Growing in water

Firstly, I can't easily fit an Ebb and Flow setup into my 2x3 foot closet.

Second, while I don't have much experience with hydroponic setups, I have dealt with them before, and I have been studying growing techniques for well over a decade already. I'm not afraid to jump in head first.

Third, I don't want to spend alot of money on equipment or upkeep.

Four, DWC doesn't require large buckets. For a SOG, I can get away with 2L of water per plant. That means I can fit 4 to 6 in a 2.5Gallon container (holding 10L of water). The only drawback of small reservoirs is they will require alot more attention so the ph and ppm doesn't get out of whack too quickly.

My netpots are only 2inches diameter. Everyone suggests 3in netpots are adequate for large plants, so I should have no trouble.

In a 4x4' area I could fit 15 to 18 of those buckets. That's 60 to 108 plants. And I don't have to have them all on the same table. I only grow for personal though. I won't have nearly that many plants.

Clones can be rooted in plain water in a bubble bucket, PH neutral, no nutes, for 7 to 10 days. They start showing roots after just a couple of days. I've tried it already, and my clones rooted quickly. 100% success, and no guessing, no messing. Just look in the bucket, and see, oh yay! roots! Then add nutes and raise the lighting levels.

Yes I know the plants will be very small. I'm not shooting for 24 to 32 inches, I'm shooting for 16 to 24 inches. I've already got a nice strain that is well suited to the task. This will be a perpetual SOG. I will get 13 cycles per year, or more.

Don't worry guys, I know yer just trying to help. It's appreciated, and I know all about thinking for myself
Mainly I just enjoy what I'm doing. And I'm cheap. And a tinkerer. I haven't committed my grow to the bubble buckets yet. Only 5 clones for this cycle. Next time, if all goes well, I'll migrate.

The only gamble I think I'm taking is reservoir capacity per plant. We'll see in a month or two

So far, I've already been battling algae since I started the buckets 2 weeks ago. Man that is a pain. I think I licked it now, I hope. My clones are starting to get really sad from lack of nutrients :<
I finally figured out that it was the temp. Now I've moved the bucket out of the closet to it's own space and it's doing alot better, but I can't get the temps down below 65. Any ideas how I could keep the buckets cooler?

Tomorrow I'll be switching them back to veg for the 3rd time. Hopefully they will take off this time and not the algae!

 

Algae is caused by light infiltrating your nutes, lightproof your nute reservoir and the problem is fixed.
Can you supply some pictures/descriptions of your bubbler?

 

The algae was cause by light leaks, correct, but even after resolving the light leaks, the algae continued to persist for over a week later, even after eradicating it.

The source of the problem has been resolved to high tempertures. Was at 75 to 80 degrees :S Now it's peaking at 70.

Sure I can provide some picks of my bubbler.. stay tuned

 

A few pics of my bubble bucket setup.

Yea, I know the clones look pretty sad don't they? It makes me sad just looking at them.

The container is a 2.5Gal rubbermaid.
I've lightproofed it with tinfoil. It works well, it's cheap, and it's reflective, except that it tears easily, though I haven't had any problems with it.

I have a cloth hanging below the light to diffuse it and encourage rooting.

Right now, the bucket contains just plain tap water for rooting the clones.
Not PH balanced or anything. It's not necessary.





I'm using 1 outlet from the 3500cc air pump to run 2 bubble walls in the bucket. I think the blue bubble wands work better, but they float. If I have to buy more, I think I will buy large air stones. These bubble walls don't produce as much bubbles, and the bubbles it does produce are larger.
Smaller bubbles aerate the water better and create a better 'aeroponic effect'.

The bubble walls are handy though, since they can be manipulated into whatever shape you want or need and they have a weighted core, though they still tend to float a bit.

The little bit of rusty brown stuff you see in the water is just residue from the hydroton. It's harmless.





My tiny little 2" net pots.
Yea, the pic is a bit fuzzy, but I can't be bothered to take it again ;P

Clones are just starting to show new root growth.
Most of the roots you see are the old roots and are very stringy from removing the rot caused by the algae.

For rooting, the water level is about 1/2 inch above the bottom of the netpots. Once they go into veg, the level will be dropped to 1/2 inch below the bottom of the netpots and the water will be exchanged for nutrient solution.





Poor little fellas.

 

I forgot to mention, the large clone on the left is a different strain and was a top I cut from a 3' plant! The thing rooted with a 1/2 inch thick stalk!
I took it from a friends plant that was being topped, just for the hell of it. Worst thing that can happen is that it would fail. The best thing that could happen is that it would survive, and it did! Yay!

