elzz

well im gonna give my try at deep water culture.. bubble bubble. just dont know where to start when it comes to nutes for hydroponics. i've been in the soil for years. Are ther any complete fertilizer lines out ther i can pick up at the hydro store? I dont really want to be mixing and matching different ferts just want one that has all the micros and everything. any tips? im gonna ask the hydro guy but thought i'd ask here before i make the trip.

growerwannaB

Hey Elzz,
Welcome to the wonderful world of hydroponics. I'm currently at the tail end of my first hydro grow. I've got about 3 weeks left before harvest. I'm using sort of a form of DWC. I'm using a GH hydrofarm. It's made up of 8 growing buckets, controller and resivoir. If you look up the hydrofarm on General hydroponics website you'll see what I"m talkin about. But as for the nutes, I'm using General Hydroponics brand Nutrients. You can download their feeding recommendation schedule from their website too. Mix your nutes just like the feeding schedule says and you should do fine. I know I am...Be careful on how you mix the nutes though.....Put the Micro in the water first then stir the water and get it good an mixed up. Then add your flora grow, stir water, then add bloom and stir again. Mix the suppliments that you choose to use also in the same manner. And if you don't use any other suppliments with your plants.....AT LEAST USE THE DIAMOND NECTAR!!! That stuff is AWESOME!!! I would also recommend the Floralicious bloom and the Kool Bloom. I didn't veg long enough to need the Floralicious grow....but if you want to do Scrog, I would seriously recommend that as well. Flush your res or whatever kind of growing setup you ultimately get with either plain clean water for at least 4 - 6 hours between nutrient changes or use Flora Kleen with the clean water. I used the flora kleen a few times with the flush...but have come to determine an adequate amount of fresh water cycled in the system for a few hours does a great job. But will most likely use the flora Kleen for the Final flush before harvest. For an added bonus...or at least I think its a bonus...I collect and use rain water in my hydro system. Rain Water PPM where I live is 4 and PH is between 6.5 and 7. That is another thing you will need to consider with going hydro....MJ is rather sensitive to PH levels.....What I've been doing is this...and it's worked...I have one of the ph test kits where you fill the little vile and add the 3 drops of test solution and you shake the vial and see what color the water is. I adjust mine so the water is pi$$ yellow. That's a ph of 6. After I add the nutes the ph goes down just a bit...but tends to drift back up and stay in a safe range for the plants. Ideal PH would be about 5.8. And get yourself one of those TDS meters. The little handheld pen types are okay...they give you a close enough reading to call it accurate. When you mix the GH nutes as per the chart...your PPM will be a LOT more than what the chart says it will be...but...just add clean ph adjusted water a little bit at a time to get your PPM in the range specified in the chart. But I'm sure you know how to read your plants so if they appear like they can take a stronger PPM then by all means give them more, but do it in small incriments. Now you've seen me say a couple times that its been working for me...so here is a pic to show you what I mean....and this is only my third time growing this glorious plant and my first time using hydroponics. I'm sure I can do much better...but hey...this is my first time. ;-)

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GrowerWannaB

Cannabis Connoisseur

They are many "complete" lines of hydro nutrients. Generally, it's a two or 3 part (2 or 3 bottles of stuff: Macros, Micros, Boosters) system that requires you to use specific quantities of each bottle to form your solution.

If you want a lot of help, try the "General Hydro" series ... plenty of our hydro growers here use it and you should be able to get some good advice from them. GH is a very simple 3 part system.

My advice? Make sure to get a pH test kit of some kind, regardless of the nutrient brand you select ... it is a hydro growers best friend

C.C.

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The reason "home-grown" is no longer synonymous with "schwag" is because of the control indoor growers have over the plant environment. Over the last few decades, we have learned what the near-ideal environment is for MJ cultivation. To paraphrase a genious, "We stand on the shoulders of giants".

elzz

i've thought about using GH but its not stocked in my hydro shop. I think im gonna use DNF's line.. 2 part system, supposed to be real stabble PH. I'll probably pick up some vita max or other as a supplement for trace elements and minerals.
Something i havent quite understood is, u mix up yur solution and put yur plant in it, how long do you leave this before swapping the water with new solution?

