Hot Diggity Sog - Chapter 5: The Big One

I've been away for a few years and am happy to be back. For those of you who followed my previous work, this will be a dramatic departure from my typical sea of green adventures.

I will be starting off with between 3 and 6 plants and will pick the best one according to appearance and smell.
That's right! One and only one plant.

Strain: Karma Genetics White OG V2.0
Method: My take on RDWC
Nutrients: Blue Planet Elite System
Lighting: Mixed lighting. It will include HPS and CMH and, depending on availability, possibly CHPS.
I will be using both overhead and vertical styles of lighting.

Seeds will be here in less than a week...

Day 1 - Seeds arrived and planted!

Day 2: Room preparation continues...

Should have some sprouts sometime tomorrow. Thought I would share my build and setup so far.
This is my 1st ever DWC/RDWC so it may be a bit unorthodox. As always, comments, questions and suggestions are very much welcome.

Looking forward to watching
Subbd

Day 5: We've got seedlings!

#1, 2 and 3 look fine. #4 has the seed casing wrapped around her head tightly...I hate when that happens...lol
#5 and #6 have sprouted but might be upside down. I'll decide tomorrow if I need to intervene or not.



I currently have them under a 315W CMH which is about 4 feet above them. I'm trying to be cautious with this light as it's the 1st time using it.

Cheers

I forgot to mention... UPS (Santa) delivered my 1st 4 quantum board LED's from HLG. I picked up (2) of these:
https://horticulturelightinggroup.com/products/qb288-v2-slate-2-double-combo

One of them is 3000K and the other is 4000K. We won't be using these until later but I'm super excited that they are here. The boards look fantastic. The heat sinks...not so much. Pretty cheaply built and wrapped in Chinese newspaper...ugh...but whatever. Super excited to try my 1st quantum build and give them a spin. I may buy 2 more kits, I may not. I want to make sure that the CMH gets used as well as an HPS.

Day 9: Seedlings Progressing

Just a minor update. 5 of the original 6 are alive and doing well. The 6th just could not recover from growing upside down.
They are under the 315W Ceramic Metal Halide and will remain there for a few more weeks.

My well water used to be around 250 PPM but it is now a bit over 300. I decided to install a small RO unit...things should be pretty sweet.
Did my 1st feeding today using the new RO water at 200 PPM's.

Keeping black plastic on and around the rockwool to try and keep algae at bay.

Day 16: Minor Seedlings Update

2 of the 6 seedlings have been culled. The remaining 4 only look *decent*. I was hoping that one might really stand out. But out of a population of 6, I guess that's wishful thinking. Having to learn as I go as this is the 1st time using 4" rockwool cubes and the 1st time using RO water. I have to say, my little RO unit that I got for $100 is fantastic. It's taking my 330 PPM well water and dropping it to 40 PPM. I know it's not 0 PPM, but I'm thrilled with 40.

I tried to introduce the 1000 Watt Eye Hortilux Blue Metal Halide but it was too much...both intensity and heat. It's really hot and muggy where I live and it's doubtful I'll be able to veg with it. Bummer...it's my favorite bulb.

Still have the seedlings under the 315W CMH and I don't expect that will change for now. My 2 quantum board LED builds are coming soon, however. So stay tuned

I expect to pick the final 1 plant within the next 7 to 10 days and then into the 27 gallon tote. Super excited to get to this point.



Cheers
HDS

Day 20: Final Plant Chosen

I've picked the final plant and moved her into the reservoir on Monday evening. Growth rates have been slow but have really picked up over the last few days. Things should start moving along nicely soon!

Your organization and cleanliness is awesome man. So your RDWC is a Single system hooked back up to your main rezivoir? Plus, those are drip feed rings right? So how high is the water level in the system with the plant, are you running it to the base of your net pots like dwc or are you running it more like a bubbleponics system?

Kami Samurai said:

Your organization and cleanliness is awesome man. So your RDWC is a Single system hooked back up to your main rezivoir? Plus, those are drip feed rings right? So how high is the water level in the system with the plant, are you running it to the base of your net pots like dwc or are you running it more like a bubbleponics system?

Click to expand...

Yup. I'll get some more pictures. But basically, the 2 reservoirs are about 1/2 way full...a little more...maybe 2/3rds. The NetPot is sitting about 1.5" below the water line. The 4" rockwool cube is sitting on top of the hydroton about 1/2" above the water level.

