??? About Res Water Level

I have a DWC going right now in a 10 gal res. I've read different things about the water levels and where they should be and I've came across a bunch of different opinions. I wonder because I tried putting the water level right up to the bottom of the net pots, but it seems when i get back my rockwool is drenched with water. Which I think it's leading to my poor root development. I've even taken the level down some and i still cant get any good roots going. I see people with impressive growth after a few days to a week in a DWC and I'd like to have the same.

As far as my set-up cause some may be wondering...

• 10 Gal Rubbermaid Res
• 6 5.5" netted pots
• Rockwool as a seedling medium
• I have 2 aquarium pumps powering - 2 10" airstones & 3 6" airstones
• Lucas Formula in the res right now - I had some other seedlings but a lot of them kicked the bucket for some reason so I'm starting from scratch
• Working with 4 strands - Blue Mystic, Double Gum and Original Skunky Haze of Nirvana Seeds and some bagseed

On a side note, I have a lil experiment going right now. Took some seedlings and put them on 12/12 from start in soil just to see how it'd turn out. I've done my reading and I know that it CAN be done just with the trade-off's of having a smaller yield.

Basically, just want the DWC to do right for the 1st grow. I have a few threads on here with a few pics look up my profile. Any suggestions...

are you using anything other than rocwool in your net pots?? hydrotron, gravel??? you may want to try and put an inch or so of either of those down and then put the cubes on top of that so that the cubes arent getting water directly, at least thats how I did it, also if you ae having growth issues of any sort with a dwc, always start with the basics...... whats going on with the water ph too high or low, water temperature too high or low, light getting into the res etc....... good luck

Thanx D for responding...and to answer the basics...

PH stays between 5.5-6.0 so that appears to be fine

Water Temp - Fluctuates around 67-70 degrees

I can tell that there's some partial light gettin into the res...not much but some cause there's what I believe might be a lil bit of algae in the re

Other than that I dont really know, I had to start over so im going from scratch now with my seeds. I'm going to post some pics now, sorry about the quality. The first set of pics are off my set-up in the closet I have. It's a Rubbermaid set up with a DWC inside of it. I didnt want to just have it sitting out and i figured if anything happened to spill or anything it'd get caught inside of the rubbermaid.

Pic 1...Is of my Blue Mystic, it's prolly like 2 weeks old Somethings change, it should be way bigger.

Pic 2...This is the bagseed thats prolly about 3 weeks thas been through the struggle, it went from soil to DWC, lost a few leaves but I think it's recovering now. This is prolly the oldest out of all the plants

Pic 3...These are two of my seedlings, Blue mystic and Double Gum that sprouted within the last week. They seem to be doing fine so far, I was scared today when I got home due to the fact that the rockwool soaked up a lot of water.

Pic 4...Lastly, this is my experiment with 12/12 early. The plant itself is kinda old, I want to say at least two weeks and looking kinda measley. It went from DWC to soil cause it was on it's last leg and I wanted to make room for something else. It recovered surprisingly when I put it in soil, but it still hasnt really gotten too much bigger.

Someone HELP?!?!?!?!

P.S. The water level isnt right up to the net pot again..there's at least half an inch of separation

Your flood level should come up to about 1/2" below the rockwool cube. Another fellow has had that problem recently and we talked about it over here.

https://www.rollitup.org/675739-post1039.html
https://www.rollitup.org/675894-post1040.html

You've both found out the hard way that you can't allow rockwool to remain saturated. Rockwool cubes must be kept damp, never wet and never, ever should be squeezed. Saturation and squeezing removes air from the cube.

Once the roots have knitted through the pellets, the rockwool cube is redundant and needn't be watered at all.

Just looked at your netpot pics. One pic has no pellets at all, one has far too few (fill the netpot!) and one has some other junk in with the pellets, which looks like some sort of peat or something. This material will get loose and clog/damage water pumps.

Al B. Fuct said:

Your flood level should come up to about 1/2" below the rockwool cube.

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Ah, hang on, you're running this as DWC, not flood.

The reason your rockwool cube in the netpot with no pellets in it is continuously saturated is because bubbles from your airstone are making a mist when they break the surface of the water. If there were pellets in that netpot, it'd be the pellets being continuously misted. Roots will do fine when they grow down into the constantly wetted pellets because there's plenty of airspace between them. Rockwool doesn't have the airspaces as a pot of pellets and also is fibrous, with a wicking action, which when continuously misted will draw up so much water that all air will be excluded, killing roots and stunting your plants. Under proper conditions, roots will find their way to the damp pellets and eventually emerge from the bottom of the netpots and will find your constantly aerated nute solution.