growerwannaB

Well, you know, With the magic of the internet and world wide shipping you can actually use pretty much any nutrients you want to use. There are some that they say are impossible to get here in the US, but if you're persistant enough and dig deep enough, you'll find places that will ship here. As long as you have a credit card or a paypal account....By the way "EBAY"!! No more need be said about that. ;-) I change my nutes once a week. Every Sunday to be exact. About Noon every sunday I drain my system and refill with fresh, ph adjusted rain water. I let it sit in the system till about 4:30. The buckets each have an air tube that is in the nutrient solution and airiates it for 30 minutes out of each hour, which also pumps the water through a drip....more like a spurt ring. I feel it does a pretty good job of flushing out the salts that can build up in a system. I'm sure you already know this....but just in case, Don't use the water that you used to flush the system again. I use the water from my system to water my lawn. :-D Gonna have nice grass this summer. :-)) It really isn't as difficult as you've probably thought to be...it's pretty simple. I can't wait to get good enough at it to do some experimenting.

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GrowerWannaB

elzz

ok so once a week, new solution. bubbler on/off in 15 minute intervals. resevoir is a light tight box. buy a digital meter and adjust PH and PPM as needed.
I pretty much get it all now.. except for the part where u go from cutting a clone and putting it into this magical bubbler machine.. heres my guess:

cut the clone off the plant
dip in rooting powder
put in wet rockwool cube
once the clone has a root poke out the rockwool, put it in the bubbler.
correct?

1) what do i put the rockwool cube in while it is first growing roots
2) how full do i fill the resevoir / how deep in the water would the rockwool cube be?

growerwannaB

I don't personally use Rockwool. I use Oasis Cubes and my system is a bit different than yours....I would recommend Oasis cubes due to not having to worry about PH fluctuations...but thats just my personal experience and opinion. I get 100% success rate so if you have them available to you...try the oasis cubes...I think they may also be called rapid rooters. Hope this helps.

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GrowerWannaB

daltron

Hello elzz ,

I know you just said that your local hydro does not have the GH line ....to bad.....if you do come across the GH line of products then I recomend you check out the G.H. Flora Nova grow and the Flora Nova flower I do think that this is what you are looking for...........

for myself; organic soil, that is until my friends talked me into trying hydro a few month's back, just pulled in my first hydro crop using DWC and all I can say is WoW

Flora Nova is the organic line all you need extra is a small bottle of Flora shield to help keep the nasty'ies off of your root system and out of the nute solution.........if you want they do offer 2 or 3 other products to work in conjuction with the Nova line...........but I used just the Nova and could not beleave the results.

2 unknown bagseed each about 3 1/2 feet total height and 4 oz of bud from #1 and 5 oz of bud from #2

It should be a crime the way I treated these plants......like I said I was talked into it so I just threw my buckets into the corner of my GR, changed the nute's every Sunday also, durning the week I topped off with pH adjusted water, last 10 days used only plain water for nute's and that was it......can it get any more easy? I don't think so

hence I will be doing this again.....only this time I think I will start with some ICE clones, better light and more space

just my let me know if you want to see some pic's, I don't have the time now to crop, edit, resize, save and upload, but I will later today if you want to see some pic's

daltron

P.S. you said: ok so once a week, new solution. bubbler on/off in 15 minute intervals. resevoir is a light tight box. buy a digital meter and adjust PH and PPM as needed.
I pretty much get it all now..

the bubbler { air stones } run 24/7

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elzz

thanks for all the help guys.. I've decided to try DNF's line along with whatever PH up/down and micro boost the hydro guy advises.

I'd love to see some pics.. especialy close up of going from rooted clone to popping the rooted clone into the bubbler.. this step is still kinda hazzy for me.

i feel comfortable rooting the clones in small plastic cups of soil.. would it be possible to use a clone rooted in soil in this system? would i just cut the bottom off the cup and let the bubling water slowly wash all the dirt from the roots?

n_d_shadows

why not try vermiculite for rooting? I use it and it works great. Plants get a strong hold in it also. Im also trying a mix of Aquatic Plant Soil and Vermiculite on some recent cuttings. So far results are typical, in that I get roots.
Use a soldering iron to burn holes in the bottom 1" of the cups. the roots will grow through the holes and into the solution.
I dont reccommend using regular soil though, the soil will contaminate the water and cause weird ph/nutrient issues and other problems. The APS though is more like crushed hydroton and is ph neutral. Needs to be rinsed before use though.

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