BPP & BK RDWC 1st ever grow

First week in the RDWC system. Hand watering rockwool until roots touch water, fed just decholrinated water and cal mag, water temps in 70’s, going to invest in chiller. RDWC System is 2 site Hydra Unlimited, added 2 air stones in each bucket along with Venturi’s to assist in oxygenating the roots. PPM of water is 200 or so out of the tap.

Week 2 full strength feed schedule. I change water weekly, week 3 will begin 1/20/24. Hooked water chiller up to system, works great holding water temps at 66-68 deg F. Ph bounced around but has held steady at 5.9 for 4 days now. EC is 1.2. Lights are at 50% intensity. Roots really starting to show. Sorry pics and diary are a little disorganized, didn’t get diary going right away, I’ll keep up to date as week 3 begins. Humidity fluctuates and drops rapidly when the tent is opened. Put a pitcher of room temp water in with the girls to try to keep humidity up, just had a cold snap here with extreme lows! Girls are powering through no prob though 💪 As of 1/18/24 I’ll add update pics daily, also going to phase out hydroguard in favor or SoAg when it arrives in the mail. 1 8ox bottle of SoAg will make almost 50 gallons of “Hydroguard” and it’s much more effective from what I’ve been hearing from others.

Week 3 was a little rough, topped water off instead of scrubbing and refilling, got a bit of root rot in the girls. Drained whole system and cleaned everything. Doused roots in new nute solution. I think there was a bit of light leakage thru the media, also the water in my tanks were way too high. Running at 13 gal instead of 16 now. Roots/plants recovering. Both girls are pretty small, not expecting a big yeild, this run is all about learning.

Girls have recovered from the bit of root rot. Both girls are showing some pistils now, Banana purple punch was showing small ones a few days before the Bubble Kush. Got things back on track, switching to week 1 flower at next water change (1/25/24). The BPP is 4inches tall and the BK is 5.5 inches tall. I’ve learned so much already, I’m gonna push them through to harvest despite what I’m anticipating to be a small yield. Didn’t really get to train them due to stunting them pretty bad but spent the weak just spreading there branches each day exposing bud sites, they seemed to have responded well to that.

Beginning of flower. Changed water res and cleaned everything up, letting them coast for now. I definitely stunted them they’re small but we’re gonna finish them out regardless! BPP is 5inches tall and BK is 7 inches. Anticipating 5 ish more weeks for the flowering. The BPP has some spots on a couple of her leaves, gonna look into it, may be deficiency, hoping it’s fixed with new bloom food as it appears to be phosphorus or potassium it’s missing. 1/26/24: water temps not coming back down to 68, the chiller doesn’t seem to be working. Reset the chiller and will be able to check again tmrw to see if things change otherwise gotta get a replacement (bought it 1/3/24 😬), plants didn’t show any difference between today and yesterday. Removed affected leaves as new growth looks healthy. Ph went up to 6.25, if it woulda went to 6 I wouldn’t have messed with it but i pHed it down to 5.85, possibly why no growth with new water? 1/27/24: Girls roots looking better. Chiller working again. PH holding at 5.8. Added 10ml more peroxide to system as it seems to work the best for keeping system clean. 1/28/24: Plants looking much healthier, ph still holding good at 5.8, did a bit of defoliation. Light intensity up to 75%. 1/29/24: Girls still look good although the BPP is definitely a runt. PH still holding good. Roots look good. Raised light intensity up to 85%. I think the light intensity is making it harder for the chiller to keep the water temps right. Considering going to a 22/2 schedule to allow water to cool a bit. Water change 1/30, and begin new week.

1/31/24 : Changed out water and cleaned tanks. No longer using hydroguard, I just squirt 10ml peroxide into the reservoir ever other day to maintain cleanliness, have had no problems since. Did some defoliating as well. 2/1/24: oh drifted to 6.2, PHed down to 5.9. Starting 22/2 light schedule to hopefully help water chiller cool the water and lower the room temp a bit. Watching the BPP closely, if she doesn’t show improvement by the next water change I’m removing her. BK really starting to pop pistils now, small amount of defoliation on each plant. Let’s see what tomorrow brings! Correction will be pulling BPP tomorrow and finishing out run with just BK, BPP just looks sickly and she won’t amount to anything. Can’t justify using up the extra nutes for no reason. BK take it home! 2/3/24: BPP taken out and finishing the run with BK, calibrated pH meter. Water temps in check, tent temps in check, RH at 43%. Going to top off water 2/4/. 2/4/24: added 2 gal of feed. Water change coming later this week. Fan maintaining temps and humidity well. Things looking good. Ph went up to 6.1 after feed, pHed down to 5.88. Going to begin preparations for next bucket this week. Strawberry Cough auto to be germed on 2/8/24, it’ll have its own diary but will share the tent.

2/6/24: checked ppm after not checking and it was at zero! She ate everything! Drained and cleaned system a day early. She’s stretching really nice. And she’s starting to stank. 2/7/24: forgot to take pictures but needed to Ph down a bit and need to up my dosage of peroxide cause every time I scrub the system and do a water change the water still seems to get gross until I get more peroxide in it. 2/8/24: she’s stinky now, branches and everything look good. Added more peroxide and tank is clean. She drank about a half gallon of water in a day, probably have to top her off 2/9 or 2/10. 2/11/24: she’s grown/stretched quite a bit this week. Gonna do one more defoliation today or tomorrow. 2/12/24 is beginning of week 8. She’s drinking and eating good. Environment dialed in for the most part. Just letting her swell up. Topped of res with 2ish gal feed. 2/12/24: pH drifted back up to 6.2, not adjusting as water change happening tomorrow. Planning another defol, didn’t get to it today. She’s getting stinking and buds are getting thicker. 2/13/24: Day 49 last day of week 7. Changed out water res. Did another defol. Letting her ride now.

2/15/24: Befinning of wk 8 (Day50). She’s done stretching, packing on buds now. I intend to give her 1 or 2 more feedings before flushing depending how things go this week. Startered up an Autopot grow as well, leaning towards that in the future and phasing out the RDWC system. 2/16/24: no changes really. Buds thickening up. Ph keeps drifting up to 6.3, unsure why. Gonna add a gallon of feed tomorrow. 2/19/24: Day 55. PH holding at 6.1, added a gallon of double dosed feed to boost ppm as I was on the low end on 2/18, not doing res change this week as next week is last week of full feed before half feed then flush. Plucked some small non developing spots towards the bottom. Just letting her fatten up. 2/20/24: Day 56. We have sugar leaves and trichomes beginning to form. PPM down to 825 but only 1/2 gal water consumed. Will add 1 gal of double dose feed to begin wk9 tomorrow. Progressing well. She also smells rather strong though I have no other grows to compare to.

2/21/24: Day 57 First day of week 9. Letting her bulk up. 2/27/24: Sad day. The root rot was far worse than I thought. Cut her down and threw her away. Moving on to new diary with coco coir. Wish me luck!

Cut her down cause the root rot got too bad. Neither plant made it to the end sadly but I learned quite a bit along the way. I’ll be growing in coco with auto pots going forward, I liked the idea of the rdwc but all the water changes, problems with pumps and sprayers clogging was all too much to keep up with. Wish me luck in the future!