The 2 reservoirs maintain the same amount of water via the 2" pipe connecting them at the bottom. I want the water to be moved and exchanged very aggressively. The 2 water rings move water from the control rez into the plant rez at a rate of 100 gallons per hour but I also have another water pump that pumps 396 gallons per hour from the control to the plant rez.

I can either put the lid over the net pot or the netpot can go on top of the lid.
The 2 aluminum beams are to prevent sag - This is a large netpot and it's already heavy. Once the plant gets large, it's going to get really heavy. Having no sag will be easy to manage water level.

The 1/2" water hose coming in from the front and then branching out to the sides and to the back is coming from the 396 gallon per hour pump in the control.




The net pot is about 1.5" beneath the water line. No roots yet - They've only been here for a day and a half.



Here is the control rez. The 1/2" water pipe on the left is the return line from the Chiller. Chiller is set to 68" and I'm pumping water from the control into the chiller 24/7.
I did not want any pumps in the plant rez so this is how I'm doing it. By providing 496 gallons per hour of flow from the control to the plant rez, the plant rez should not experience any temp increases (in theory). The totes are 27 gallon and I'm guessing we have between 35 and 40 gallons total of water.



And of course, my trusty blue lab guardian.

Day 20: Lighting Change

I decided to bring the QB304 combo online and put the CMH on hold...just to see. This is the 1st time I've seen my quantum build and WOW...I like it!
The 2 boards are pulling 226 watts at the wall and, at 32" above the plant, are delivering ~ 15% more light via my Lux meter. The LED certainly feels cooler as well.

The one I brought on is 4000K. I'm all ears if anyone has any suggestions, comments, feedback, etc as far as this LED light vs the CMH I've been using (The specific bulb I have is from Eye Hortilux). Also, I don't want to burn the plant but I want to keep the light at an aggressive distance. It's 32" away from the top of my girl right now and measuring 150 on my Lux meter.

Day 21: Houston, we have a problem!

Well, no grow goes perfect, I suppose. I just encountered my first major one.
Rockwool - it's a love/hate relationship. I love that it holds so much water and I hate that it holds so much water.

I got a bit carried away last night and turned both of the top feed rings on. Big mistake. The inner ring completely saturated the rockwool and not only is it waterlogged, it's probably bordering on nutrient toxicity. I have my rez nutes designed for roots entering the water.

The only reason I even chose 4" rockwool cubes was to buy me time to select the keeper plant. Never again.

So here is what I did:
I dumped all of the hydroton out of the basket and pulled the rockwool cube out. It was super saturated
I mixed up 80% RO water, 10% well water and 10% rez water and PH'd to 5.9. PPM's were 130. I poured an entire gallon of this slowly over the rockwool cube to flush it. I then squeezed it repeatedly, trying to be as gentle as I could. I was able to remove roughly 75% of the water just gauging the weight.

I then put it back into the net pot but decided to add more hydroton to the bottom. This meant the rockwool cube would actually be only partially submerged/covered. I turned the top feed pump back on but only the outer one, not the inner one. I will not turn the inner one back on for at least a week and when I do, it will likely be for short bursts. Maybe once a day for just a couple seconds.

The rockwool cube has mad roots coming out of the bottom and a couple poking out of the sides. I'm pretty sure what I did will work fine but I probably lost a few days of growth and she probably won't look nice and healthy again for a couple of days.

I was going to cover the top of the rockwool cube with black plastic but I'm going to leave it exposed to the air for now to assist in drying out. Algae may surface but I'll deal with that if it comes. I probably will cover the top with something in a few days.

It's always something....lol

Day 23: Mrs. SOG is pissed and I'm an idiot

Things have continued to go down hill. 4 inch rockwool cubes under hydroton when implementing a top feed/watering design is just bad news. I took drastic actions tonight...the most drastic actions I've ever taken. I don't have all of the pictures that I should because:
A) I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do
B) Once I did, I kind of panicked and worked quickly.

1) I ended up mixing an entire new rez mix at a very low level. 340 PPM's at the end.
2) I dumped out the hydroton into a container and removed the plant.
3) I shaved off all of the 4" rockwool cube with a razor leaving a 1" x 1" x 4" cylinder of sorts. I sheared off roughly half of the roots.

I then took the plant and submerged what was left of the rockwool into pure RO water. I gave it a gentle squeeze and then submerged it into 1/2 RO water, 1/2 Rez water (340 PPM).
I again gave it a gently squeeze and tried to remove about half of the water. I gently repacked my net pot. The bottom of the plant is now sitting about 1/2" above the water line.

