New DWC grower

Hello all, My grow is in its 3rd week day 20 and I need some advice. The older leaves are burning on the tips, but the new growth seems like its doing good. Ive flushed it twice already with 6.0 ph water. The temp is average around 83 and the humidity is around 42. I just changed out the reservoir yesterday. Should I be worried? The strain is Barney Farm's Tangerine Dream, mostly Sativa blend with Indica. The roots just started to show past the nettie pot a couple of days ago and they look nice and white.

she is. little baby, stop abusing her. why have you had to flush twice already? ph ing flush water is a waste anyway. what is res temp, ph, and ppm?

res temperatures never near 70 degrees, it is always on the cooler side. I test using PH up PH down and adjust accordingly to 6.0. I haven't bought a ppm meter yet its on my "to buy" list along with a PH meter as well. I made the mistake of adding nutes very early on in its development at 1/4 strength, (Dyna Gro). I flushed twice because I thought there was some salt build up going on.

seedlings and clones like ph a little lower so they can get more of the elements they need at that stage. try 5.5-5.6ph. i just dont understand how you can do something like hydro/dwc without the most crucial of tools. i got the cheapest ones off ebay when i started growing and still have them as backup. you are stunting the plants by messing with them too much at that stage.

Your advice has been heeded. I bought a Hanna Primo TDS/ppm meter this afternoon. I havent had a chance to calibrate it yet or even use it but I will update the results. I took another look at her and I noticed what looked like pistillates growing on the 2nd node. Is this normal for her to sex so early on? If she is stunted in growth, is it salvageable or should I start over?

Those are new leaves.

Yeah those are where new branches will come in.

I agree you need a meter. I bought a Hanna combo meter for 160 on amazon and its working great a year later. hi-9813-5. hi-9813-6n is better for like 20 more it has a Calibration check on it. Very crucial part of hydro.

Seedlings I feed about .1 EC of a grow nutrient @ 5.8PH. Your 1/4 strength was probably about .4 EC which is too much. Kick it back to 1/8 strength for right now or .2EC. Let it repair and spit off healthy growth and then kick it up to .6EC until about a foot then up to 1.0EC then finally 1.6EC in mid flower. Those are some basic numbers to follow, but every plant is different.

Thanks for the replies, I checked my tap water PPM and it was at 229 or .4 .5 EC. My nute mix right now is at 512ppm or 1.0 EC. I might need to buy a filter for my tap, I think it might be too high.

Is there any other way to reduce the PPMs in tap water or should I use distilled until I need to raise the EC in my solution? I tried leaving the water in a bucket over night but there was no change in PPM. 1.0 EC I agree is too high, but I cant seem to lower it straight from the tap.

To lower ur ppm remove some solution and add water

But if the base PPM of tap water is already 229 how would I be able to lower that? If I dilute the solution with tap water, its still going to be above 229 right? I admit I'm not real clear on the perfect PPM for the different stages. Some folks even say that 800ppm is acceptable for seedlings, and can go up to 1700ppm in flowering.

You could filter it with a regular filter to remove some of the solids in the water, or get a reverse osmosis machine which I hear is expensive and wastes a lot of water. You can buy purified r/o water from the grocery store for like 90 cents a gallon which is what I do.

I have found the best ph in dwc is 5.8 and the water temp at 68.

MiloTheDog said:

But if the base PPM of tap water is already 229 how would I be able to lower that? If I dilute the solution with tap water, its still going to be above 229 right? I admit I'm not real clear on the perfect PPM for the different stages. Some folks even say that 800ppm is acceptable for seedlings, and can go up to 1700ppm in flowering.

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For example i use a 5 gallon bucket. for my seedling stage i use 1/4 strength of nutes. which usually brings it to around 400 ppm. my tap water is bettween 150 to 200 ppm. i like to start my seedlings with 300pm. so after i am done mixing my nutes i take some of the mix water out and replace it with plain water ( which dilutes ) now my ppm sits at 300.

insan3 said:

For example i use a 5 gallon bucket. for my seedling stage i use 1/4 strength of nutes. which usually brings it to around 400 ppm. my tap water is bettween 150 to 200 ppm. i like to start my seedlings with 300pm. so after i am done mixing my nutes i take some of the mix water out and replace it with plain water ( which dilutes ) now my ppm sits at 300.

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Thanks for the advice, I think ill let it sit for a day at 512ppm. If it starts looking bad ill reduce it to 300. I started my seedlings with tap water and they seemed to do fine. Then I added nutes and they got burned. I didnt have a ppm then but im sure it was too high. I flushed it and used tap water at 229ppm for 10 days and its still looking burned up. Today I added nutes to bring it up to 512 with 6.0 ph. We'll see how it goes from here.

Malevolence said:

You could filter it with a regular filter to remove some of the solids in the water, or get a reverse osmosis machine which I hear is expensive and wastes a lot of water. You can buy purified r/o water from the grocery store for like 90 cents a gallon which is what I do.

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I think ill be using R/O water for my next grow. I think I'll go with a recirculating design next though.

Mindmelted said:

I have found the best ph in dwc is 5.8 and the water temp at 68.

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The ph in the bucket is always around 6.0, I might try to go a little lower in the future.

The newer leafs are looking better. now just wait a couple days and see how they are recovering.

New leaves are growing in faster now. A little nute burn still on some older leaves.

for seedlings and up til second week of flower the plants need more of the elements, in larger amounts, that are made more easily accessible by a lower ph. my plants never see above 5.7 until then. 5.5-5.7 is my range, then 5.8-5.9 for weeks 3-5 of flower, and then 6.0-6.1 to finish allowing them to get more of what they need to build buds.

superstoner1 said:

for seedlings and up til second week of flower the plants need more of the elements, in larger amounts, that are made more easily accessible by a lower ph. my plants never see above 5.7 until then. 5.5-5.7 is my range, then 5.8-5.9 for weeks 3-5 of flower, and then 6.0-6.1 to finish allowing them to get more of what they need to build buds.

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Good to go. When I change my reservoir this Saturday ill be sure to reduce the PH. I might also cut back the PPM to around 400. I think the 512ppm is a little too high right now.