Gelato DWC SCROG (first hydro grow)

This is my first hydro grow and first time with clones. I have a few semi successful outdoor grows under my belt but the weather (hot AF) and caterpillar apocalypse (lost a beast of a plant and the tops of most others) last year are forcing me inside. Reservoir is an hdx 27 gallon tote with 15 gallons of actual water capacity about 1/4” under net pots. Attached to 1/4 hp active aqua chiller (overkill but got a deal and am in so cal; last years consistent 100+ temps ravaged my outdoor grow and can even make indoor temp regulation difficult) with two 5” and one 4” air stones in main res and one 4” in a 5 gallon top off res (not part of the system until/if I need it) attached to two 15L/minute active aqua air pumps. I wanted to have a bit of a barrier between the ambient temps inside the tent (rest of the room is a/c controlled) and the actual reservoir so I built a base to set the tent sans bottom putting the top of the res at the floor of the tent. This also raises the reservoir off the ground and hoping it will save some back aches once scrog comes into play. This also frees up 16” of vertical space inside tent and although I intend to scrog it should help as a buffer with temps and I won’t have to worry about light distance since plants are at floor level. To keep as much unnecessary heat out of the 4x2 tent the spider farmer light ballast was removed and relocated to outside the tent which I’m glad because during testing the ballast and light are each producing 120 degrees. Half of that is outside the tent allowing the temps inside the tent to stay about around when room temp is about 78 (a/c off but weather is fluctuating) with a small fan at base level and a 6” clip on fan for higher up. Reservoir will be 66-68 at all times thanks to the chiller. For ph management I am going to be using a torus hydro perfect ph (35 gallon). I’m hoping their claims aren’t just hype because they say it removes H+ and OH- ions to allow the ph to maintain 5.8 - 6.2 ph (without any additional buffers). This small fluctuation allows all nutrients to be taken in while a stagnant ph will prevent certain nutrient uptake hence a more complete usage. These are claims among others they made, let’s see if the science is legit. Unfortunately this being my first hydro grow I have no standard to base this off, but if I don’t have to worry about my ph that’s one less worry. Nutrients will be GH flora trio and cal-mag plus hydroguard. Not sure about additional additives, want to keep it pretty basic but suggestions for this nute/strain combo would be appreciated. I was intending on growing wedding cake or venom og but cake was sold out and venom didn’t look great so I ended up coming home with two gelato clones from universal nurseries. I’ve always liked this strain but wanted the cake because I’ve read it’s highly resilient. What I was not expecting was that these would be rooted in neoprene. I’m new to hydro and aside from the research and reading throughout my grows I usually overlooked neoprene. I guess it could be better than the rock wool as it shouldn’t leach and mess with ph? They are surrounded by hydroton and will be hand watered until roots make it to water. Update day 6: I went against my better judgment and initially painted my lid for light leakage. Ended up dumping my entire reservoir two days in because it was full of paint chips (even though it was formulated for plastic it still chipped off in high volume). Used a drill pump from HD, worked well as the intake is a 1/4” pvc tube I could suck up the paint chips and the water, but DO NOT USE to transfer anything but waste water as the output contained grease from the pump! Got a new lid and will just be using panda film for light blockage. Added a small humidifier because rh was in the 30-40 range, now temps and rh are consistently 70 degrees and about 65%. Nutes are 1/4 strength except calimag due likely to stoned math... Plants don’t seem to be minding so I’m not trying to sweat it much. Slight upward drift in ppm and ec as water is taken in or evaporates and ph is slowly swinging in the range torus hydro said it would so that is a success as I have not used any buffers. They claim it is more effective when it can directly interact with a root mass so it seems promising. New growth sprouting all over but no roots have made it out of the net pots. I went with 6” hoping roots will branch laterally exposing move root mass to the air gap once developed. Started noticing slight yellowing of leaves day 4 and some drooping (due to low rh as they perked up after adding humidifier) so I went from 50ml top feed daily to 100ml, also turned light down to 15% and everyone is happy.

So, learning curve in hydro. Plants are continuing to yellow and not due to humidity but (also and mostly) poor math again... so rather than add a concentrated solution to replace what has been depleted I dumped the tank once more. It is wasteful and I am taking steps to prevent more issues like this. New solution is week 2 recirculating from GH, poor math meant they were getting about a third what they should have. Lower leaves have chlorosis and is making its way up which is typical of them using nitrogen in lower leaves to fuel new growth. There is new growth but not what I was expecting as they are cannibalizing nutrients. This full strength solution will either cause them to explode or die. Either way I’ll learn something. Ph has been steady, but even at 1/3 nutes my ppm and ec were over the expectations for full strength at that week and I’m using RO water. They are obviously lacking in nutrients so let’s see if I should be be paying more attention to ml/g or expected ppm/tds. The clone on the left shot a few roots that made contact with water and took off but none on the right yet. Will top feed that one until roots are finally in water. I also turned the light up to 40% as it is almost at full height and plants will need to light to photosynthesize newly available nutrients. If they like it light intensity will come up again in a few days to see how everything acclimates. I also added 5L of unopened bpa free plastic bottles to displace what is honestly far too much water in the reservoir at this stage. If the plants hate the new solution I can remove them and dilute while maintaining water level and not wasting water. I said waste management measures were being taken... Scrog net was built out of 1/2” emt, self tap screws and synthetic string (less likely to mold) to make 3” square openings. Used emt as its galvanized (corrosion resistance and is metallurgically bonded so it is safe for the plants to contact) instead of pvc because it flexes really bad at smaller diameters. I was able to string this as tight as the string would allow without deforming. It isn’t needed yet but wanted to be prepared. Also it appears my light is heavier on red spectrum on the right side and blue on the left by my pictures... will likely add another small panel during flower anyway to fill the footprint at a lower height.

The clone on the right refused to root, pulled it and looks like there might have been some root rot and recovery so roots didn’t search out the water line and got stuck in hydroton. It now lives in some dirt in a small pot with bondage on my balcony and seems to be recovering. Will not be following that one anymore. FIMmed the top a couple days ago to push the bottom of the plant, might need to clear some fan leaves. Aside from that, the magnesium deficiency sorted out and the remaining plant is taking in nutes and throwing arms like crazy. But as the nutrient uptake began I have what looks like some nitrogen toxicity, not terrible as the leaves aren’t shiny and no claws but I diluted the solution a bit as ppm and ec are still very high compared to everyone else. I have not fully sorted out what my solution ratios are yet as there have been adjustments to bring it into range and ppm and ec are very high so next res change I will not mix nutrients for the whole solution but perhaps half and dilute the rest with hydroguard at full strength (using RO water). So far I have used no buffers and the torus hydro perfect ph stick appears to be doing its job because no matter what I put in there the ph is 5.9-6.1. Having a fungus gnat issue stemming from another houseplant (studio living) so I need some BT spray for the hydroton and some dunks for the res. Also the ac for my building is out and had a couple 100 degree days, managed to keep the tent under 86 but really need that to come online before that is the norm again. A reptile fogger replaced the tiny bedside one I crammed in there in urgency, has a 4L capacity so I can refill daily as opposed to three times. Also the hose outlet allows the unit to be outside the tent. Also replaced the two 15lpm pumps with EcoPlus 795gph (almost 100lph more). Have to say the design on it is a little sloppy from an engineering standpoint, the power cable comes directly out the bottom between the rubber feet and you’d essentially break it to get it to the point the feet actually make contact so it walks around. I made a base to run the cable under and mount the pump firmly and am making a cover with mdf and dynamat to kill the sound which isn’t terrible but I sleep 15 feet from it.

Again no nute info as I still haven’t changed the res... there is super minimal deposits on the walls as it falls but the plant is doing great and is so stable it’s scary. Ppm, ec, ph all little to no fluctuation, just adding RO with hydroguard to top up. Temps have hit 90+ outside a couple days already and the ac is still out so I’ve raised lights, dimmed and opened tent for full breaths of fresh air of mildly cooler room air when needed. Would be breaching 90 without these measures. I must say, DWC is amazing. The growth trounces my outdoor rates and spending 1-3 hours daily in 90-110 temps with watering, training and pest control compared to the 10-15 minutes daily feels like I’m being lazy. Once the ac is back online temps should be no issue and hopefully I can continue not having to pay too much attention even though it feels unnatural. Removed some fan leaves at end of week, not going for defoliation for another couple weeks. What I’ve seen from others grows is to expect 12-15” of stretch with this strain but it seems to be more than 55% indica. Wants to be a dense bush so I’m going to completely fill the screen before flipping since I have headroom with the lights.

Not much except steady growth and stable ph/ec/ppm until end of the week... the pump feeling the chiller started making noise so I pulled it out of the res and disassembled. The vertical tube was slimy with brown residue and had some on the walls as well. Fearing rot and expecting sludge on air stones I dumped the res and was surprised how good everything looked. Roots were feeling lively and firm and developing into a decently sized root ball. Which tangled up my air lines. Those were disconnected and moved to the perimeter of the res rather than directly underneath the plant as the goal is to not have stagnant water and keep the res O2 rich. The perimeter of the tank seems to not have as much circulation as I would like and hope moving stones will help. The slime! So im positive it isn’t brown slime algae as it was just a light residue on a few surfaces and roots are in good shape. I am going to attribute this to vigorous aeration plus the dunk I put in a media filter bag. Plus the rotting corpses of the fungus gnats which have since disappeared with dunk and BT spray on hydroton. I used a harbor freight 1.25g sprayer to wash walls and roots and drained again before filling with new solution (I’ll include that in next week so issues will be tied to that). This is the first res change IN A MONTH and could have gone much longer if not for needing the dunk and BT. Mind you this is also with zero ph buffering, just top off with water so I’m going to say torus hydro is working well!

Mixed up 5 gallon solution at GH rdwc schedule which comes out to ph 5.6, ec 3.2 and ppm 1787. This was diluted with 2 gallons with 4ml hydroguard and 8ml calimagic which put me at ph 5.92, ec 1981 and ppm 990. Topping off with additional solution as necessary, will bring ppm up to around 1200 as growth has slowed a bit but not having any major issues. Plant is not spreading as much but is filling up with branches and budsites. Doing daily selective defoliation. Will go a few more weeks in veg to fill out as much screen as possible before flipping.

Went away for the weekend which meant I had to do a last minute upgrade to the fogger situation. It was needling to be refilled twice daily, new setup fills once every 5 days and could go longer plus has 150% output. It is a single disc fogger (500 ml/hr) in a float from house of hydro in a hdx 17 gallon tub with 120mm fan and 4” ducting. I consider this entire tent setup a working prototype as it could be much more effective so I will implement more polished versions into the setup planned for next round. Things been stable, top off once a week with solution and trim fan leaves.

Water got a little low so ppm and ec were high (1900!), added diluted solution to bring into range. PH still stayed in range and everything is doing fine. Will do another week, two max before flipping. The right side hasnt filled out entirely so I’m pinching the left and tucking branches but is getting crowded as the plant isn’t getting “taller”. Without lst this would be a pretty bushy plant, will be interesting to see how much it stretches in flower. I’m beginning to mess around with cloning and will have quite a few lower branches to work with once I fully lollipop at switch.

Everything is steady, ready to lollipop and get some clones going in a small chamber made of two hdx bins. These fit together really well, the tabs for the lids on the bin line up and interlock when face to face(see pics) and provide the extra height I needed for the more developed clones I want to take. Turning lights back 30 minutes each day until I reach 12/12 and will swap res for flowering solution at some point next week (will only be full swap 3 this grow).

Reached 12/12 Sunday and switched res to flower. Weaving scrog has left a few areas dense (and right side didn’t fill in 100%) I will defoliate again in a week or so but no more training. From what I’ve read I expect up to 15” stretch over the next few weeks. Might need an additional trellis for support, we shall see. Res looked great since the fungus gnats cleared up and I removed the dunks. No films or smells, very happy. Again, have not adjusted ph a single time. Nutrients mixed and then diluted to ppm and put in res. The little torus has been taking care of it all, hasn’t swung past their claimed range even with a couple crazy ppm spikes. It was worth it.

We have preflowers! So I consider this week one of flower. Res has been full flower solution all week, over the week I continued to lollipop and clean up under the net which caused the canopy to explode so that got pruning as well. This is the most extensive defoliation I have ever done but she doesn’t seem to mind. As I’m not sure of how much or long stretch will last it’s a bit of a leap of faith for me but I’m pretty confident. It was also necessary as my rh has been holding higher than ever at the time I need to be reducing it. Over the course of two days rh jumped significantly and now a truggling to get rh under 60. Have added intake fan and another circulation fan, cleaned my carbon filter cover to improve air flow again and finally, realized I had not fully closed the port to the res (which is not airtight anyway) and allowing that lovely 67 degree cool air directly into the tent. Hovering just under 60 now but more measures will be taken as an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of moldy buds. I will also prepare another screen as I don’t want the weight to push the net pot though the res lid and to keep things nice and tidy.

Had to make a few serious upgrades as environment was getting out of whack. Humidity would not drop below 60 so we have an ac infinity t6 and new 6” filter exhausting and a 22 pint 1,500 sq ft dehumidifier treating the room air. Not the most efficient but it’s working well. Removed a gallon of water in 12 hours which is capacity so I will be setting up a reserve tank so it can go a few days. Future build will have dehumidifier inside cab and draining back to nutrient res. Ph seemed more off than typical, generic ph tester probably not holding calibration so bluelab pen is on its way. I’ve realized cheap half steps cost more in the end. Buy the right equipment the first time, it’s not worth the stress down the road. But at least now I’ll have a decent mini setup for veg/clone tent when next build is done! Stretch is mostly 12” above net, on track with the 15” I was expecting but there are a few low spots. Will make a second screen to organize colas, remove small growth and get a few monster crop clones from crowded areas.

Had my first ph issue, was coming before I did res swap I believe. After swap at 60% nutients (GH) root zone is leaching into res raising ec and lowering ph. Chased the ph for a couple days with up and had still had full point drops. I added a couple gallons 100% (showing deficiency) solution to raise ec an recharged my torus module (should have done this at first flower res swap). I had added an additional air stone for an area of res I found sediment (was assuming precipitate of nutes), research said might have caused acid rain situation. I turned it off even an hour and saw no change in ph but left it off to take a factor out. Things are slowly settling, will not take any aggressive actions like a flush unless it continues a few more days. Until then, a bit of up and watching for obvious signs. Shout out to @hashy for being the only one to reply to my question and not jump to drastic measures immediately. Except the aggressive defoliation I just did during a wild ph swing... but it was that time and humidity is still high. Taking a big risk but she’s chugging along no matter what I do. Oh, and I added an additional spider farmer sf1000 today too. It’s at 100%. Am I mad? I ducted exhaust (now the t6 and a 4” vivosun from pre upgrade, both with filter) outside my room as temps are higher than I want and my ac is working overtime from the heat wave and having to cool heated air. It is a portable unit single hose cooling the whole room and I will be converting the intake air into the compressor to be ducted from outside (like a dual hose unit) so it is not using my cooled air to cool the air. And insulating the exhaust hose because it is radiating 113 degrees into my room instead of outside. Humidifier also dumping hot air into the room as I was putting the tent rh right back into the room. Hope these efficiencies allow me to control my environment a bit more.

Did a flush with clearex for a couple hours in case there was a lockout before res change. Still chasing ph and ec but the plant is doing nicely, probably should’ve bulked a bit more but looking good if it is a true 10 week flower period. Will continue doing flushes between res swaps and using ph up with lower ec top up solution. I never paid this much attention with the soil grows and had decent results so I will just continue trying to keep her in proper ph/ec range as needed and see what happens. I had to leave for a few days and believe the clearex flush helped slow the ph drop and ec rise by 50%. Changes over 48+ hours were equivalent to a 24 hour shift before flush. Ph drops from 6.0 to 4.8 and ec rose from 1180 to 1800 over 48 hours. This was happening every 24 hours before flush. Not thrilled about it but I’m sure my soil grows were suffering worse honestly. I’ve only had a few leaves naturally drop so I’m not too concerned because at this point I typically was showing deficiencies or ph problems in soil with adequate results.

