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The road to DWC - ups, downs, info, failure, success, guidance....

theliveculture: Thanks, it feels like this setup is good too, and hearing it from others gives confidence. Just come home in the middle of the night and watched over the plants before I went to bed. They look healthier than ever, but it might be just me wanting them too look healthy. 
 
Anyhow, thanks for all the input. I appreciate it! You say the GH series is good. I bought it as a budget "all purpose" mix for hydro in the cropshop. But you mention micro and bloom, so did the guy in the store. You write I will get into trouble if not using the whole series. Hows that, and when to use the micro and the floragro, the bloom is no need of explaining. Furthermore, measuring EC. How? Will I get away with 50% of nutes added (compared to label) once a month, or twice? I will take good care of the PH and I will look into the reservoir! Im running a big air pump. Right now its at the lowest setting for less sound. But it still produces a lot of air. And at full thrust it really makes bubbles popping out of the netpots. The current tempt during the day in the tent was 75 - 78, actually some degrees lower than the ambient temperature. The water temp is at 70-72. Thanks for all the input and good info, love it! Please keep em coming and ill keep y'all posted on development. I spend shit loads of bucks on this now, changing from one setup to another. So I hope this really works. 
 
This is the products I have to choose from in my cropshop: http://www.hydrohagen.no/naering
 
Question: Wh do I need the the micro and flower? And if you see some MUST have working better than anything else in their ranger, please let me know. Ill post pictures with the final setup tomorrow. Thanks
 
How about the plant choice ?
 
NorwegianChili said:
 
 
Question: Wh do I need the the micro and flower? And if you see some MUST have working better than anything else in their ranger, please let me know. Ill post pictures with the final setup tomorrow. Thanks
 
Click to expand...
 
 
The GH Flora nutes are a 3 part system and you need all 3 for a complete nutrient package for your plants. Most of the hydro nutes are taylored around Mary Jane which has a very distinct grow and bloom phase which requires different nutes. Peppers need a balance of the nutes all the time because they are continually growing and flowering. That is why you need all three. 
 
I myself use the GH flora duo. It is a 2 part nute package. I picked it because it has lower salts and less parts then the 3 part one you have. I use a drip system so salt build up is more important to me then you with DWC. 
 
The regular floragro doesn't have any micro nutrients in it hence the need for the micro. Do some research on the lucas formula it just uses flora micro and bloom and has everything the peppers need without the use of the gro formula. EC is measured with a tds meter. The best one is a bluelab trungen(spell check) meter super accurate and long lasting. Like someone said you can use a ppm meter but depending on what convertion you use .5 or .7 it can get really confusing best to go with ec.
 
 
 
The GH Flora nutes are a 3 part system and you need all 3 for a complete nutrient package for your plants. Most of the hydro nutes are taylored around Mary Jane which has a very distinct grow and bloom phase which requires different nutes. Peppers need a balance of the nutes all the time because they are continually growing and flowering. That is why you need all three. 
 
I myself use the GH flora duo. It is a 2 part nute package. I picked it because it has lower salts and less parts then the 3 part one you have. I use a drip system so salt build up is more important to me then you with DWC. 


I like your style Jeff!

The flora duo is indeed a good system! I was running that for a bit in my aero setup. I found that I could get away with less cleaning on the nozzles.

I am currently running Fox Farms grow big for hydroponics and I'm totally in love with how easy a 1 part nutrient system is!

OP,

don't worry about the sound of the air pump, crank that sucker to max power to give your plants more oxygen.. Trust me, they will love you for it!

when you start to add blowers to your setup, the sound will become a non issue.. Lol.

Cheers!
 
hehe :D
 
No blowers, one of my first priorities is silence. The pump is 1800L/H and for 8 large buckets. I will crank it up when I today will make a box for it with rockwool and airintake etc. Im planning to install the 160mm exhaust fan today, as well as two 200mm super silent fans to give the plants a breeze. The fans running now are normal tabletop fans and make way to much noise. 
 
GH system. As far as I understand, get the micro and flower too. When adding nutes, add 1/3 of each bottle ?Then they get it all. Ill read into that EC with a TDS meter and try to find one. Thanks again guys :D
 
No don't add 1/3 of each bottle you will kill the plants. Follow the directions on the bottles just use 1/2 strength of what they recommend.
 
not 1/3 of the bottle. Floragro says 5ml to every 10L. Taking half of that make it 5ml to 20l. So a 5ml solution of all three for every 20L. Or is it better to circulate, one time micro, another time grow, another time bloom? 
 
NorwegianChili said:
not 1/3 of the bottle. Floragro says 5ml to every 10L. Taking half of that make it 5ml to 20l. So a 5ml solution of all three for every 20L. Or is it better to circulate, one time micro, another time grow, another time bloom? 
Click to expand...
 
Nope don't circulate. Use all 3 at the same time. Don't premix them though, mix in the water only. 
 
the GH charts are very helpful. Use them, but understand they were designed around pot and their charts don't match the chili pepper growing cycle. Pick a balanced mix that gives you all the nutrients and keeps the ppm under 800 or so not counting the ppm of your water. 
 