The other clones are different sizes because I recut 3 of them and start rooting all over due to the algae and the root rot it caused. They have all suffered the loss of alot of leaves already from nutrient deficiency, which is why the one seems so scrawny.

BTW, before ya say something, I haven't switched them to veg yet like I said I was going to. They really need food soon, but they'll need to grow some more new roots first. I don't think I will have a choice but to switch them by tomorrow though. I'll have to ween them onto the nutes, like Pepe suggested.

I may just start a new batch.

 

Looking good, you just might save them after all.
When I got algea. I didn't bother, the damage was too great and I lost a whole crop.
As soon as they all have rooted I start nuting them. If yours have all rooted, you should definately crack open the nutes, 4-500 PPM maybe to start, your gurls will love you for it.
Now, if you really want to make sure no light gets to your roots, you might want to go buy a can of black plasti-dip from Home De Pot (the spray kind). The stuff is food safe so you can paint the inside whithout any problems but allow it a solid 24 hrs to dry before use. I plasti-dip the inside of my cloner black and the outside white. The white bounces away the light and the black absorbs whatever gets throught.
I'm very surprised that you had algea in just water, a friend of mine grows his clones in a clear plastic tub and he said so long as he uses only water, it's all good.
And if I were you, I'd pH the water no matter what, dozen cost anything really to do it. my clones pH don't drift too much but I like to keep it in check, especially when I use brand new clay pebbles.

Now, when the lid is closed, do the pots touch the water? I can't judge that too well just from that last picture.

 

Yer correct, algae won't grow without nutes.
The clones were already rooted nearly 2 weeks ago when I put them into the buckets, they have been given nutes and then reverted 3 times already because each time I added nutes the algae would start up again. I wasn't kidding when I said these poor fellas have been suffering!

If I had got the algae problem in my stable grow, I would just start a new batch also. Eradicating th algae or a larger scale would be very difficult to impossible. These guys are just testers though and I don't want to rape my mum for experiments. She's gonna be needed soon.

I think the root of the problem (haha, funny pun ) was because my clones were already rooted in soil, and I transferred them to the bucket. I cleaned them well, but not well enough I suspect. The large clone was nearly root bound, so it was difficult to remove all the debris, and there was probably already some beginnings of rot because of it. Eventhough I've read others suggest that it's doable, though it was always stated that you must be thourough in removing the dirt. So for those who might be thinking of trying to transfer potted plants to hydro, be warned!

The bucket is lightproof now, I'm positive. Always was. Tinfoil is lightproof.
I started the clones before I bought hydroton and net pots though. The light leaks were because I had segments of blue pipe insulation wrapped around them and stuffed into tight fitting slots. But the blue foam was letting light directly through it even after trying to cover them in tinfoil, it would still penetrate under the edges of the tinfoil enough to be able to see glowing blue foam when I would carefully peek inside. Now I have the netpots and have sealed over top of the pots with the tinfoil and it's much better. I haven't tried giving them nutes since I got the net pots 4 or 5 days ago now.

The water level is 1/2 inch above the bottom of the pots when in cloning. Enough that all of the roots are submerged at all times. When they go in veg, the level is dropped by 1 inch, so that the hydroton isn't bathing in the water anymore.

PH is only important to maintain nutrient availability, if there are no nutes, there is no concern. PH doesn't directly affect the plants.

 

Huh! Say what?
Water onto itself is a nutrient, so your babies are sucking on unbalanced water. Again, as I said, it might not matter very much but I keep the pH in check anyway, just in case.
Also, many have reported they can use straight tap water but I prefer to use strictly R/O water. Chlorine is not really an essencial nutrient (duh!) and I have lots where I live.

How'd you solve your rez temp problem?
I'm guessing just keeping the light outta there probably helped a bit.

 

Nah, I don't think a little dirt caused your problem.
The light and the heat were your sole perpetrators for the algea, I think.
It's actually much more difficult to move a plant from hydro to dirt, when you get their toes out of the nice foot bath and into dirty stuff, they get bitchy and uncooperative.
Just like real bitches, you can feed them crappy Mac&Cheese forever but once they've tasted lobster, they ain't going back to Mac&Cheese without a few screams.

 

lol

 

Water is a nutrient? Didn't know that. Can ya point me to any references explaining? As far as I know, the water is actually only a catalyst for oxygen and the minerals.

