first grow Diablo&Skywalker hydro

hello everyone. it's my first grow. I do have a degree in Botany so I should be able to navigate this, especially with some pointers.
I am running a hydro grow with flood and drain using rockwool cubes and general hydro 7-4-10 floranova nutes (1t per gallon) in a 35 gallon reservoir. I have a 1000w HPS light. I bought Diablo and Skywalker clones and I have one surviving Bubba Kush clone from my first attempt. I bought this set of clones in July. I keep the temperatures below 78 degrees and the low is about 68 degrees. I am on 20/4 with the lights off during the heat of the summer days. Everything on timers. Humidity is about 40-50% most of the time. I am running two fans indirectly to keep the air circulating. I am feeding one time per day for about an hour and then allowing it to drain fully. I use liquid pH testing right now and try to keep it around 6. I am going to get an electronic ppm tester as well as a pH meter soon. I have a bowl of yeast, water and sugar that is generating CO2. My plants were looking meager until I started spraying with a foliar spray of the reservoir nutrients supplemented with some simple miracle grow tomato food. They seemed to like that. That seemed to cure the deficiency symptoms I was seeing for the most part. I flush and make fresh nutrients every Saturday. I spray everything down and pump it down the drain of my shower. Until I get a daylight-spectrum fluorescent light or two set up in the grow room, I am rotating the plants into filtered sunlight for a few hours to give them something they are not getting in the grow room. I moved the clones into the 4 or 8 in cubes based on their demand and the 4 inch cubes were getting waterlogged so I just set them on top of 8 inch cubes and hope they just go get the water they need rather than be over-watered. Opinions? two cents? $0.02?
The weird things are:
1) the white mold growing on the top/bottom and edges of the rockwool cubes despite the fact that they are under the light and well-ventilated with fans
2) the algae in my flood and drain tray as well as the reservoir despite the fact that it's under the flood tray
3) the fact that these clones all should have come from the same two mothers so they should have the same genetics (Diablo and Skywalker) but there is one super plant that is a foot tall after 6 weeks ( stretchy) and the rest seem moderately growing or stunted, barely bigger than the clone size I brought home, despite the exact same growing conditions. ???
I would welcome some advice and the logic to support the advice from anyone willing to give it.
thanks.
MensaBarbie

Hi, Mensabarbie. Your screen name brings lotsa things to mind, but let's concentrate on the subject at hand: Your grow.

Your clones are waterlogged and stunted because there isn't enough air in the root medium. You say you've been growing them for a month? With 1000w of light in a hydro system, your clones should have grown into huge bushes by now. I fear you may have root necrosis at this point. I can just tell by looking at your clones (I've seen it before). They are unable to absorb NPK because there isn't enough healthy root mass --and so they cannot process the moisture you're introducing.

Those grodan cubes are great for starting into a hydroton medium, but a giant dense block of rockwool is too much for baby roots. I don't see any hydroton (clay pellets), so I would strongly suggest that you pull that smaller cube out if at all possible and transplant into a container of thoroughly rinsed, ph balanced clay pellets. Young roots must have dissolved oxygen in the moisture as well as little pockets of air that the pellets afford. If the roots have made their way too far into the larger cube, and pulling would damage too much, would it be too much a hassle to start over? The smaller rockwool cube nestled in wet, oxygen rich clay pellets is the only way to go.

Plus, I certainly hope you have mucho oxygen bubbles pumping into your flood fluid reservoir.

Mayhem #1517381

Edit:

Also, if you can take a picture of your flood / drain system, I might have an answer for the algae as well.

I really want to help you, and I hope you're not too discouraged by what I had to say. Feel free to bug me with any questions you may have.

Edit again:

And by no means am I suggesting these unhealthy roots are your fault. Some places sell clones with blackened roots that are so far gone, it would take a miracle worker to revive them. I've seen pretty bad stuff.

Damn let me get my hands on a good pheno of skywalker....CURTAINS.....