Like Jeff said check your water ec/ppm first and go from there because most water is 200-400 or higher on the ppm scale without any nutrients.
 
Ok, thanks! then I´m still wondering about the EC or PPM thing. Looking around too see where I can buy. The PH in the water is 7.8 and NO chlorine. We have extreme clean water :)
 
Yeah, just trying to find one with stability and not like 150$! And it's crazy. The plants develop leafs all over.

The air pump is performing. If I take out a netpot the spray from the bubbles rise about 4inches above the lid. But it has a hum to it. So I need to get some rockwool to insulate it to get it more silent.
 
Advanced Nutrients PH perfect grow, bloom and micro.
filtered water
1/2 normal mix on small plants, full mix on bigger ones.
 
Same price as GH for same amount, but a ph regulator.
 
If burn noticed, alternate top ups with plain water.
 
After harvest, clean out your DWC and start fresh when plant is in between podding and growing.
 
NorwegianChili said:
I'll stick with GH now when I started, but I'll keep your advice in the back of my mind. One bottle is 25$. I don't need to filter the water. You can drink water from every lake, even in Oslo. Pretty neat.
would this work ? 
 
http://dx.com/p/0-7-lcd-tds-water-tester-2-x-lr44-80940
 
Click to expand...
 
 
That will work fine. It measures in ppm, but it really only matters when talking to people in the net about the total dissolved solids....
 
All you are really doing is measuring and observing what your plants are doing. Check it, if your plants are growing too slowly, try to raise the ppm, if you see nute lockout or nute burn, lower it. It is just a tool for keeping track of how much nutes are in the water. You will get the hang of it and after a little experimentation you will know how many ml of nutes to add to get teh desired EC or PPM and just use the meter to double check. 
 
I'll stick with GH now when I started, but I'll keep your advice in the back of my mind. One bottle is 25$. I don't need to filter the water. You can drink water from every lake, even in Oslo. Pretty neat.

would this work ? 
 
http://dx.com/p/0-7-lcd-tds-water-tester-2-x-lr44-80940


As jeff says, it will work perfectly!

I have a few other topics of interest for you dealing with DWC.

Those bubbles / mist that you see popping to the surface and splattering higher than the bucket top is exactly what you want!

since you are agitating the water you are essentially creating evaporation, which in turn creates humidity. The plants tissue will consume water by ingesting the humidity at a quicker rate!

If you have good agitation there is no need to have any part of the net pot in the water. The roots shoot out of the net pot in search of that beautiful humidity! As the root structure builds, you can reduce the amount of water in the reservoir.

The next topic is flushing or reduction of nutrient solution before harvesting.

if you are running at full strength vegetative / flowering nutrient mixes you will notice some sharper flavors in your harvested vegetables out fruits from the dissolved salts in the plant tissue.

I will generally run lower ppms 24 hours before harvest and add some sugars to the reservoir to aid in salt removal from plant tissue. Soon as I harvest I'll bump the ppms back up to those higher numbers.

Cheers!
 
theliveculture: If I want to harvest (that would be a bonus as this is more of a really good start for next year), would the bloom mixture also leave that sharp flavor to the fruits? What about the flush mixtures they also have? Yeah I´m pretty pleased with the pump! Its still at 20% and producing loads of air. At maximum it brings some noise and insane amount of air. I think as long as the mist goes over the lid its pretty decent, like you say. (http://www.hydrohagen.no/vanning/pumper/hailea-adjustable-air-pump-aco9630-16-l-m-8-uttak)
 
Just checked the PH after 3 days and 4 of them was at 7 and one at 8!  :rolleyes:  Well, adjusted the PH down to 5.8 with ease. Seems like the plants are thriving so far tho. In the picture you see the whole setup. 9 plants. 5 (including one seedling) in DWC, 4 in soil + sprouted weird tomatoes from Greece that I picked. Two of the plants are pretty new. By reducing the light to one reflector and one bulb the temperatures are way more stable. Almost ambient temperature. However, I think the setup I will finish on monday will be even better. Only time will tell. 
 
And thanks again guys, you all have been REALLY helpful so far! Awesome, thank you so much
 
9741779659_862fc43ea6_b.jpg

 
Last thing, should I foliage spray with epsomsalt every two weeks in DWC too ?
 
The goat weed sprouted in two days. Tomatoes picked in greece sprouted in two days. :D
 
 
 
Last thing, should I foliage spray with epsomsalt every two weeks in DWC too ?
Click to expand...
 
You can, but there is really no need. The nutes should have the micro nutes that are necessary.  
 
I didn't bring this up earlier, but you will probably find that at some point you will see a calcium deficiency, probably from nute lockout, but maybe from actual calcium deficiency. Peppers like calcium a whole lot and Including Cal-mag into your Nutes package will add all the calcium and magnesium the plants will need. 
 
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