I covered the entire net pot with black plastic to prevent evaporation. All of the hydroton is very moist at this point.

The room temps were down to 73 and so I felt like I needed more heat. I turned off the Quantum Board and brought the big boy online. The 1000W Eye Hortilux Blue. This is obviously my favorite light but I didn't bring him on just because of that, I needed a bit of heat. My room temps went from 73 to 81. Perfect.

Now it's a waiting game. She will either live or she will die.

My wife said: This will be the worst disaster we've ever experienced.
I said: With all due respect honey, I believe this is going to be our finest hour!

I wouldn’t stress it too much bud. Are you using the drip ring past the point roots extend your net pot bottom?
Have you ran your water level that high as top-fed dwc/rdwc.
You could run it like a bubbleponics system.

I just spent the last 5 hours sitting next to my plant. We did not speak. I sat and mostly watched. I began to gently lift her curled leaves into the proper upright position. I did this for hours.
Call me crazy, but she responded. I'm not a religious man but I think there is a spiritual connection we can all have with this plant if we try. I'm an animal lover and this is very similar to the love I have for my dog.

This first picture shows how much i cut off the 4" rockwool cube:


And the last picture is after the plant and I had our several hour love session

Day 27: She's going to live!

It's been a rough few days. Cutting the rockwool cube off was very damaging. She basically has the root system of a 2 week old seedling yet she is twice that age. We're probably going to lose the 1st two sets of leaves, and maybe even the third. But she is at a point where I am very confident in saying, she will pull thru.

I had my water at 340 PPM @ 6.2 in my last post. On Monday, I dropped the PH to 5.6 for 24 hours. Then 5.7 for 24 hours and then 5.8 today. I will keep it at exactly 5.8 for the next few days. Last night, I upped the PPM's from 340 to 410 and I did NOT add any CalMag. I have both top drip rings turned on at the moment. I've been turning them on and off as I see fit but I think we're at a point where I can leave both on 24/7. Last night I switched the light cycle from 24/0 to 19/5 and I'm going to keep it like that until further notice.

It was looking grim yesterday. I felt like she was probably going to die...she looked terrible. But this morning she looked much better and into the evening, even better.

I have 3 pictures from yesterday and 5 from today. Quite an improvement. Considering I cut away her outer rockwool cube, she seems to be doing not too bad. Hoping by Sunday I'll start to see some aggressive growth!

Yesterday...



Today...







She still looks pretty sad...I know. But I feel like I'm nursing her back to health and will be a rockstar soon!

Day 32: Full Recovery Underway

It's been 9 days since I performed the major procedure. She was on the brink of death but pulled thru. We're going to lose the 2nd set of fan leaves but otherwise, she is doing great. She's got 6 aggressive roots coming out of the bottom of the net pot and is averaging 2 new ones a day. I think within a week, we're going to be in for some explosive growth.

I had to take the 1K Hortilux Blue offline...too hot. The 315W CMH is back and has been since Sunday.
Lights are on 24 hours a day...no dark period.

I'm still on my original nute mix but, at 10 days old, I'll probably mix a new batch in the next day or two.

I've had to adjust my top feeding strategy. The plant was just unhappy and getting too much water. I'm now doing just a couple of minutes of top watering every other day. In a few weeks, I can increase this. My top feeding strategy really has nothing to do with feeding...its all about aggressive water exchange and getting the water from the control rez to actively replace the water in the plant rez.

Enough talk, onto some pictures!






Sometime in the next 1 to 2 weeks, I will be switching over to vertical lighting and will no longer have any overhead lighting (probably).

I built my first vertical Quantum Board stand tonight and I think it's going to be perfect. I'll do a bit of testing and then 3 more will be coming.
Here are 2 pictures of that:




The stand is a 2'x2' platform and is on wheels. The Boards are screwed into place so it's super simple to raise and lower. I can even tilt the boards with an upward or downward bias. I think this is going to work very well.

Next update on Saturday

Day 33: Quick Update

The quantum boards I bought are simply amazing. Things are going to be a bit frankensteined for the next week or two but I've got my plan. The QB LED tower I built is awesome. Will be building more over the next week or so.

The plant is jamming and is getting ready to explode. She's got quite a few roots now in the water and they are spreading....and fast.

Will be doing a rez change tomorrow. Plan is to bump PPM's from 420 up to 500.

I'm starting to transition away from overhead lighting and into vertical. This will be gradual at first. You'll see!