I've sort of adopted General Hydro products by accident. It's just turned out to be what I ended up using after the first grow. I am pleased and I'm likely to continue using them for most grows.
So I gave this girl and the Grapefruit Auto the chop today. They were both done as done but could have gone for another day or two with no problem. However, the Mephisto Ghost Toof DWC is starting to get pompoms and was looking a little bit crowded in, so I wanted to give her a bit more space, so the chop these girls got. If you've followed this grow, this girl was my first, failed attempt at a DWC grow. I made the mistake of using an organic Cal/Mag supplement while trying to run a sterile DWC, which lead to repeated outbreaks of brown algae. In the end, I pulled her out of the DWC, looking pretty bad, on day 25, and stuck her into a 2.5 gallon pot, not hoping for more than a harvest measured in grams. I'd still have been able to sample the strain, and know how soon I'd want to take another crack at it. I should have put her into a six gallon pot like the other girls, because she recovered like gangbusters and would have yielded a lot more had she had the room. But that's okay, as I have a couple more seeds and I'll be trying her again in the next grow.
I didn't from this girl, learn to take the chance with a girl that I think is stunted. Give 'em a shot, because they may surprise you.
@Philindicus, re: H202 - Both! I throw H2O2 in every day, and each week I use a tiny bit (.2 grams) of pool shock to keep her sterile. I also have an aquarium UV sterilizer pump in her bucket. (Does not expose the roots to light, it's an enclosed pump affair.)
As the H202 breaks down it increases the O2 levels. As the pool shock breaks down it increases calcium.
I kind of went crazy because every four days or so she was developing brown algae so I dropped the hammer on her HARD. Finally got the temperature in the grow space down to 69-70f, so that shouldn't be as much of an issue now.
It's my first DWC so I'm learning a lot, lol.
@Philindicus, haven't yet. I'm all up to date here, so everything you see is everything I've grown. All Great Lakes Water Only soil and this one. I didn't do more DWC because we're in the country a bit and power outages are fairly common this time of year. I did, however, buy a single backup air pump for live bail that uses D cell batteries which can get me through an outage. If this girl goes really well, I might consider eventually moving over to DWC for all of the 2x4 grows. Seems like a higher risk, higher reward setup where the risk can be avoided by reading a lot. :-D
Coco is on the table still. I have a 50 pound bag of it in the grow room, waiting to be used when I'm ready for it. My main thing is trying to avoid the temptation of Coir, which seems to be a gigantic feed regimen full of optimization and piles of product. If I can force myself to do it up using a small number of inexpensive nutes like these grows I'll probably do it for the next grow.
Ideally I'd use exactly what I'm using on this girl.
@Hexus,No rush,It does take up a lot of time and to keep tracked of photos. I see your trying some fast buds and a few others. Going to see if I can try some mephisto on my next grow. I want to see how your plants do with your new set up. Did you already grow in coco coir?
@Philindicus, Been holding back. :-D Take pics every day of every plant, but I didn't have time to log all of them here every day. Took like an hour with just the first four. First grow was nine plants, now all logged, but a couple I didn't do in real time. These five new strains are daily and in real time again. Trying to put together a daily routine that is consistent. A setup series, one pic a day per plant until nearing the end, and then two pics (One cola, one full plant) for a couple weeks running up to the end, and then the harvest pics.
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@Hulk_itisatumor, This is the first, so you'll know shortly after I do! :-D It's also my first DWC so "If I don't accidentally murder her." can also apply.
She seems to be doing alright, but she's growing more slowly than her dirt sisters. I've heard that that can be the case so I'm not worrying yet. She's getting bigger by the day.
@Philindicus, I agree. Watered her four days ago with half strength nutes (Maxibloom). Her roots were a tiny little wad when I put her into the dirt. However, she's in an amended supersoil so it was probably a little hot to feed her until she's expanded her roots throughout the soil. To be honest, I had no idea that she was going to thrive in any way after I pulled her out of the DWC, so my only goal was to keep her alive and let her have her little, no-yield life. She wasn't having that, so now I have a stunted but very growy girl that I'm having to watch carefully. :-D She'll never be a chunker, but I think she may have been worth keeping around.
I tried one of those rapid rooters once. It seemed like the tap root was stuggling to grow through it they were like they're kind of spongee. Never tried hydro but I see some growers using rock wool plugs wonder if they would be a little easier for the roots to grow through. Just a thought.
@Philindicus, Yeah they are sold as DWC items but I don't see a lot of people using them. Rock Wool will probably be the future solution, if I end up doing more DWC.