Quick Specs
Seeds: White Russian from HGS.
Veg lighting: 2x 65w CFLs (soft and cool)
Flower Lighting: 400w HPS
Space: 3.5'x3.5'x6.5' Homebox L tent
Medium: Indoor DWC using hydroton rocks and rockwool

Greetings rollitup community,

This will be my first real attempt at growing. I picked hydroponics because there's more interaction and, to me, that is what a hobby is all about. I started this grow in a much smaller space. It was a 2'x1.5'x5' cabinet. I quickly realized that keeping temps in this small of a space was a lot harder then I thought it was going to be. I scraped the cabinet and picked up a Homebox L tent.

I'm setup in a bedroom with a window a/c keeping the room temp in the 70s. I have my tent vented with a 4" inline fan (170 cfm) that pulls air from the tent, through a carbon scrubber, through the cooltube, and out of the tent into the bedroom. This keeps my tent temps in the high 70s-low 80s.



My hydroponics system was purchased from stealthydro and is called bubbleponics. It's your basic 10 gallon rubbermaid DWC. It has an air pump and round air stone. It has a water pump that top feeds the plants in the young stages of growth. I got the entire system for $200 and it included the two 65w CFLs, all the pumps, tubes, nutes, ph up, down, and testing strips. I'll never buy another hydroponics systems after seeing how easy they are to make myself.

I'm currently on day 14 of veg but we'll start at the beginning. Please feel free at anytime to give me any advice. Tell me if I'm doing something wrong, or what you would do diffrently and WHY! Let me know if you see something I don't or if I'm doing a good job. Or just leave any comments you want.

Day 1
Temp: low 80s
PH: 6.5 and going up
PPM: 000
Height: 1"
Health: a bit long

Notes:
Four sprouts under two 65w CFLs. Temps are in the high 70s to mid 80s. PH levels drift up 1-2 points per day it seems. I have to add PH down once everyday.

Sorry don't have pictures of the sprouts.

Day 4
Temp: low to mid 80s
PH: 6.0 - 8.0
PPM: 600
Height: unknown
Health: Plants look good, have one that is struggling behind the rest.

Notes: Today I added a quarter strength nute for the sole purpose of stablizing my PH. The PH has been raising over 1 point per day and if I don't keep adding PH down it could get ugly. My PPMs were at 300 from only the PH down, then at 600 after I added the nutes. These are the nutes that came with my hydro kit so I don't know who makes them.

Notes from the future: Looking back on this I wish I would have just flushed the hydro res with fresh water and then added the nutes.

Sorry still no pictures, next post I have a couple for you though.

hey guy, good luck on your upcoming grow. on your ph drift. it's only gonna get worse. you need a larger capacity rez. you should have 5 gallons for each plant. once the plants start drinking/feeding, that little rez will be all over the place. plus, it'll be full of roots with no room for water.
peace

Day 8
Temp: Same
PH: Still having problems keeping it below 6.0
PPM: 600
Height: unknown
Health: The little guy isn't going to make it. Today when I checked up on the plants and added PH down I noticed the runt of the litter was almost dead. It was withered over and lifeless. I pulled the rockwool out of the hydroton rocks to take a look at the roots. They were very white and looked very healthy. I pulled the plant from the hydro and considered it dead. I placed it out side in a pot I have a tomato plant growing in, just to see what would happen. I think the cause of death was the nutes or the PH problem I can't seem to get under control.

The other three plants are looking great though. Not showing any signs of sickness.

Notes: In hopes of fixing my PH problem I am going to be flushing the res soon.

Here are some pictures of the runt: (I didn't know there was a closeup button on my camera)



Here's the healthy plants:

Day 12
Temp: 76.5 (HPS running for 1 hour, a/c running for 1 hour)
PH: 7.5
PPM 550
Height: 2"
Health: Third set of leafs coming in. Very green, no spots, no wilting, look very happy. Roots are starting to hit the water and look white, maybe a little brown tint on some of the bigger ones. Stems are strong and purple, starting to turn green though.The water in the res has a musty smell.

Notes: My second res should be here today. Same size res as the one I'm currently using but it'll make changing out the water so much easier. Will be flushing/changing out the water and nutes when it arrives. Also made a trip to the hydro store and picked up some GH Floranova grow & bloom.

Test running the HPS for 3 hours with the a/c only running for an hour to see where my temps sit.

Here's some pictures of the plants.

Day 12 part 2
Temp: 75
PH: 5.7
PPM: 460
Height: 2"
Health: Same

Notes: HPS test went well, temps are stable at 5-10* of room temp with the a/c on energy saver mode set to 70*.

Well I cleaned the res and changed out the water and nutes. Used RO water I got for 40 cents per gallon.Started the Floranova nutes and the PH balanced itself out at 5.7 without any PH up or down. Three teaspoons of nutes were too much. PPMs were at 550ish when they should have been at 300. Six gallons of water was good but I added a seventh to bring down my PPMs to 450. With seven gallons of water the netpots are sitting right on the water level. If they are still touching the water tomarrow I'll remove some water from the res.

I had a chance to take a closer look at the roots while changing out the water. There were a lot more then I had thought. They are, for the most part, white. Some have a very slight brown tint to them. I think the old nutes and the massive amounts of PH down are to blame for the brown tint of the roots, the res was tinted the same color before I cleaned it.

Root pictures:

Day 13
Temp: 80
PH: 6.0 (added a couple ml of PH down)
PPM: unknown
Height: unknown
Health:
I think the plants are looking great. There's one slightly dry tip on the biggest plant, on one of the lowest leafs. Roots haven't gotten any more tint to them and more are poking out of the netcups and they are pure white. I did notice a couple of bugs in the tent. Little greyish flying bugs almost like gnats or fruit flies. I'd say they are a tad bigger then fruit flies. I was thinking maybe white flies, but they have more of a grey or brown color and are not pure white. I have seen the same flies above the sink in the kitchen.

Notes: Ran the HPS all day today with the a/c on energy saver. Temps are stable at 78-80. Will continue to have the HPS on 18/6 along with the CFLs.

I'd like to get another air pump inside the res. I think next week I'll swap out the water and nutes again and remove the water pump and top feed tubes. They have collected a scum on them that I would rather not have in the res. I'm also considering dumping some kind of flushing solution like clearx through the netpots to remove any salt buildups. What do you guys think?

No pictures this update.

Day 14(where I currently am at)
Temp: 78
PH: 6.1
PPM: 600
Height: 3"
Health: Overall health looks good. Killed a few more of the flies things today. Plant #1 is starting to develop little rusty spots on its leafs. Plant #3, on one leaf, has two small dots the same as plant #1s. Will do some research to try and figure out what this could be. Also all three plants might be showing very, very, very slight signs of nute burn. Leaf tips are just bearly discolored and dry.

Notes: PH down 3ml to 5.2. Added quarter gallon of water bringing PPMs down to 580.

Pictures of my new spots.


What's up with the slight wilt? This normal? (plant #3 in first pic, #2 in second) Also notice on the lowest leaf in the first pic you can see the 2 little dots I was talking about.



Other then that they look good. (plant #1)

Get the res temp down (65f, would be best) clean the roots, I found a product sm-90 works well. You have root rot. cut off any slime roots, I cut off huge masses or roots that had this problem. Keep light out of the res, I use Mylar. Good luck I had a 20 day fight with this problem. I got a small chiller on ebay for about 180 bucks.

1st DWC – Strawberry Haze maybe some info here.

__________________
Time is going by really really really really slow. I think where dieing, I am pretty sure where dead. Whats the score of the red wings game. Please send recuse.