Hydro root tangling help!

Hey guys, it's been a bit since I've been on, however I've started my first hydro run after a few successful soil grows.
So my question. 3, 3 gallon ro water, dwc buckets, two plants look great, I was under feeding, but they looked happy. The 3rd doesn't. It's droopy, and limp. No rot by the looks of it, I just added zone, but this is the root mass. Is it knotted up? It sure looks like it. I untied it gently as best I could, here are some pics. Advice appreciated. I upped the ppm from 350 to 900 last night. The last pic is after I untied it a bit. Thanks.

They look fine to me. I wouldn't worry about the roots knotting up. By the time you harvest you will wind up with a root mass the shape and size of your buckets. 900 ppm seems a little high for that stage of growth.

as long as the roots are in the nutes it doesn't matter the shape they take.

Ok thank you, but why does it look so sad then compared to the other two? Ph war in range, lil warm at 71, but they all were relative. The other two look fine

maybe cuz you were peeking under its skirt and fussing

Man take a look at the one on the right? That looks normal to you? Maybe you grow in the hopes and dreams of your imagination, but I don't have time for games.

I thought so too, but I was running at half strength gh line, or 300ppm, and was only getting horizontal growth, barely any vertical. So this time I've cut by a third not half, and 150ppm of the 900 is calmag and zone. Veg at 750ppm.

toaster struedel said:

They look fine to me. I wouldn't worry about the roots knotting up. By the time you harvest you will wind up with a root mass the shape and size of your buckets. 900 ppm seems a little high for that stage of growth.

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In veg, never go above 500ppm in DWC.

Tyler the Gardener said:

Man take a look at the one on the right? That looks normal to you? Maybe you grow in the hopes and dreams of your imagination, but I don't have time for games.

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really? you're the one with root tangling issues and un tangling them to help somehow. I never had that issue, lighten the fuck up or read a book maybe. there is nothing normal about feeding 900 ppm at this plant age/size, ridiculous. read a book, really, if you really dont have times for games. this info is in chapter 2 of every grow bible.

You have 2 choices, both have risk. You can either leave it and let it do it's thing even though in your heart, you've just got this feeling somethin is not quite right. Or, you can be a boss, and use a sterilized fork type device, and very carefully, gently, methodically, rake the roots down and spread them not worrying about breaking some outer little roots, just being careful of the main tap, and knowing that wherever a root breaks here n there that it'll grow and branch out new roots just behind that break, and then that plant maybe even grow to be the best of them all. Risk, it goes into some bad shock and not recover and you lose one.

Up to you ma man.

Good Growing. I suggest you watch some bonzai making videos on youtube. Not weed plants bonzai making videos.

My roots look like wound rope by the time I harvest, it doesn't matter, they can still uptake nutrients.

900ppm (what scale .5, .7 ? ) is too high for those little plants. Jumping from 350-900 is probably going to burn them. Really shouldn't jump nutrient concentration more than .2 EC, or about 100-150 ppm at a time unless you have serious underfeeing issues, which it doesn't look like you have, if anything they look nitrogen rich by the dark green foliage.

Airwalker16 said:

In veg, never go above 500ppm in DWC.

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What scale? I start rooted clones at 0.4EC in veg, up to 1.0EC+ around 4-6 weeks. That's 280ppm-700+ppm @ 0.7 conversion.

Are these from seed? Could it just be a slightly different pheno and a late bloomer? Slight tangle of roots could be coincidence

I had 1 plant out of 3 (same strain, grand daddy purp) look like crap in the beginning, esp compared to the other 2. It's turned out to be a different kind of plant, more sativa and actually purple.

Your roots are fine and there's nothing wrong with them being tangled - it's what they do. In soil or coco they do the same, you just can't see it. Let the roots grow as they will - trying to untangle them will only cause damage.

They are bathed in liquid and they get the sites just fine no matter if they are tangled or not. I grow DWC and RDWC and they all tangle up. It's normal. Just let it do it's thing.

900 ppm seems a bit extreme, over feeding is the most common problem I've seen.

Three gallon res seems a bit small to grow to maturity, at least five gallons should used, more if you recirculate from a separate res.

chasingwaterfalls said:

View attachment 3964939

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Holy Nitrogen overload Batman!
This herb would taste like shit.

Enigma said:

900 ppm seems a bit extreme, over feeding is the most common problem I've seen.

Three gallon res seems a bit small to grow to maturity, at least five gallons should used, more if you recirculate from a separate res.

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I'd say 10 gal min res size for single buckets going into flower, depending on plant size. My plants were draining my buckets, around 3 gals of solution, every day and a half. I went to 18gal totes and 8 gals of nutes and was able to go 3-4 days before I needed to top up. I'll never run more than a coupe single buckets at a time again, I was dealing with 18 single bucket dwcs at one point, what a F'ing PITA!

Tyler the Gardener said:

I thought so too, but I was running at half strength gh line, or 300ppm, and was only getting horizontal growth, barely any vertical. So this time I've cut by a third not half, and 150ppm of the 900 is calmag and zone. Veg at 750ppm.

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I know this post is super old but I just need to say this in case someone else finds this post, your lack of vertical growth is because your lights are WAY to close to your plants, they have no reason to reach up to grab the light.