You had me at "hello"

lordjin
thanks for your input. I understand everything that you are saying. I felt that the clones were not able to absorb nutrients thru the big blocks too so I started with a foliar spray of the same nutes and they seemed to really thrive after that. The funny thing is that I only have three strains growing and they each have responded differently to the exact same conditions. I have six diablos and six sky walker with one surviving bubba kush from my first attempt. The diablos and the skywalkers are all clones of their respective mothers as far as I know. they were all about the same size when I bought them. I transplanted the bigger clones into the bigger blocks and the weaker ones into the smaller blocks. I then set the smaller blocks onto the bigger ones to protect from waterlogging and to make them seek water. All the while I am spraying with a foliar spray. it's been about a month now and I can't believe that I have just a disparity between the runts and the alpha female. I mean, that one sky is a stretcher while I have some that are still small. I guess you are right. so I should fill my flood drain tray with clay pellets and set the blocks on that? some of the smaller clones are putting roots into the larger blocks so I'm just going to leave them to it. I see white healthy roots on all of my plants, just not all of them are growing through the small block. perhaps now that I set them up out of the flood, they will have more air and exhibit better growth. I don't have a bubbler. I thought that was only for DWC. I also need a pH meter, a PPM meter and I'm curious about my CO2. by the way, I have a degree in botany from UC so I should be able to figure this out but experience is everything. thanks for the tips.

Lordjin, so what your advising to me is:
#1 get containers and clay pellets and put the smaller clones and the smaller blocks into that?
#2 get a bubbler for my reservoir
#3 the only answer for the algae that I've found is to simply clean and flush my entire system every day. that seems to help keep it at bay. the res is in the dark under the tray but the algae grows in the tray.
I also want to mention that I only water once a day and flood for an hour. is that too much?

thanks for the comment.

#4 the clones I got were aeroponically maintained so I could see healthy white roots out of the gate. the clones were healthy and deep green and fed with splashes of 200 ppm nutes. when I got them home, they lost their color a bit and developed some dry edged leaves etc. once I started the foliar spray, things started looking up.

Holy crap, Mensabarbie! There's no dissolved oxygen in your system at all! Your roots are drowning, dear. That's why your plants are struggling. Get an aquarium air pump, the biggest you can manage and get an airstone or two going in your res ASAP! And throwing down a layer of pellets for your flood table is not a bad idea either. The idea is to use the rockwool cube as a base so that the roots can find their way out of it and into the clay pellets. The clay pellets are porous, so they're an ideal medium to hold moisture and oxygen... and clay pellets, unlike soil, cannot be over-watered as their drainage is excellent.

If your clones were aeroponically maintained and had healthy roots when you acquired them, I may have jumped the gun on my speculation.

But yeah, bubbler bubbler first, girl!

Ps.

If you could pick up two healthy clones for me, I would be eternally grateful. Lol!

edit:

You have 1000w of light blazing directly down on an exposed wet area... hence the algal growth. The pellets should help control that, but ideally a cover should be placed over your entire flood table. Also, put a cover on your res. That should help with the algae too.

Washing out your entire system daily is not practical and you won't be able to keep it up once the plants size up and spew root matter all over your flood table.

edit:

Another hydroponics rule of thumb: Light is death for your roots. Get a great big bag of clay pellets and rinse them thoroughly with a large strainer until the drain water looks reasonably clear. Take said rinsed pellets and give them a good soak in ph 5.5 water for at least an hour. Lay a good thick layer of it across your entire flood table so that you can partially bury your rockwool cubes in it. When you flood, the pellets will soak up the OXYGENATED (very important) water and the draining will create a vacuum effect, further enriching your roots with oxygen. The clay pellets were engineered to hold moisture, so the lingering moisture from the flood will remain and continue to nourish your plants even after the drain. The intense light will quickly dry the top layer of the pellets, which should shield your flood table from algal growth somewhat. But more importantly, it will shield your root matter from the light. Keep the plastic wrap on your cubes and partially bury them in your layer of pebbles or take the plastic off and nestle them in bottomless (or bottoms with many large holes) pots filled with clay pellets.

edit:

One last thought: Try breaking up your flood cycle into three or four shorter cycles throughout the light period instead of the one long one.

edit again (last time I promise):

I forgot to touch upon your different growth characteristics among clones from the same mother. Clones, even from the same mother, could grow differently if they were clipped from different parts of the mother plant.

