Cannot get past seedling in DWC!

I plant my paper-towel started seeds into rockwool and let them sprout under a CFL, then I transfer to my 6-pot rubbermade DWC / top feed system and then they die! It has been 2 weeks and there are no roots coming out of the bottom of the 6'' pots and the growth up top seems to have halted and the leaf tips have turned yellow/brown then died, my pH is between 5.5-7.0 and my ppm is ~225....I need help!

PH should be 5.8

Sounds like you drown them. How often were you dripping?

Do you have any nutes in the water ?

infinitescrog said:

I plant my paper-towel started seeds into rockwool and let them sprout under a CFL, then I transfer to my 6-pot rubbermade DWC / top feed system and then they die! It has been 2 weeks and there are no roots coming out of the bottom of the 6'' pots and the growth up top seems to have halted and the leaf tips have turned yellow/brown then died, my pH is between 5.5-7.0 and my ppm is ~225....I need help!

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It might be time to switch to dirt !

golddog said:

It might be time to switch to dirt !

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That could be a solution .

maybes hes already done dirt and hes just now graduating to buckets? hmmmm. If you havent done dirt id suggest going back to the basics before you just in dwc. Anyone can learn though. Its just more difficult jumping into that without the basic knowledge of how to correctly take care of cannabis.

Dro

The drip is on 4 times a day for 30 min at a time at 1 GPH. I have added very diluted Lucas Formula to the reservoir. I started with 2/3 RO water to 1/3 tap water and added nutes to ~200ppm

infinite have you had a successful grow outside of dwc?

No this is my first grow, I have two in soil that I am growing along with trying to get these going, and they are alive I could probably flower them. I have been considering switching over to soil or hempy bucket to do sog, but have some money invested in this system so I wanted to try to make it work.

lol. shit. okay well there we go people!

bro. In all honesty if you have the right equipment im sure you can grow in dwc. its just much more difficult to do on your first time around. theres a whole shitload of variables that need to be constantly maintained with almost zero forgiveness if you fuck up. I grow in coco. i cant give advice on dwc. I can tell you though that it would be a VERY GOOD idea for you to complete a grow in soil before moving on to more difficult grows. Get the basics LOCKED IN before you start a hydro op. this is simply advice. If you keep going on the dwc eventually you will succeed but its obvious your not ready. how many plants have to die? lol.

i dunno if you've ever skied or snowboarded but if we were to compare that to growing heres how it is.

you read a book on skiing. now you go buy an awsome pair of ski's ... and without any first hand experience you went straight to the advanced double black diamond run ... and died.

Dro

when you transplant to the dwc make sure the roots are long enough to reach into the bubbley water

infinitescrog said:

The drip is on 4 times a day for 30 min at a time at 1 GPH. I have added very diluted Lucas Formula to the reservoir. I started with 2/3 RO water to 1/3 tap water and added nutes to ~200ppm

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Growing in rockwool is relatively difficult. When I was using 1 1/2" cubes I was watering about 10-20ml per day 2* per day with a syringe. I was over watering them. It sounds like you are giving them 2 gallons per day. Waaaayyy too much water.

The dripper is not dripping directly onto the rockwool. Sorry I guess I should have included some more info, the rockwool cubes are sitting in 6'' net pots filled with hydroton, and the dripper is dripping into the hydroton around the rockwool cube, but not directly onto it. I have a 600 gph air pump running stones under each pot.

If you have any nutes , Seedling is too young for nutes

Dont have a fan blowing directly at em when they are small.

My opinion...

200 ppm is fine to start them out on, you are not overfeeding, although holding off just a bit longer would be ok too. I hold off till I see the beginning of the third set of true leaves. As long as you have plenty of oxygen in the water, you are not drowning them. My advice is to wait till they have more of a root base before you transfer them. Once I see a root on the bottom of my rockwool, I place it in a 3inch netpot and fill it with coco. I hand water for a few more days until roots are coming out of the netpot and long enough to dangle into the water, which is about an inch below the pots.

Don't forget to practice good res maintence.

I would stop using the drip for now. Get your water level just a few inched from the bottom of the net pots. You may have to adjust the height up or down a bit. Depending on how efficent of your airstones are. The bubbles as they burst at the surface will keep your hydroton nicely moist, forcing the roots to go searching. Then once the plants get a bit more established you can begin to work your drip feeding in.

If this is DWC why is there a drip?

as said above it sounds like you're probably drowning the roots before they can make it to the o2 in the res. Turn off the drip and let the DWC unit soak the cubes with areated water from the air stick underneath.

what i like to do. is clone ur plant in soil. watch for ur roots to come out the bottom of the drain holes as soon ass u see one take the plants out. place in a five gallon bucket of water the hole plant dont try and hold it. and shake it around gently. it will rinse the dirt from the roots. then place in hydrtron.

shizz said:

what i like to do. is clone ur plant in soil. watch for ur roots to come out the bottom of the drain holes as soon ass u see one take the plants out. place in a five gallon bucket of water the hole plant dont try and hold it. and shake it around gently. it will rinse the dirt from the roots. then place in hydrtron.

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I did it that way alongtime ago. It works but causes alot of stress to the plant. Getting your seedlings started in a peat pellet, oasis cube or the like. Then placeing it into the net pot when good root growth is showing works well. And causes way less stress to your plant.