First DWC hydro 400 watt mh/hps Confidential Cheese! Guide Me!

Hello this is my first hydro grow and I would like to have any support from you guys as much as possible. Any tips/critiques will help me. Currently I have a bug problem that just appeared today. Yesterday there were nothing on the hydroton bucket but suddenly today there were a bunch of these tiny roach-like bugs that are just moving in and out of the hydrotons. Here are all the info I have along with pictures.

-400 watt metal halide/high pressure sodium light
-Deep Water Culture 5 gallon bucket with 10 inch net bucket using hydrotons as medium.
-Confidential Cheese clone currently at DAY 10
-Full Fox Farm Nutrients, these organic microbes samples that my hydroponic dealer give me (in the pictures), Great White microbes.
-Roots are light brown on the end but are growing at a very very fast pace (about 3 inches a day since 2 days ago) and look extremely healthy. I have read that the light browning is because of the fox farm big bloom.
-The clone were pretty sick looking when I got them but they are now really healthy looking as you can see the differences of the old/new leaves in the pictures.
-Temperature at around 80 (a little warm but plant doesn’t seem to mind), PH at 6.0, ppm/ec unknown but I am feeding at 1/3 nutrients and ½ microbes at 3 gallons and the plant seems to like it.

Problems and Concern: tiny cockroaches looking bug appeared today in the 20/30 and just keep moving around the hydrotons. The plant seems to be growing slowly at the top (only 2 new set of leaves in 9 days) while the root is extremely strong.
Again any advices you guys give will help. Thanks!


I have no idea why they are all upside down. Sorry

not sure what the bugs are but:
80 is way, way, way too high for a res. you are inviting root rot.
for plants still in veg a lower ph of around 5.6 will allow them to get more of what they need at that stage.

They mite be nats if so they love to eat ur root system try aza max that shit works

The plant is looking extremely healthy even though the original clone was really weak. It turns out those bugs were there because some bug give birth in there or something. I haven't seen them again. How can I cool down my res temperature? I have heard of putting water bottle in there but I don't trust that method because of the root that are in direct contact with the cold bottle. Also what does RO stand for? I have heard it use a lot but don't know what nutrients/addictives it is. I will post more pictures tomorrow.

using frozen water bottles is perfectly acceptable. i used them for years with never a root issue.
ro= reverse osmosis. it is a water filtration system that removes everything from the water.

Update: Day 14

Thanks for all your answers superstoner, they were very informative.

Some infos: Lights are 20 inches from top of plant. Original clones were shitty as stated before and as you can see the differences in the leaves' health between top and bottom. I hope it can outgrow that factor but I don't know if you can turn a boy who can barely walk into Michael Jordan. I just also changed the res yesterday. The difference between this week's nutrients and last week is that I didn't used white shark but rather fox farm Kangaroots and Microbe Brew. I don't know if I am just paranoid but it seems to be growing slower since the res change even though it didn't show any stress at all. I believe it is is the differences in nutrients combo.

Plant have shown dramatic improvement in 4 days since first pictures update. Side branches are beginning to grow out fast. No concern at the moment except for my curiosity of the main stem being bigger at the top than at the root. Top new growth are growing really fast.

Update: Plant is looking really good. Will post more pics soon. How often do I need to flush this system. I only have Clearex at the moment. There's a bunch of flies that just came to my grow room today for some reason, about 15 house flies.

Mine likes Nitrogen

Update DAY 28! It will be 1 WEEK before I start flowering her.

She is 21 inches tall. I had a small thrips problem but I used some Azamax and my mostly my hands to kill them all of! I also had a small nitrogen overfeed on Day 21 when I changed the resevoir. I added 1/2 strength of CalMag with my week 3 feeding schedule which is the Grow Big and the Microbe brew which I used 2/3 strength. After 2 days of the new nute I noticed the leaves are becoming greener but limp so I changed the nutes and I went to bought the right Grow Big Hydro instead of the Grow Big Soil that I was using before. I fed it at 2/3 strength again with Great White and without CalMag. The plant seems happier after I changed the nute on day 23. On day 24 growth were lime green again. Some tips were very very slightly burn but it has stopped.

I also post some pictures of the bottom leaves of the plant. They are so sickly looking and if you noticed the whole plant itself is extremely healthy. I know it is some kind of disease but what caused it? The small thrips problem I had? Her leaf blade are 10 inches long and 2 inches wide. But the 4 branches that are at the bottom are extremely disgusting looking and this happens since I got the clones (there were 4 more but they were so small and couldn't grow out so I cut them off) . Trust me on this, it comes with the original clones some how. It has nothing to do with the small nitrogen problem above, these branches were weak and disgusting since I got the clones. The clones was crap, completely crap. I said it since I started the journal and I knew something isn't right. EVERY part that came with the clones was shit (ie leaves and branches). All the new growth from the same branch show the same wrinkle folding downward. Yet my whole plant iteself is growing extremely healthy (the new branches that came out since I got the plant are all healthy leaves and everything.) I basically completely changed this plant's life.

I am going to feed it with week 4 nutes today with some of the microbe life at half strength.

Update DAY 32: Plant is looking healthy but I have some worries. First of the fan leaves at the top are getting thinner, they are just a long as the other but about 2/3 the width. I don't know this is. The root are already filling up the whole 5 gallon bucket completely. Do I have to worry about this? Should I get a bigger bucket? I haven't even flower her and if the root is this big now will it be restricted by the bucket soon? I also have some little leaves from branches that are getting lime green? Why is this? It is not like the new growth lime green where it is just on the inside.

Plant is 10 days into flowering. Will post pictures soon