Oh, and I have not doubt you could easily kick my ass in molecular plant biology. I'm just a big ol' pot-head. Lol.

well thanks. I am not washing the entire system daily, just weekly. Right now I just leach salts out of each cube for a while with a gentle shower of water and then move them and squirt the tray down while i'm pumping out my res. It's a lot of work but keeps it clean. I'm thinking I need containers of hydroton as a next step so I can keep moving them. as they grow I plan to spread half to my 2nd tray/light that I have set up already.
I was watering once a day on the advice of the shop where I got the clones. I guess the theory goes that they need water and then time to dry out between waterings to get the oxygen to the roots that you mentioned. I will definitely get the airstones going. I didn't know I needed them for flood and drain. I will also get the hydroton? pellets and some containers and transfer the smaller cubes to that on your advice.

Lord, btw I can get you the clones but do you want diablo or skywalker? the diablo, as you must know, seems to grow straight up whereas the skywalker has more of a trailing, rangy habit. they are $12 each at soho in the valley. if you like I can pick up two but I need to know which two. I'm in Hollywood Hills, you?

mensabarbie said:

well thanks. I am not washing the entire system daily, just weekly. Right now I just leach salts out of each cube for a while with a gentle shower of water and then move them and squirt the tray down while i'm pumping out my res. It's a lot of work but keeps it clean. I'm thinking I need containers of hydroton as a next step so I can keep moving them. as they grow I plan to spread half to my 2nd tray/light that I have set up already.
I was watering once a day on the advice of the shop where I got the clones. I guess the theory goes that they need water and then time to dry out between waterings to get the oxygen to the roots that you mentioned. I will definitely get the airstones going. I didn't know I needed them for flood and drain. I will also get the hydroton? pellets and some containers and transfer the smaller cubes to that on your advice.

Click to expand...

I keep editing my long prior response. Just fill your entire flood table with clay pellets. It's gonna be a chore, but worth it.

edit:

The idea behind flood and drain is that the pulling effect of the drain oxygenates the root zone. A bubbler running in your res will just enhance things.

mensabarbie said:

Lord, btw I can get you the clones but do you want diablo or skywalker? the diablo, as you must know, seems to grow straight up whereas the skywalker has more of a trailing, rangy habit. they are $12 each at soho in the valley. if you like I can pick up two but I need to know which two. I'm in Hollywood Hills, you?

Click to expand...

Gosh, you're an angel. I'll be ready to fire up my system next Saturday. I need to tie up a few logistical ends before I can start. If you do this for me in a couple of weeks, you'll be the first, well the second to smoke some of the finished bud, and I'm very generous with my many ounces at harvest time. I just grew the Diablo, so I would probably want the Skywalker.

how do we speak privately on here? 5 skywalkers ... coming UP!

so here's my plan. sufficient clay pellets to fill a 4x4 tray, rinsed thoroughly and soaked in 5.5 pH water, then SOG-style planted with my legal limit of skywalker and diablos. then I need my ppm meter, my pH meter and an aquarium bubbler with two stones. then I flood the tray more frequently but with lesser periods to allow aeration of the roots to optimize my grow. right? but first I will watch the videos on youtube to see how sublbc did it. cheers.

mensabarbie said:

so here's my plan. sufficient clay pellets to fill a 4x4 tray, rinsed thoroughly and soaked in 5.5 pH water, then SOG-style planted with my legal limit of skywalker and diablos. then I need my ppm meter, my pH meter and an aquarium bubbler with two stones. then I flood the tray more frequently but with lesser periods to allow aeration of the roots to optimize my grow. right? but first I will watch the videos on youtube to see how sublbc did it. cheers.

Click to expand...

That's music to my ears, darling.

the more air stones the better - also make sure you get a high output air pump, stones wont do shit without a good pump, and if you are using a 4x4 then your probably using quite a bit of water. Not to sound too air-stone crazy but some people have a few airstones in their res, and then have airstones in the flood-tray under each plant that kick on during the flood periods. > ensures that while your roots are directly exposed you are getting super-oxygenated solution. yummy