Res finally stabilized again, but time for a swap. She’s drinking around gallon a day (!) with minimal ec rise and I’ve been topping off with RO and hydroguard only but that means I’ve replaced almost 70% of my solution and still maintaining ppm. Did a simple flush for a couple hours with RO just to break down any salts and coming out was about 180 ppm over RO. New solution added which is sitting about 1100 after settling. I do find it odd as I was pushing ec really hard in veg and she loved it and I’ve had to pull back during flower. Finally showed a bit of nute burn from the ph and ec swings a couple weeks ago but not worried about it as she finally bulking up a bit. As this was my first scrog I’m realizing I should’ve been even harsher in lollipopping as I have quite a few branches that didn’t break canopy and are atrophying. Next run I would like to have only dominant branches as colas but since I’m using clones I can’t do my usual mainlining. Will likely slightly affect yield but that larf and lower grade will become RSO and dry ice hash so I’m still very happy. On another note, the clones I have taken a little over month ago before flip have been doing great. Gave one to a neighbor and 6 are going to my dad’s neighbor next weekend to be grown outdoor and at high elevation! UV is STRONG there as they are near 8000 feet elevation. So that will be interesting. It is her first attempt at growing so I’m trying to set her up for success. I am left with 3 younger clones to choose as a mother as I want to keep 3-4 strains on hand so once I get the perpetual harvest going I can rotate strain. I also took a couple clones in flower to witness monster cropping and had 90% success so far! These are just to learn the techniques and will just be kept as ornamentals on my balcony as it gets a lot of artificial light at night negating proper flowering.

Had to go away for a few days which is scary as ph has again been dropping a point plus each day. Rigged up an iv bag to drip ph up and it held. Next build being a dedicated flower cabinet will have a top off res to maintain more stable ec and I am looking at building an atlas scientific IOT controller with two peristaltic pumps to keep everything regulated and have constant ph/ec/temp monitoring without having to open my res during lights on. Will be an investment but cheaper than an equivalent bluelab monitor with only a single pump and has a nice looking interface where I can calibrate/monitor/remote monitor and dose! Aside from that things are still progressing but from the looks of it the first week of flower at 12/12 shouldn’t be counted. I am just now beginning to see a few stigmas beginning to change color which I expected a week earlier. I regret not getting the second screen in there as colas are leaning with weight gain. I’m going to finish without it as this tent will not be used for flowering after this run and the new cabinet will have different dimensions making this screen garbage...

So I finally stopped being delusional and made a choice about my res. Ph had still been dropping daily which caused lockout a while ago which led to some deficiencies and losing a bunch of lower leaves. Was not the typical N deficiency to be expected. Fungus gnats never fully went away and I believe their rotting corpses and damaged roots in the root zone caused some bad bacteria to form and threw things off. So I did a diluted h2o flush to kill everything including my bennies. Added cannazym after to break down any rotting organic material. She didn’t seem to mind. Loss of leaves appears to have slowed and ph is finally stable for the first time in a month! Took ppm down and will adjust as needed. Plant was looking less than impressive the other day and then I realized everything was laying down from bud weight. Second screen would’ve prevented that but now I’ve got 100 feet of ugly garden wire doing the job haha. Yet another issue being addressed in next build.

Since the h2o2 flush everything is back on track and getting quite colorful! Got a usb microscope to check trichomes, looks like 2 weeks maybe 3. Macro shots from all over the plant, still a lot of clear but many milky and no amber. I’m happy with that as I’d like to see the buds bulk more before flush so I also am adding hydroplex until then. Next run will be all botanicare with cannazym. GH has been working fine but I never liked how it stains my roots making visual inspection difficult and the whole destructive multinational conglomerate parent company issue.

