100% organic DWC tent grow

Ok well i'm not 100% sure it was the nutes.... BUT my pH problems went away as soon as I switched to sterile sunthetics. I use Dutch Master Zone and couldnt be happier.

My pH rarely drifts more than .2 in a day. Usually it doesnt change at all.

I feel you on the vacation thing. I have to turn on an A/C when my light kicks on and since it's a digital A/C so a normal timer doesn't work and I cant put it on it's own timer for more than 1 day at a time. Big pain.

And as to organics, I'm using my full line up on some plants in smart pots with coco. I want to see the difference in taste, yield, growth etc. I'm running 4 cotton candy Kush and 4 lemon kush with 2 of each in DWC with synthetics and 2 of each in coco running the organics.

I think my pH problem was due to Humboldt roots. It looks and smells exactly like H&G Roots Excellerator which clearly states on the bottle to NOT use in an aerated hydroponic system and only drain to waste. I mean even the bottles look exactly alike just with different labels. When i refer to my pH problem it was raising 1.5 points a day!!! I was dumping pH down capfuls at a time. I went through a whole bottle of Earth Juice pH down in less than a month. And my rez aren't big at all...

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Originally Posted by shibbysurfrider

I feel you on the vacation thing. I have to turn on an A/C when my light kicks on and since it's a digital A/C so a normal timer doesn't work and I cant put it on it's own timer for more than 1 day at a time. Big pain.

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I dont know how tight you are for cash but one thing i think ALOT of people over-look is climate controls. you can get a simple Tempstat Heating/Cooling controller that will monitor the temperature and if it rises or falls 3 degrees beyond the setpoint, the unit will turn on heating or cooling equipment. (it works just like the thermostat in your house)

....now if only they had a relatively cheap pH control that would add pH up or pH down depending on what the pH is at.

Are you still using Earth juice natural pH? I found MUCH better results with good ol General Hydroponics pH control products. like you said before with earth juice i was pouring CAP-FULLS of pH down in to get the pH right, with GH pH down i only needed a TSP. worth (and thats for big pH swings)

Are you using anything like HYGROZYME or Hydroguard in your systems to keep everything clean and fight off root rot or any other problems that may occur?

As far as the thermostat. My A/C is digital, so a simple timer that just turns power on or off to the unit doesn't really work for me. Since the unit sits OUTside my tent, the thermostat on the unit doesnt really help bc it can be 75F in my room, but 90F in my tent!!! My Yield Master II reflector's glass heats up a lot. I have to have a flan blowing directly on it. The other sides of the reflector don't even get warm. I have a 765cfm 8'' inline sucking air through a carbon filter and the reflector. With my A/C running my tent is always under 80 at the plant tops (because of noobness I let the stretch to about a foot or less from my light!

I'm thinking about co2 now b/c I wouldnt have to run the a/c for 12 hours everyday. It will make it cheaper power bill wise, take advantage of the high temps and give me better growth rates. I've been using dry ice lately and have seen amazing results. My veg plants under T5's are growing an inch a day. I have to LST atleast twice a week, very excited for those...

I did buy a bottle of hygrozyme. IMO once you have severe root problems, there's not much in the way of organics that can save you. But once again, I think my problem lies with the Humboldt Roots. I dont think it's made for DWC. I still have the Earth Juice Natural pH up. My bottle is almost full still. I do use it infrequently when I accidently add too much GH pH down. Seems to work fine for me. When it runs out I'm going to switch to liquid pH though. Mixes a lot faster and is easier to measure.

since I use synthetics in my DWC now, I use Dutch Master Zone. It does the trick, one of my Cotton Candy Kush started showing a little root/rot bc the rez temps are mid-upper 70s and I added DM Zone at recommended strength for problems and it cleared up within 2 days. I now use DM Zone for every rez change. No problems since.

I really like DM b/c their products are reasonably priced (half of AN) and they tell you NOT to use additives with their products. I like not having to buy 20+ additives to have the 'perfect' harvest. My next nute purchase will be the DM Gold line when my Sensi Grow + Bloom runout. The DM nutes are literally HALF the price of Advanced Nutrients. And the gold line specifically states not to use bloom boosters bc their product is so strong. We will see, hopefully I'll save some money.

Here are my grapefruit. Unfortunately I had to chop the Super Lemon Haze and Vanilla Kush because i was out of room. 6 plants in a 14 gallon tote does not work. I saved all the little buds and i'm going to make edibles. I also saved a mom of SLH and VK and put them in coco for later cloning. Everything looks pretty yellow due to the HPS, but the buds on the left two are swelling like crazy while the other two are still throwing lots of hairs. It's going to be a while til these come down. I just hope they don't take up the whole tent...
1st picture: my newly arranged flower tent

2nd picture: the stout one with tons of side shoots. I'm pretty sure this is going to be my Mommy if the buds keep swelling like they are. The plant behind it is nice too. entire stem covered in buds for almost 2ft!

3rd picture: all of the grapefruits. 2 on right are taking a while. the one in the back is a giant beast that I want to top, but am afraid of hermies...