanks a lot for stopping by and sharing your knowledge. You have a nice setup going and I am definitely going to stay tuned to what your doing. Things appear to be going well with my grow as far as the algae growth I was experiencing. The microbe tea corrected it quickly. I probably won't be making any major setup changes any time soon. I've really committed to riding this 5gal dwc thing all the way out. Maybe the next time around. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
It has taken me a while to get back to the forum, it's been a crazy past few weeks for me from being sick to school priorities. Things have settled so I should be back posting more about my grow. Since my last update my grow has been going smoothly. No more problems with the algae, thanks to the microbe tea. My res temps and ph have been steady. I change out water bottles twice a day sometimes only once. The Ice seedlings didn't make it so I pitched it. It damped off inside the RW cube. Roots never grew into hydroton. Will give it another shot in the future. I now want to focus on growing the wwXbb properly. Roots have formed nicely and it's starting to show some growth up top too. I will try to remember to post pics tonight. Right now I'm focusing on stimulating more lateral growth and figuring out the plant's nutrient uptake rate. Right now she is around 600 ppm although I'm still not giving the full recommended dose. I know there are charts etc out there that tell you what the ppm's should be in relation to growth stage but I'd rather let the plant tell me what or how much it wants. Although I do reference the charts for ballpark figures. I'm just slowly increasing nutes as the ppm's decrease. I haven't reached full recommended dosage yet going to try to bring it up as the plant allows by adding more nutes a little at a time. I hope this doesn't stunt growth. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
I really feel this plant should be much bigger now considering how long it's been since sprouting. I know the slime issue slowed growth down a bit but geesh. Taking that into consideration it's approaching wk 3 of veg. based on how it looks. Has Anyone experienced this before? Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
I'm thinking I may have to go ahead and buy a chiller. Looks like I will have to travel in a few weeks and I don't have anyone to keep up my water bottle change out. I was really hoping to make it thru this grow without one but I guess that was unrealistic of me. It wouldn't be so bad if they (chillers) weren't so expensive! I have been looking at 1/10 hp units all day and I just can't make a decision on which brand to go with EcoPlus or Active Aqua (hydrofarm). Can someone shed some light on which is the better product between the two. Perhaps somebody owns one. On another note, here are a few recent pics of my grow. Day 35 Veg (since sprouting): Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum