First Real Grow DWC

[OverflowD]

Hi everyone, been lurking for a while and talk to some people through private messages and have been collecting information, pieces, and plans for this dwc setup I had envisioned. Just a few days ago I turned the beast on and over the next few weeks I'll be adding the last few pieces of the puzzle together. It has been a long journey but my setup is finally something I am happy with, so happy I just want to share before it is done.

The tent is a 4'x4'x80" vivosun. The system has 7 square 4-gallon pails, with 1 1/2" PVC as drains to the reservoir. Quiet One QP11 water pump with 1/2" vinyl tubing from the reservoir to each bucket. EcoPlus Commercial Air 1 running into 6 medium air stones, one per pail. The plants are clones of a mother I have of strain Gelato and were the healthiest of the bunch. They were cloned into rapid rooters and once rooted were moved into these 5" net pots with hydroton. Humidifier, exhaust fan and grow tent clip-on fans for air.

In the gray box in the picture below, I have wired up an esp8266 to a set of electronic relays that control 5 peristaltic pumps. These are not hooked up yet, but will soon pump my nutrients and ph up/down as needed. On the side of the box, I have mounted another esp8266 on a carrier board to take readings from my atlas scientific sensors. Atm, I monitor ph, temperature and EC in ppm. I will have the pumps add ph up/down as needed with readings from the ph sensor. My goal is to have the pumps add nutrients automatically during water changes and then bring the ph back into line. I am close and should have this done when I have time in the next few weeks.

All of my sensors and pumps can be triggered manually but I have linked it all together to a piece of software called Home Assistant. I can pull up all my information in many ways and program automations to monitor and control every aspect of my grow. I do not have everything labelled or added completely yet, but it's a work in progress. So the plugs and relays in the screen will be renamed once everything is hooked up and in its final home.

The PH spikes down you see is the ph down being added to the res and it slowly comes back up as the water pump disperses it to all the pails.


If anyone has any questions, PLEASE ASK, I love talking about what I put together here.

Your website and forum have been a great tool and a source of inspiration to me. Btw, I don't even smoke, but growing has always interested me. Now that it is legal to grow for recreational use in my country, I have decided to take a step in.

Here are 2 of my plants.


--OverflowD

 

[gbauto]

I commend you on the system.
Although a doser would be nice, I've found that it's quite easy to keep my 40 gal home system stable.
I see some Mars LEDs, what are you using for lighting?

 

[Sylvester]

That's an amazing set up you've built , congratulations on your fine work , I'm sure your first real grow will do very well! 🙂
Gelato is a favourite strain of mine, but never grown it. Your clones look good, once on regular feeding the leaf colour should darken.
Are those Mars Hydro lights? Can't tell which ones. I use the small TS1000 , along with the half size one i bought first.
Very happy with them so far , 4weeks into flower, in soil.
Looking forward to seeing how your grow does , best wishes.

 

[dphipps1020]

Looks good so far. Only thing is the lights. It looks like you have a TS600 and a TS1000? Just curious why you bought those 2 instead of a single light meant for a 4x4? You may not get the light coverage that you need with those lights. Just my observation

 

[OverflowD]

You guys have keen eyes, they are mars hydro and they are a TS600 and a TS1000.

I say this is my first real grow because I started with smaller lights without a tent and have been upgrading what I need as I go. I do have a second TS600 to bring in for flower if I need to, but since the 6 plants are in the top 3/4 of the tent, I only need to cover a 4'x3' area and I feel like these 2 lights should provide that. I may upgrade to another TS1000 if needed. I find multiple smaller lights work better at dispersing light than 1 big one, which is why I didn't go with a TS3000.

My first tent grow had 4 8 8-gallon buckets that had a similar setup to them, but were never hooked up but monitoring ph/ec and draining them every week to 2 became impossible with my schedule. I ended up losing 3 plants and the last one was stretched as I had also grown tomatoes at the same time in the same tent. I learned quite a bit all at once.

My schedule is why I have leaned towards automation too. I currently work full time while in year 2 of a bachelor program for Information Technology. So time is never on my side, and if my knowledge of microcontrollers can free up my time, then I use it.

Thanks everyone for the questions and comments so far.

--OverflowD

 

[dphipps1020]

The TS 3000 actually takes up most of my 4x4 so light is distributed pretty evenly. I know what you mean though, the smaller lights don't cover very well.

 

[OverflowD]

Most of my plants are displaying something similar to this in the new growth. I thought maybe it was temperature related as it got up to 24C in the tent yesterday, humidity has been between 40-70% throughout the day as the humidifier kicks on and off. Water res temps haven't been above 22C. If there is any other info I missed above, I'll gladly answer.



