Guava Auto DWC

Kellergaertner Why change one variable if you can change all of them xD For this grow I've set up a brand new DWC setup. It is a stackable Trash bin. The big advantage is the "service door" with easy access to the water/roots. I added a drain port, a holder for the foam ring, a bubbler, water sensors and a fish tank light. The fish tank light is an upgrade I wanted to do after my last DWC run. It improves inspections a lot. The sensor is a cheap Chines sensor. I flashed it with ESPHome to cut it from the cloud. I have not tested this sensor before, but it seems to work fine for now. Since I plan to ScrOG the plant later, I raised it from the floor to have more space from below. The tend is also DIY. It's just a wooden frame bolted to the ceiling and the tent canvas is mounted with snap fasteners to it. It is 1.2x1.2x2.2m

Kellergaertner I had the water getting fogy so I added some H2O2 and that cleared it up. To make less room for "bad" bacteria i added some "beneficial" bacteria. Sadly they turned the water (and roots) brown... I'm not really a fan of that so I'll replace the water, clean the bucket and start fresh. I might add a UVC aquarium cleaner, we'll see :) How ever the plant keeps growing and the cheap PH/EC meter is holding up. Currently there are still some guests in the tent (Kumquat, Limquad and Chili) but they will leave once the plant gets bigger. Edit: Changed the water and cleaned the bucket.

Kellergaertner After the "fail" with the beneficial bacteria I added a UVC fish tank cleaner. I underestimated the size of the 9W unit i got but it just fits. Now as soon as the water fogs up I start the cleaner for 20 minutes and it clears up again. It also aerates the water so another benefit. PH is pretty stable at 5.8 and EC at 1.4

Kellergaertner The Plant is growing fine. I topped her this week. The experiment with the UVC Cleaner works great. Anytime I see the water slightly fogging up or a minimal film on the surface, I start the cleaner for 20min and I'm fine for a week or so. Since I have no experience with Hakaphos I'm mostly steering by PH, EC and plant look. Since I expect the plant to start changing to flower soon I also started to add some Hakphos Red to ad some Phosphor and prepare for flowering.

Kellergaertner Not much to say this week. I removed some leaves to have better light penetration. Flowering is slowly starting. The water is still perfectly fine without H2O2 and just the UVC cleaner from time to time. I took the time to transfer the Athena Pro schedule nutrient distribution to Compo Expert Hakaphos Green/Red with consideration of my HARD TAB WATER mineral values. For me that resulted in the following schedule: green red(g/10L) Veg W1-4 10,00 0,00 Flower W1 5,00 10,00 Flower W2-7 0,00 18,00 Flower W8-9 0,00 10,00

Kellergaertner Plant is growing and I scroged it. The water is still clean and the UVC-Cleaner does his job just fine. She is evaporating a lot of water that need refilling and humidity is also rising strong. So I turned on my dehumidifier and put his drain right back into the DWC.

Kellergaertner It was time to renew the water. Also first flowers start showing

Kellergaertner To get the constant PH drop under control I added a peristaltic pump with potassium hydroxide, controlled via ESPHome. But the placement like in the picture was not a good idea, since the pump apparently does not clamp the tube properly an the PH-Up kept dripping even though the pump was stopped. So I had to place the outlet higher then the inlet did that the week later

Kellergaertner The plant seems to have reached it's final height. Now the buds keep growing. The new placement of the PH-Up pump works way better. Now the PH oscillates between 5.6 and 6. Also the UVC-cleaner keeps running for 10min when dosing PH-Up to distribute it in the reservoir.