Another res change, wants about 600ppm now to stay stable. Bulking up a bit, not much change in trichomes so it looks like another 2 weeks before chop.

I’m ramping everything down and beginning a 3-7 day flush with RO and clearex only and reducing light to 11 hours as of this post. Need to go away for a little over a week so I have to chop by the end of next week to dry for 10-14 days and begin the cure before I leave. Since I’ll definitely be over the one ounce you can carry in California and have nobody to burp jars I will need to setup an auto cure bucket. There’s still a bit of clear, but mostly cloudy and almost no amber trichomes. Might have taken it an additional week if not for time constraints but it has also not been feeding much and is at the end of the suggested flower period. Will see how rapidly things begin to fade and then drop the humidity and give it some dark before harvest. Have never had the opportunity to control humidity or light at this stage so this will be first time trying these methods for resin production/terpenes/death swell haha.

The time is finally here! Flushed with clearex for 7 days and had about 56 hours dark before chop. For a 2x4 tent I’m gonna say this is a pretty solid harvest. What’s hanging is A (tops, purple,dense), B (tops, not purple, dense), and C (loose or less developed buds) and D (larf) are in paper bags to become dry ice hash and RSO. I think this plant could’ve produced even more had I addressed the ph/lockout due to res conditions but I wasn’t sure what was happening. A lot has been learned and I’ll never go back to soil except for food and shrubs, dwc growth just can’t be matched. And now that I understand how it works actually much easier than soil as I can directly apply a remedy without soil interfering. I was hoping big things from the little torus hydro ph balancer, worked great in veg but not sure how much it was helping in flower. Will continue using it since I have more solution for it but upcoming grows will have ph dosers so things never get out of line. Unfortunately temps soared for this weekend so the tent is warmer than I’d like, hoping I can stretch the dry as long as possible because these flowers are WET. It smells really creamy and subdued. It’s not so loud that it alerts the whole neighborhood but legit smells like a complex desert! Tried a spot of scissor hash which left a lovely white ash and tasted AHHHHHHHMAZING. Very excited to try the sample buds in a few days. Also if you like those rolling trays my friend makes them and you can get them at “fluidity by Mattie” online. Tell her I sent you for a 0% discount! But really she makes neat stuff check it out. Anyone wanna guess dry weight?!? I’ll be back with that when it’s ready, until then thanks and happy growth!

I HIT THE POUND!!! Technically. 12.7 oz of A/B grade buds, 1.8 oz of C grade which will be dry ice hash and 2.1 oz of trim and larf for RSO and a total of 16.6 oz. I had set a personal goal of 12 oz so I’m thrilled I hit that, I would like to hit the pound in just A/B grade so that’s my new goal. But not for next round as I’ll be doing some jack herer fast which will not yield as much. But it’s my favorite strain and I’m stocked for a bit. Much has been learned and I’m excited to get back to seed so I can properly manifold again. I do believe that providing that symmetry in branches provides more equal growth down the line and in turn more consistent result. Biggest takeaways from this grow: 1) PH IS A TYRANT. Appease it or the suffer the consequences. 2) Do start low with the EC. She was eating everything I threw at her until she wasn’t which caused much stress to her and I both. Got it resolved but wasted water and nutrients when I’m aiming to be as resourceful and responsible as I can. 3) Be AGGRESSIVE when lollipopping. Should not have had that much larf for a scrog. 4) I’ve always avoided paper bags when drying. Seemed well, trashy. I threw a couple wet trim tester buds in a bag to dry and they came out really compact like dispensary buds. I had hung the rest for dry trim and they maintained their structure and trichome quality better. My kief looks like granulated sugar. I was actually scared that I spilled something in my tray. I like the appearance and evenness of dry of the bag weed better… oh well. This was a test bed run to learn the system, layout and nutrients I want. Smell hasn’t come out as it just went into jar but I think I will add terpinator to the routine. I want more stank. Thanks and happy growing people! 🌱