Thank you.

--OverflowD

 

[UndergroundFarmer]

24C (75F) isn't a bad temperature at all for veg. Have you checked that they aren't too close to the lights or have a fan blowing at them directly? If the nute solution is being maintained by the system properly, that ought not be the issue. Check the roots too and do it regularly until you aren't able to pull them out and look because of plant size and tie downs or nets stopping you from doing it.

 

[OverflowD]

The roots look great. The lights are currently 40" away because I was afraid of them being too close. I did have a clip fan pointed down towards them a little. I have aimed it away from the plants. If that was the damage will the plants recover? The nute solution won't be controlled that way, just to dose full water changes. The ph has been between 5-5.4.

Thanks.

--OverflowD

 

[OverflowD]

Week 1 update:

Damage from the fans seems superficial, plants seem to bounce back overnight and all have new good looking growth.

Roots still look great, I still can't believe the speed and quantity of cannabis root growth.


Looks like I will have to top or train at least 2 of these plants, they are a bit ahead of the rest. Any suggestions?


--OverflowD

 

[RetiredGuy]

I think you should increase your pH a little, the recommended range for hydro is 5.5 to 6.5.

 

[OverflowD]

Week 2 update:

The damage from the fans is visible but doesn't seem to slow down the growth of the plants. They are really exploding with growth now.


The whole tent is starting to feel fuller, and the humidity doesn't need any help staying where it needs to. I am a bit worried about air temps, but other than running an air conditioner, I don't know other options.



I believe I will need to start trimming soon, I have read a lot of the guides on here and I am still a bit confused. If anyone has any tips or guidance, it would be much appreciated.

Otherwise, I think the plants look great, the colour is starting to darken in the leaves. The lights are now 24" above the canopy and the plants seem to like it. I did read that I have the PH levels wrong, since I've been aiming for 4.5-5.5 and I should be 5.5-6.5 for hydro, is this correct?

--OverflowD

 

[YYCannabis]

Get that pH up to around 6.3-6.5 for a week or two. You are correct, a range of 5.5-6.5 is required. See the chart below.

 

[SoOrbudgal]

Hello from Oregon i don't do DWC but i watch the folks who do and admire the science of it. I can say that as long as your plants look healthy an are growing well....i would begin to remove the the leaf and small sucker branches near the bottom just to open up the air flow to the plants. That's all i do to mine at this age and i do top and LST on photos i don't know if you can with your set up though? Definitely top if they were mine. Good luck, happy growing.

 

[gbauto]

Based on the bottom pic, I'd flip those now unless you have some type of trellis/support planned.
If you do plan on using a net, I would look at the structure of each plant and selectively top shoots to guide growth.
My goal is to spread out the plant's canopy evenly to maximize my lights footprint.
Each of my totes lets me build a 20"x5' long canopy on each side of my room.
Accessibility is a challenge for me when they really get thumping.
That's what I cautioned in the first sentence.
This was one of my first runs in the totes. Found out that a second trellis would be a good idea.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/A1AiPaUaDgwxsY8d8

 

[OverflowD]

Sorry for the delay guys, I'm going to do weeks 3 and 4 all at once here. Its been a busy time between work, school, and the new addition of a kitten to my household. So let's get started.

Week 3 Update:
So I went in on Sunday and couldn't see the tops of the buckets anymore and did some defoliating and hopefully didn't cut off anything too important.
This was before the cut:

and after:

I did remove some lower branches that didn't seem like they would get light. They didn't seem to skip a beat for the next few days growing, cannabis is a strong plant.



Week 4 Update:
It's not quite the end of week 4 but I will be switching the lights to 12/12 to start the flowering process this Sunday, Feb 21st. I won't have time to make another post then as I have to change the nutrient mix again as they drank almost 20 litres in 2 weeks. I believe I need to defoliate again on Sunday before I swap the lights as they fill out so fast now.


PH was changed to 6.2 on week 3 and has stayed very steady between 6.1-6.3 for the two weeks.

The spike up was when the sensor was out of the water while I moved some of the hardware around, and the spike downs is the ph down being added and mixed as the water flows. The ph down gets added near the sensor and this prevents a double dose of ph down as the system sorts itself out.


If anyone can guide me or link me to a guide to defoliate for flowering that would be great. I've been trying to read up everything I can, but I never shy away from more information.
I do have a net I can hang up to help guide the plants in flower, would that help?

Thanks again,

--OverflowD

Edit: Added a picture of the kitten, I am sure someone wants to see that more than plants.

Her name is Ella.