First try at dwc, am I missing anything?

Finally got everything together to give hydro a shot. So here it is, any comments suggestions, answers to questions I may post later are appreciated.
5gal dwc
6"netpot full of hydroton
1 6w dual diaphragm air pump 2 air stones
1 2w air pump 1 microbubble air stone
RO water
bluelab guardian combo meter
Lights for veg are T8 6500k
400w mh
2 cxa3070 @1400ma
for flower
2 600w hps
a51rw150 (obviously not for just this one plant)
Nutrients:
3 part gh flora
Gh rapid root
gh calmag
botanicare hydroguard
botanicare silica blast

The strain is joti purple kush, rooted in rockwool. Clone had roots just emerging two days ago and I put it in the dwc bucket without adding anything nutes or getting my meter set up. Just air stones and ro water. I just added nutes tonight, ph slowly raised to 7.0 before I added ph down, only about 7 drops to get it to lower to 6.7. I am noticing ph slowly rises over time, this is normal right? I added nute at about 1/2 recommend dose to start off. How soon can I expect roots to emerge feom the net pot? Curent water level is halfway up the net pot, I am planning on lowering it over the next few days as roots grow, or should I lower it now? Should I be hand warering at all, it seems like if I dont have the water level high, the hydroton dries out a lot on the surface. Temps are 80, and humidity around 30-35.

Water temp of the res is 73f, I plan to use the frozen water bottle to keep res temps low. If all goes well here I am definitely going to be adding to this and making an rdwc, maybe 4 buckets, to fit in half of my flower area 4x8/2 4x4 under its own 600w.

Your hydro Phs should range from 5.0-6.0 (min to max, arguably) and res temps shouldn't be higher than 70-72 degrees Fahrenheit. My PH always drifts up the first few days than levels out. I believe its a nutrients thing.

73ish should be alright with the hydroguard, but remember that frozen bottles risk contamination, consider a chiller in the future... (garden hose, wort chiller, and a watering timer should work)

^^ I want to rig the waste line from my RO filter to a wort chiller in my main res, so while it tops off anything more than half a gallon or so, it chills with the "waste" water on the way to the drain...

Id sub the guardian for their combo meter but it looks u already bought it. Guardians are meant for single res like Flood and drain and DTW and NFT or any system with a brain control bucket like rdwc or undercurrent or ebb and grows.

Combo has 5 year warranty versus 2 years fot guardian. Also cheaper.

Yep, like what I am going to be doing. This is a bit of a test run, before I build a 4-8 bucket rdwc, but I have some other gear to get, like an h2o chiller.

I'm excited for you! I'm also fixing to do my first grow with dwc. I was also curious about the water height issue with the hydroton but someone told me that the bubbles misting water were enough to keep everything moist? Not sure if that's right though. Good luck!

Yea I figured it out. I had the water way high for the first day, just removed a couple cups of water and all is good. Got roots bursting out everywhere now. Res temps range from 70-74. Ph stabilized after 2 days and only drifts slowly higher by like .1 a day.

Heres some pics

Looks great man! I can't wait to get started and post pics lol. Any issues so far?

Also what's that screen on top?

No issues at all. And I dont really think there will be any. My res temps could be lower, but once I move to flower area it will be much cooler. Veg is 80-83f and flower is 72-76f lights on. I am doing nothing spectacular with nutes. I did the first res change and refilled with regular strength nutes via lucas formula. I didnt even have to adjust ph using ro water, came out 5.3 and crept up to 5.5.

Banana444 said:

No issues at all. And I dont really think there will be any. My res temps could be lower, but once I move to flower area it will be much cooler. Veg is 80-83f and flower is 72-76f lights on. I am doing nothing spectacular with nutes. I did the first res change and refilled with regular strength nutes via lucas formula. I didnt even have to adjust ph using ro water, came out 5.3 and crept up to 5.5.

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That's a nice setup man. What nutes are you using?

List of nutes is in the OP. But gen hydro flora. And just as soon as I posted no issues...I had not checked since last night and the ph is up to 7.2 and ppm has dropped about 300, and lights are off but im guessing some nice growth happened in the last day, I am going to wait until lights on to adjust ph. I love this guardian meter, all I have to do is glance at it every so often and then calibrate once a months, otherwise there would be no way I have time to take ph testings everyday, or twice a day, or hundreds of times when ph fluctuates.

That is definitely true. And yeah, I don't know why I didn't scroll up and read it lol. I heard the guardian was pretty good. Has some nice reviews. Excited to see some more pics man!

BruteLemon said:

That is definitely true. And yeah, I don't know why I didn't scroll up and read it lol. I heard the guardian was pretty good. Has some nice reviews. Excited to see some more pics man!

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Lmao @ avatar.

Vumar said:

Your hydro Phs should range from 5.0-6.0 (min to max, arguably) and res temps shouldn't be higher than 70-72 degrees Fahrenheit. My PH always drifts up the first few days than levels out. I believe its a nutrients thing.

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If you like living roots, keep your pH above 5.5. If you like tasty flowers, let it drift up to 6.5 in mid to late bloom before bringing it back down.

In other words, your whole range is too low for DWC/RDWC by half a point.

On to water temps; plants like it anywhere from 59f to 68f. It can rise above this range during lights on, as long as it returns to this range daily. The reason is oxygenation; colder water carries more dissolved oxygen, which is the prime deterrent of anaerobic pathogens like pythium.

It's cheap and easy to build a compressorless water chiller out of junkyard parts and hardware store bits, such a device will chill your water and with more air handlers can also cool your whole grow.

Obviously, this only works in low temperatures- but it will buy you time to save money for a real chiller which you'll need come summer.

Flagg420 said:

73ish should be alright with the hydroguard, but remember that frozen bottles risk contamination, consider a chiller in the future... (garden hose, wort chiller, and a watering timer should work)

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This is a wasteful tactic unless you're using the water for something else once you've pulled the cool from it.

Hydro guard did not work for me.

73 is danger zone.

But, what do I know? I've only been running RDWC for years now: