DIY Shallow Water Culture

OK There are numerous things going on in this grow, it is a test of the Mars Hydro 2000 which I won in a comp. It's a quantum board style light that is 4 foot long so it nicely fills a 4 x 2 foot space. It has meanwell style drivers. Draws 310W at the wall and by my measurements it's putting out about 285W of light. Each side runs it's own 4A dimmable driver. It's light, cool and no nonsense. The light appears to be a little greener than usual but there is good intensity and the spread is great. @kitkat332986 here's the DIY build I spoke about. Mainly though this is a DIY on how to build your own Shallow Water Culture. There is nothing groundbreaking or unusual here, it's just a complete package designed to avoid all the problems that new growers run into. It is my opinion that deep water culture is not the best way to produce the most vigorous roots and consequently the healthiest plant. This system used reversible tubs the type that have no lids, and stack one way they sit on top of each other and stacked the other way they sit inside each other. These are cheap and readily available anywhere. Apart from three of these tubs basically all you need is a small aquarium water pump, 8W is good, and a bit of tubing. *no addition air* is needed. No cal mag, is necessary. I recommend only using a simple 2 or 3 part nutrient like General Hydroponics, no other additives. This set up will grow healthy plants that will be easy to tend to. It's suitable to 1 to 4 plants. The reservoir can be at the bottom or you can sit it on a milk crate and have the reservoir separate, this is good if you have two of these and just want one larger reservoir. Any questions just ask away. Clay pebbles are a necessary part of this. They are the best hydroponic medium for supplying oxygen, and they are 100% reusable, at the end of the grow tip them into a full bath and they all float to the top and the debris sinks to the bottom. The tubs on this grow are 25L. The top tub is filled with clay balls and top fed, and drains out the bottom into the middle tub that holds a shallow 2" pool of nutrient, which overflows back into the reservoir. Note four holes in the corner for 8mm dowel that can be used for a scrog, which I might install later. The first week is necessary very slow, often slower than soil because these plants will put out a long tap root before filling out sideways. However after 10 days, they will take off. For this grow we have two Orange Bud Auto from Dutch Passion. I'm currently growing one which is 7 weeks old so it will be interesting to compare. My other Orange Bud will spend a lot of blooming time under a very red biased viparspectra, this is their new HP series, which they do not advertise but are much more red than their traditional blue biased lights. So lets see what these lights can do.

They looked weird an pale with splotchy darker green, the yellow one fell over and so I used a wire to help it up. I had to check back with my 3 in a pot seedlings to confirm that this slow start is nothing to worry about. I know by day 10 or 11 the stems begin to thicken and that is what happened. They went from looking strange to looking sort of normal now. Replaced the reserviour and no roots have emerged yet which is what I'd expect because there's a lot of substrate in there. Both plants seems to be showing quite different phenotypes though. This still needs some tweaking and I made some more drain holes where the middle tank overflows to the reservoir, and I might tweak it some more. I do prefer the circular system but this is just a proof of concept. I'll be expecting some proper action by next week.

both sides of the light are on now running at 2.2A each at 35V so about 160W. Both these plants are in identical conditions with both plugs being placed right next to a nutrient jet. This makes it possible to see the incredible variation of phenotype. Yellow plant is droopy with tight internodes, Orange plant is very perky with more spaced internodes. However the both plants have identical sets of branches and leaves. No leaves have been removed yet. So this is the level of variation that is possible and it could so easily be put down to many other causes if say both plants were in separate pots. I was probably giving them too much light at first but they are powering on now, it's always a slow start with the hydro then the big burst. Feeding them at 1 part Micro 2 parts Gro and 1 part Bloom. ppm 1100

They're really taking off now, these are the leggiest plants I've grown yet, very different to the other orange bud. The leaves are ginormous, like over 3 inches wide. Another advantage to this type of tub is that there is room to put some wooden dowels in the corner and a net, which I have installed. However I've since taken it off and will put it back later. I might finally get to grow a tall plant for a change, I'm curious to see how these develop.

Both of these are extraordinarily open compared to any other grow I've done and also compared to my current orange bud that's at 11 weeks. But the one on the right, is even more. It's crazy. I can't explain it. It's as if I've put some growth hormones in but there's no additives of any kind. Fortunately it's in an area where there's plenty of room for her to express herself. I also reinstalled the net. Because she's so open I have not had to do much defoliating.

This is Week 6 and the growth is very fast and even faster on the right. Utterly different to my other Orange Bud from the same seed packet. I'm a bit late with this update so week 7 coming right up...

Everything continuing exactly as per previous weeks, flowering is already nice and tufty. The Flowers on the other Orange Bud is absolutely thick dense and covered in trichomes so I'm super curious to see how this goes. I'm expecting to the flowers to be underwhelming for a while.

Not a lot new to say, everything is progressing normally I'll be expecting some more chunking up next week. As per through the entire grow, the right and left plants are growing to different schedules.

You can see why I haven't been paying much attention to these, they don't really need much work, although I did finally go in for a decent chop. go and have a look at my other Orange Bud at 9 weeks compared to these two! All three beans from the same packet and in almost identical conditions.

Will be catching up on all my grows... this finished in stages. It is interesting watching these two different phenotypes.

The phenotypes are now very distinct, the small plant's leaves go directly from green to dark plum colour they do not go yellow at all. Unlike the early orange bud. It almost looks like it has a blue light on it.

Harvested all the top colas on the early Orange Bud left the underbuds to keep going for another week maybe, and the blue phenotype is still way behind.

The unusual phenotype is unmistakable now, she's so pretty I found it difficult to chop her down, I think I've spent more time looking at this particular plant than any other. It's mesmerising, plus she has a pungent diesel smell that is absent form the normal orange bud.

Almost like two different plants, one extra fast and the other a bit slow, they dried like they looked and produced high quality dense buds that were easy to trim and look quite nice. There was a week between the two big plant harvests and then another week for the purple plant. The first two came in at 3 zip and 4 zip and the purple plant added another four for a total of 11 zips of very high quality bud. Interesting to compare the form of these two orange buds with my other orange bud grow. All three beans from the same sealed dutch passion container. However this grow is really all about the DIY shallow culture. And I think it worked really well it was a bit difficult to get to the reservoir, I needed help to lift her out, so I only changed the reservoir three times and instead just topped her up with more nutes. Seemed to work fine. You can see the fantastic root structure and the health of the roots. No ayirstone needed and like all my grows I do not use or need cal mag or other additives other than what is already in the normal nutes. I prefer my more manageable 15Litre round tubs, but the principle is the same.