Hi everyone,
So I'm relatively new to the RDWC world, I decided to give it a try after many,many,many months of research thanks to the like of Heath's Deciple, Sqydro, Hannibal and a few others (sorry i've forgot a few names). Although I felt confident enough to take plunge I seem to have fell somewhat short.
Be it beginner's luck, my first attempt at RDWC yielded the best results and it's been pretty much down hill from there.
I'm currently using 4 oxy dripper tanks (3 for plants 1 for main res) each fed by a it's own maxi jet 1000 (3 in total), with two 40mm waste pipe returns from each bucket to main res. I'm using a chiller for the day time and a nute heater at night to keep water temps stable at 19-20C. The feed to each tank makes a waterfall to create DO and I have also created another waterfall in the main res using the return from the chiller. The plants were vegged in 15 litre trays made for the oxy tank with drippers until the roots hit the res. For those that don't know the oxy dripper (or brummie bubbler I think its known as) is basically a 90 tank, from which you use about 40-50 litres of water then sit the 15 litre tray on top, water line is sitting about an inch up from the bottom of the 15 litre tray. The medium in the tray is clay pebbles. The water is changed every week to keep things fresh.
The plants are critical kush from seed, currently in 5th week of veg. Each plant has its own 600w light, I know this is excessive but I will explain why soon. I keep a daily check on ph and ec levels, ph being 5.8 and ec is at 1.3 at the moment ( background ec of 0.5). The nutes I am using is canna aqua as it's made for medium hard water.
My first attempt was with normal bulbs in shades with 20ltr buckets and was a great success, and then with 50 ltr totes and with the current tanks with limited and no success. My first switch to the totes was kind of ok but struggled through veg, and the second attempt died 5 weeks into flower and which also struggled in veg. Why they died I have no idea, they just stopped drinking, packed up and wilted away. I used the exact same shedule as previous successful grows so to me it’s a mystery.
When I switched to the totes I also started using vertical lighting as I have seen so many good results. Whether my problems are associated with hanging bare bulbs or whether it is just coincidence I do not know. The bulbs are hung 8-10'' away from plants so no heat stress.
It seems as though I'm getting more and more problems when really I should be getting less and less. I always veg using 600w metal halide but my main problem is little or no growth, as I mentioned they are 5 weeks in veg and 2 are 16'' tall (about 1 1/2 feet tall) and the 3rd it around 20''. I have since gave them a 600w light each but none of them have grown for over a week now which is following the same pattern as when I moved to the 50 ltr totes. I check the roots daily and they too seem to stop growing whenever it suits them. Around 12 days a go I put a bulb back in a shade and placed it over the top of the smallest plant to gain some height, but to no avail.
I have been putting the stunted growth down the vertical bulbs as it coincided with the first time I encountered problems, but now I'm not so sure. I'm getting some older fan leaves that are yellowing with brown spots but the new growth (whenever the bastards do grow) is fine. This time round my ph is dropping whilst my ec is stable, this is a new problem and has never happened before as it normally rises steadily.
I have a 6'' outake fan and a 4'' intake, room temps are around 26-28c daytime and around 18-20c at night.
Humidty is about 20%, ive tried different humidifier's but they don't make a difference, I rekon to sort it properly I would need to pay £300-£400 for a professional humidifier.
So, to sum up;
3 Critical Kush feminized from seed
5th week of veg
4 tanks holding 40-50 litres each
MJ1000 to each bucket and chiller (4 in total)
2 40mm tank connectors per tank with 40mm waste pipe returns
Canna Aqua
E.C. 1.3 (background 0.5)
PH 5.8
Room temps 26-28c day, 18-20 night
Res temp 19-20c 24 hours a day
Waterfall in each tank for DO
Room size 3m x 2.5m
Vertical bulbs 600w
I'm sorry if i've confused anyone, I hope that's all the important info I know I will have missed something out. Any advice will be appreciated as I am almost resigned to going back to standing buckets and airstones.
Just to add, I spoke with a guy from a hyro store about all this today and recommended I put the water pumps on a 15 min on/off timer. He thinks there may be too much oxygen in the system and the plants don't like it. I'm not convinced about this as I've seen sytems run with more powerful pumps that recirculate faster, nevertheless I am going to give it a go and see what happens.
Thanks or taking the time to read this,
Ernest
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