Clones newly introduced to such a DWC system should have significant root development before planting in pellets- you need a good spray of roots, not just a single taproot out of the cube before introducing cubes to pellets. Even with the pellets being continuously misted from below, new plants will need to be handwatered from the top for a few days until the roots seek down into the damp pellets. Use care to water mainly the pellets and not to saturate the RW cube.

Is this your first grow? What persuaded you to use DWC? It's a rather fiddly, advanced method. There's easier ways for novice growers to do hydro and succeed the first time.

Thanx for the advice Fuct...and to answer you yes this is my 1st grow. I wanted to go DWC because it appears that the results can be great if done correctly.

It's like I keep a good eye on my DWC I check it a several times throughout the day to make sure everything is going according to planned. It's just I'm starting to realize that the rockwool is killing me lol. And I dont even allow the water to be that close either thas what I dont understand.

Fuct...do you know anything about the "Lucas Formula" or whateva? For some reason it doesnt ask for the FloraGrow in my 3 part GH seriers of nutes. Weird huh?

Iight I pretty much started ova, since the seedlings havent sprouted and they havent formed any tap roots yet...should I juss spray the pellets surrounding them to promote growth cause like i said, there's prolly at least an inch of space between water and the net pots?

You've been very helpful sir...keep it coming

Bubbuh Kush said:

Thanx for the advice Fuct...and to answer you yes this is my 1st grow. I wanted to go DWC because it appears that the results can be great if done correctly.

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It's fairly unlikely that you'll do a DWC correctly when you haven't done a grow in the very simplest means- in soil or in pots of inert media. When things go wrong in DWC, they go wrong big. You need to closely monitor pH, nute strength, reservoir temp and maintain 24/7 air pump operation. One of those wrong can lose the lot for you.

It's like I keep a good eye on my DWC I check it a several times throughout the day to make sure everything is going according to planned. It's just I'm starting to realize that the rockwool is killing me lol. And I dont even allow the water to be that close either thas what I dont understand.

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The problem wasn't the rockwool, it was the lack of pellets in your netpot.

The water level could have been 3-4" away from the bottom of the cube when you have an airstone in the water, which creates a mist, as I described above. It's very easy to see the mist, go look at the surface of your water. Many aeroponic systems rely on creating a mist from bubbles breaking the surface of a container of water to wet roots hanging above the water level.

Fuct...do you know anything about the "Lucas Formula" or whateva? For some reason it doesnt ask for the FloraGrow in my 3 part GH seriers of nutes. Weird huh?

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nope, not a thing. Can't advise you on those at all. Never used them.

Iight

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what?

I pretty much started ova, since the seedlings havent sprouted and they havent formed any tap roots yet...

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If seeds haven't sprouted, it's unsurprising they would not have formed any taproots.

Seedlings can't sprout. They've already sprouted. When a seed sprouts- then you have a seedling!

should I juss spray the pellets surrounding them to promote growth cause like i said, there's prolly at least an inch of space between water and the net pots?

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Don't spray the pellets. Pour nute soln through them with a cup or something. You want to wet the pellets top to bottom. Don't wet the RW cube!

You've been very helpful sir...keep it coming

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will do what I can but I can't promise I'll drop in here often.

You'd be well advised to try a different method for your first grow. DWC is great stuff for advanced growers, but not even advanced growers all use fiddly systems like DWC. I've been at this 20 years and even I prefer pots of absorbent media in pots in flood/drain systems for their reliability, near zero maintenance and resistance to equipment failure- an air pump failure not caught promptly or a power failure lasting more than a few hours will kill every plant in a DWC by drowning the roots.

Pots of absorbent media in a flood system can survive water pump failures not noticed for a couple of days as the media holds enough water to get the plants through a couple of lights-on cycles before they wilt.

I simply could not recommend methods like DWC, aero or NFT to a new grower. It's hard enough for a newb to just grow plants without having to be constantly aware of all the problems that can arise in the more complex systems. Get a few harvests under your belt with simpler systems, then have a go at DWC.

Well thanx again Fuct...

I made some changes that I thought needed to be made and the lil guys are doing better. It was most certain an over watering problem. I juss added some hydroton between the rockwool and the bottom of the net pots and it seems that it has made them perk up. So Im happy!

And Fuct...when I said the seedlings havent sprouted....what I meant was that the seeds I put in the rockwools havent came up through the RW yet. It was just a wrong choice of words to say "sprouted" my bad lol

But things are on the up and up so im pleased...I'll be keeping you all posted

hey hey, really good to hear things are looking up.