DWC afghan kush ryders 1155w cfl grow

Hey all!!

So this is my second grow after an extremely successful first grow of two star ryders from dutch passion in a drip irragation system. I've decided to switch up the hydroponics for this grow and go with a DWC; as well as switching to cfl's from led panels. So this whole set up is new to me so I decided maybe I'd keep track of it with a proper grow log!

Now down to business! I'll be growing six afghan kush auto ryders from world of seeds. Now with this grow Ive already gone about 3 weeks into it from planting the seeds and have 3 plants in my tent vegging and 3 that are just seedlings still. Eventually the plants will all be together in the same tent and tote and the plants that are about 12 days ahead will be on a nutrient schedule that the seedlings will be following. Yes it's not optimal but I'll get to why I'm doing this soon enough.

Alright so first my set up!

Seedling closet
-2'x3'x8' mylar lined sliding door closet

Light source
-60w 450nm blue/6500k led
-2 x 20w 5000k 800 lumen t8's on reflector and balast

Climate control
-humidifier
-Seedling heating mat

Metering
-Analogue temp/hum meter

The seeds are planted in rapid rooters and places in a humid tote till they germinate. After which they go in the closet and are placed In a seedling tray with a heating mat under it and the t8's 1" and the led 12" above the canopy.

Vegging area

Tent
-2'x4'x5' mylar lined tent

Light source
-7 x 105w 5500k 7000 lumen cfl's
-3 x 85w 5500k 6000 lumen cfl's
-3 x 55w 2700k 3600 lumen cfl's

Air circulation
-5000 btu ac intake
-4" inline exhaust fan w/controller & scrubber
-12" oscillating fan
-8" fan

Hydroponics
-60L tote wrapped in black duct tape followed by a layer of silver duct tape w/ six 5" holes for six 5" net baskets

Oxygenation
-100 gallon capacity dual outlet air pump w/2 x 1" x 2" air stones
-8lpm air pump dual outlet w/2x 1"x4" air stones
-10 gallon capacity air pump w/1"x4" air stone

Reservoir monitoring
-hanna grochek continuous ph /tds/temp meter

Tent monitoring
-digital hygrometer/thermomter

Once the plants hit 10 days of age they go into the baskets in the tent and are vegged.

So that's my set up! The dwc is filled up to about 48L once a week with tap water (12 ppm starting average @ ph 7.2) with nutrients and suppliments added to it. The plants are in hydroton clay and are hand watered until the roots reach the water in te dwc and propegate.

Now on to the nutrients I'll be using! This is going to be quite the list as I went a little crazy on the nutes and suppliments so get ready for a read! (All nutrients are AN).

Sensi grow/bloom A & B
B 52
Golden goddess fulvic acid
H2 humic acid
Piranha
Tarantula
Voodo juice
Carboload
Bud blood
Bud ignitor
Big bud
Bud candy
Hammer head
Overdrive
Flawless finish
Dutch master silica gold

Heh I said u was using a Lotta stuff! Everything will be used in accordance with the directions on bottle aside from the benificials piranha and tarantula being used in the veg phase as well as bloom.

So I'll wrap up this post with just my tent and closets average conditions and then make a new post outlining my actual grow and not just technical stuff.

The seedling closet averages around 74°F and RH of 55%. It is kept on a 24/0 light schedule and the seedlings are kept approx one inch from the T8's at all times. They will be grown for 10 days in the closet before being x planted.

The tent averages a temp of 77°F and a RH of 45% with the lights on and with the lights off the temp goes down to about 65°F and the RH stays the same. The lights are on a 18/6 schedule the AC also turns off when the lights go off. The reservoir stays at approx 64°F on average and the ph usually drifts between .3 -.5 pH within a 24 hour time period. The ph usually hovers between 6.1 - 6.2 altho in the morning it is put down to 5.6ish and allowed to drift up. Nutrients are started at half strength and increased from there.

So there you have it that's my set up! Now in the new post I'll start with the grow itself.

Alright on to the grow.

On November 26th three afghan kush auto ryders were put into rapid rooters and placed in a dark closet in a humidity tote to germinate. By the 29th all had germinated and they were transfered to the seedling closet where they were kept for 14 days until they were to be moved into the veg tent. During this time i decided to fore go giving them just water and created a mixture of sippliments that i believe really enhances at least the root zone of yhe seedlings. Every two days i would mix up a solution of 250ml water with the following additives:
0.5ml fulvic/humic acid
0.5ml pirahna/tarantula/Voodo juice

Things were going great until i was ready to transplant them. Unfortunately the 14 days i waited was to long to hold off the nutes for, all three of the seedlings developed a nitrogen deficiency and thier bottom set of true leaves turned bright yellow.

This was on december 10th that they were found to be deficient in nitrogen. They were immediately put in the veg tent and given the following nutrients at half their recommended dose.

AN sensi grow A & B
B52
Piranha
Tarantula
Voodo juice
Fulvic acid
Silica gold

At half strength and with a reservoir with 48L of water I'm getting a TDS of about 340ppm. The ph has been kept between 5.6 -6.3 and the res temp around 64°F for the last week and finally the plants are looking super healthy. They're a lovely green and exploding in growth. Literally I'll leave the grow room for 3 hours come back and the plants are noticeably larger, it's nuts. The plants are hand watered a few times a day by spraying rings of water around the plant to draw out the roots.