Of course, it wouldn't hurt to keep the PH in check, but I don't see how it would make a difference. I don't want to debate it though, it's better safe than sorry. I just don't see it.

Yeah, the tap water has to be aired for at least 24 hours to eliminate chlorine. I live in a small town though, and they have a natural water filtration system using a series of dykes and trenches full of water plants, such as reeds and things. They use h202 here instead of chlorine to further sterilize the water. And the water is always PH neutral, naturally, which kinda seems strange in contrast to my understanding of nutrient uptake, but it indicates to me, that if the plants in the water treament are somehow stabilizing the water to neutral PH, that they must like it that way. I know all this because my uncle is an eco activist and was on town council and was the person who suggested and headed the natural treatment project.

I still keep a water res though and let my water sit for at least a day. If not to just help evaporate contaminants in the water, but to let the water become tepid as well.

I resolved the temperature by moving the bucket out of my main closet where my potted plants are.

What's your take on using seltzer water to inject C02 into the water?
Some things i've read say that carbonated water will help to control any possibility of algae and that the plants will actually take up C02 through the roots as well as foliar. Other things I've read, and experience tells me that C02 would actually encourage algae, although it does make sense that the plants would also take up C02 from the roots. Frankly I'm not sure why they would use oxygen, I thought that they produce oxygen from C02.

 

My understanding of how PH affects the nutrients is that if the PH is not in the proper range, the nutrients will solidify into scale (like calcification) and will not dissolve back into the water.

Actually, come to think of it, my plain water reservoir is always PH balanced to 6 anyways for my potted plants. Dunno why I didn't use it for my bucket. I guess it was because I didn't want to deplete my water supply for my other plants.

Yeah I know I said I don't want to debate it, but uncertainty makes me itchy
I'm just curious.

 

Sorry for the very late reply, I had to relocate 3,000 km away and I don't yet have full net access.

Water is in fact a nutrient, every carbon based lifeforms (anything that lives on earth) needs water, CO2 and oxygen. The human body is something lke 70% water and plants are something like 70-80% water so the weed needs water to bring it it's other nutrients but it also needs water as a nutrient ... well, I don't know if I could call water a nutrient but every life on earth needs water to survive and every lifeform on earth is also made up of a large amount of water.

I know some people use H2O2 as an algeacide. H2O2 does detroy the bad bacteria but unfortunately, it also destroys the beneficial bacteria in the same manner .... just I thought you might want to keep that in mind.
I still keep a water res though and let my water sit for at least a day. If not to just help evaporate contaminants in the water, but to let the water become tepid as well.

So you wanna turn your water into 7-up and feed it to your plants, LOL.
I've heard of it done but I never really looked into it myself, I am not sure what the benefits are.
You are correct on the idea that your roots don't take up CO2, the stomatas on the leaves do that. So maybe the 7-up'ed water releases some C)2 into the air which in turn gets to the leaves but roots don't use CO2.

You might have heard from so-called experts that MJ needs CO2 during the day and releases oxygen as a bi-product and that at night, the process gets completely reversed as the weed sucks in oxygen to produce CO2 as a bi-product ... that's pure bullshit but somewhat close to reality.

In fact, the stomatas absorb CO2 all the time but the most important CO2 intake takes place during light cycle. The plant needs that CO2 combined with light and other nutrients to manufacture clorophil for itself. This process of CO2 intake slows down a lot at night but some plants still need a smaller amount of CO2 during the dark cycle. Me, I keep my CO2 levels at 1500 ppm all day and all night as well. Some Canadian research found that CO2 boosts at night and during specific stages of the clone's life can be beneficial so I keep it cracked up all the freaking time at 1500 ppm.
When the plant takes in CO2, it metabolizes the C part of it (carbon) while releasing the O2 part (oxygen) into the air.

But the roots do need air too, they need air to absorb the oxygen in it, the roots take up oxygen to produce some other chemical for itself (name of it?).
The roots do need oxygen during both day and night since ideally, it's always dark in the root area.

But no matter what, the plant produces plenty of oxygen for it's onw needs so you don't really need to inject any oxygen in your grow.

 

High temps will promote algea growth, but someone else said that you need only to light-proof your rez to prevent algea from growing.

I agree, no light, no algea .... simple as that.
Algea needs light to form, if some algea devellops in your rez, it's that it isn't completely light-proofed.

 

Good to see you back pepe.

 

Thanx B-man .... I only have limited net access at the moment so it's gonna be scarse posting for me.

And I like the new avatar by the way ... cute!