Brown Trichomes but SMALL buds

Hi guys (and gals)

Some advice from those wiser (and more experienced) than I would be appreciated.

Here's the details:
I've got a hydro op going (I've run ops before, but never of this magnitude)
5 five gallon buckets Deep Water Culture (1 plant per bucket).
1 Strawberry cough, 2 Bubblegum, 2 White Widow
In the 7th week of Bloom.

I grew before, three times with soil (my last attempt finally being error free, but of the 3 it was the only one outside, albeit in flower pots) and twice hydro. The two times hydro were great, but it was 6 plants in ONE elongated flower holder, worked GREAT, but led to some false assumptions on my part. (Like that a pH meter and H2O heater were not neccessary)

Based upon my hydro success, this time I decided to go BIG. 6 feminized plants, 1 which went male----in VEG stage, THRIVING.

Now for bloom....definitely NOT thriving. 5, five gallon buckets, around the 6th week I noticed the leaves curling downward on the Strawberry and Bubblegum (strangely enough the white widow is fine). I'm a info addict, so tried to read everything I could. Never worried about pH before, based on previous experience.....but never used five gallon buckets before. Have come to realize that the small container size before led to rapid H2O turnover, whereas this time the H2O barely moved, thus fertilizer just sat and sat, most likely lowering (right?) the pH and 'cooking' my plants.

Have now ordered a pH meter (in my parts they are hard to come by) otherwise I'd tell you the pH. Couple more mistakes I think I made......had the light ON 10-11, instead of 12(got greedy-thought it would speed the bloom), and the water they sat in was pretty darn COLD as it's winter here, especially when I flushed the buckets. (Have since gotten a heating mat)

Anyway, in the meantime I've flushed the buckets (they are now sitting in tapwater-ONLY) and it's been about a week and a half.....they haven't gotten better, but they haven't gotten worse either.

But growth has been REALLY slow. Almost to week 8, the trichomes are all turning brown, but the buds look SEVERELY underdeveloped. Hard to describe, but very vegetative looking --is the term 'popcorn buds' correct?

HELP!!! What do I do now? Add more fert? (very weak solution) Do nothing? Wait a few more weeks? Anyone had this type of problem before? (Underdeveloped buds with aging trichomes)

Maybe I'm fuct.......not so clever for an info addict, hey?

Any help would be appreciated

Yours in the smoke,

ok deal with one thing at a time.
look around the aquarium section @ walmart and they might have something called correch ph tabs. They even out the ph of water to 6.5-6.8. the tabs are for 10 gallons @ a time so break them in half and use a half for each dwc utill you get your ph meter.
then make adjustments to ph accordingly to what your plants need.

Can we see pics??

I'll get some pics up this weekend, but I've taken some and just looks like a green jungle (albeit a sickly looking one)....hard to see the definition on the buds.....wish I could describe it better, but very green, or vegetative.

In the meantime, that sound familiar too anyone?

(I'll look for those pH correcting tabs as well, thanks for the advice.)

correct ph then
i would guess that they are overnuted.......
if not get pics in some way so we can go from there.

A few Ideas, Fist off get OFF that tapwater, I fill up jugs at the supermarket for .41 a gallon. 2nd, get a PPM meter, the $40 nutriwand does a great job for me. 3rd, did you phase down your light cycle to bloom? (shifting by 1 hr each night to ease plant into 12/12 cycle, flashing into a sudden 12 can stunt growth severely. Lastly, kind of a silly question, but you are changing that water every 2 weeks, right? O and one remark, my water temp is pretty low too, and it hasn't hurt me yet.

But, long story short if your trichomes are turning, she thinks she is ready. My guess is that something went wrong a few weeks ago, (PH or PPM prob) and the poor girl thought that this was as good as it gets, and put out what she could. I am pretty curious what she will do if you can bring her back though.

Hey RisingStock...I am new to this forum but got a couple of grows under my belt. Are you running air stones? What sort of nutrients are you using? I have a similar set up....1 - rubbermaid tub and 1 - 5 gallon bucket. 2nd week of flowering and had to rip out 2 males...all are bagseed. Using Bontanicare nutes. The times I have had problems with hydro it was almost always pH. The other times were some sort of nutrient deff. I now check pH every other day....the day after I change the res...and I pH everything before topping off or changing out. I also now use a solid variety of nutes as well and have very good success. Hope that helps....but there are some very experienced growers on here that you should learn from. the Grow FAQs are awesome too!!