So this is why I germinated three more seeds, the fact that I was worried that I had stunted the first plants so badly that I killed them or they'd be invisible. I didn't want to go thru all the time waiting just to have the chance to need to restart so I immediately sowe'd the new batch of seeds.

So far they are on their 5th day of growing since germination and are extremely healthy which I hold the solution of suppliments I'm feeding them. Their root zones are very large for their age and size and the roots are bright white and fuzzy with root hairs. I'm going to be transplanting them on their tenth day of growth as I don't want to have another nutrient problem. I'll be starting them at half strength nutes and then both them and the first plants will just be at week one and follow the feeding schedule on the bottles. If the other plants bloom while the new ones are still vegging well they're just gonna have to wait for new bloom nutes heh.

Okay I will be updating regularly! Hope to get some replies and subs!

Fuck that's a huge amount of money for nutes. You think the plants needs all that?

Hahah eh on my last grow which was my first I used about half of these and each one did make a noticable difference in the plants especially all the bud boosters and the benificials. Mind you a lot of these I got as free sample half liter bottles and I didn't pay full retail price for most of them I hunted around the internet to find them for discounted prices or on sale or special offers. AN'S stuff is pretty expensive and I was able to get all of that stuff for a lot less than it would have cost for me to say go to a hydro store. As for any issues with using all of these I have a lot of uni school g in organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry which as I found out last grow actually really helped out with doing mass amounts of nutes and suppliments. I think the more stuff the more fun I have.

Update:

So first off I'll go over the seedlings!

Day 6 of their grow and nothing much new tonight. Fed them once this afternoon around 2:3pm which was good because they were getting dry. Thier roots have really started to take off tho. Since last night thier root zone has shot off many new roots breaking out of the rooters. All of them are a healthy bright white with so many root hairs they're fuzzy.

On to the veg tent ònes'....

These guys are on day 26 of growth and have been in the tent for 12 days so far. They are really picking up in thier speed of growth of foliage. I'm still hand watering them a few times per day via 60ml barreled nutrient syringe by ducking water out now the res and spray a few loads of water in circles around the hydroton in the basket.

U decided to up the tds today from 374ppm to around 400 ppm. So I added 2ml of b52 which totals 75mls now or 3'/4 strength and 5ml of sensi grow A & B bringing that to just over 1/2 strength at 5ml of each. Hopefully this will help add a little extra kick for the plants!

Alrighty, well it's Christmas and I'm up before the family so I decided that he'll why not work on my babies! Best way to start Christmas I've come to find as of this morning!

Anyways, because of my last attempted grows nutrient deciciency of nitrogen by day 13 I have become I bit nervous on when to do my seedlings transplant. So I decided to do it this morning on day 8 since popping. I kept one of my old plants that got stunted and chucked the other two giving me a total of four plants. Three on day 8 since popping and the other one on its second week of vegging.

I'm going to be running nutrient scheduling as if all plants are on week one of vegging and feed all plants accordingly to that.

At 3:00am I transfered the seedlings to the tent and proceeded with a reservoir change to reset the nutrients for the new plants. Fourty eight liters of reservoir water was changed with 48 liters of fresh tap water at 20 ppm and 7.2 pH. I then added the following nutrients and suppliments all at a quarter strength....

Sensi grow A & B (22ml)
B52 (22ml)
Fulvic acid (22ml)
Humic acid (30ml)
Pirahna (22ml)
Tarantula (22ml)
Voodo juice (22ml)
Silica gold (5ml)

The resulting TDS is 235ppm and the pH is 6.5. I plan on topping off the reservoir everyday back up to 48L and increasing TDS gradually each week before a reservoir change. By the first reservoir change after week one I want to have a TDS of 400-500 ppm and then by the second weeks reservoir change a TDS of 600 ppm.

I also reconfigured my lights for the tent and am going with the following....

300w(200w drawn) 6 band/12k lumen led
300w(140w drawn) 9 band/7k lumen led
4 x 105w 5500k 7000 lumen cfl's
3 x 85w 5500k 6000 lumen cfl's

The 300w 6 band led is above the canopy by about 15" and the other 300w led is horizontally positioned and faces sides ways along the back of the tent. It is approx 5" from the first row of plants and 10" from the second row. The cfl's are set so each plant gets a bulb approx 3" away from it and then there's 2 bulbs that are on either end of the vertical led between the two rows of plants.

Pics to come later today!

Hey all!!

Thought I'd do a post xmas update

So I've revamped the system I'm using for my ladies and changed my approach on how I'll be going about doing this grow in a few aspects.

First off I've decided to start the TDS of the DWC at 400 ppm. I've started all the nutrients at half strength aside from the beneficials which I've started at quarter strength. Every 2 days I add a small amount of beneficials to keep the colony going of them and replace any that have died.

I've added amother air pump to my dwc. It's a 7lpm pump feeding a 1" x 4" air stone. Later tonight I plan on adding another 7lpm pump with the same size stone, as long as I can find some 6mm tubing. I'll also be topping up the reservoir with plain water to get it back to 48.5L tonight. I've decided to go against slowly increasing the ppm everyday and just start at 400, let the plants feed for a week and then do a res change and up the ppm to 650-750.

I've also awtiched up the lighting system. I've changed the cfl's to four 105w 5500k 7000 lumen, and three 85w 5500k 6000 lumen. I've also added a 300w (200w drawn) 6 band/ 12000 lumens led and a 60w 450nm/6500k led. The leds are on another timer and only turn on at night to keep the temp from heating up too much.

I'll be adding pics later tonight after I get home.