5 gal DWC Flowering - advice / formula needed

I'm flowering two plants, usings 5 gal dwc buckets. Right now all I'm using is:

Hesi Bloom - 60 ml
cal-mag+ 25 ml
liquid karma, 30 ml
Hesi super vit 5 drops

the ppm turned out pretty high (I was just going by the dosage on the bottle) I think it was around 1700 so I deluted with more water and brought below 1500.

I'm using six 42 watt warm CFLs, two 30 watts and they seem to be slightly cooler cfls, and 4 6500k 26w cfls.

my cab temp is usually around 78, and humidity has been 60%. I'm getting a humidifier.

I'm in about week 2 of flowering, but I've just recently got them into the cab with warm lights and dwc buckets with bloom nutes. all I see right now are long pistols.

My plants had nute lock I think, I didnt have the rockwools top covered so algie developed and most of the lower growth started getting brown spots an stuff during veg. This is my first grow.. obviously I've made a lot of mistakes (as I expected I would, but its still disapointing knowing now things I should have done differently) and I just want to try and salvage them and get SOME buds.

I tried cloning them so I could at least have some healthy females in a few months but my clones died almost immediately. I guess air got in the stem. i dont know.. anyway, any help would really really be apreciated.

here are some pics

my humidity is always around 50-60% that not to bad (IMO), but could cause mold if u try to dry in 50-60% humidity.

do those ugly leaves strike you as any paticular defiiciancy/do I need to give my plants some kind of first aid to fix the nute lock problem?

They were in a drip system while vegging and ran out of root room. I thought that could be why they were lookin so bad, but after seeing the "whats that green stuff on my rockwool" FAQ I'm thinkin its the algea in the rockwool..

certainly could be.....algea on your rockwool which, amongst other things can affect how much oxygen the roots are getting and that your ph being off could lead to the problem you are seeing.

Off the top of my head....during bloom I'll use 25ml of Cal Mag per 2 and 1/2 to 3 gallons. Are you using RO water? What is the ph of your system at? That's number one.....if you aren't keep tracking of your ph, then that is where you need to start.

I would consider humidity far too high for flowering plants at 60%. I haven't seen fungus or mold issues in plants in real life :eek: but it certainly would be something I'd think about here. Or both.....or.....even more....;) Anything above about 45% rh will leave your plants more vulnerable to mold.....I aim for the 30% with rh.

Let me find that link.....brb.....

Here is an excellent thread with good photos about different problems.

One last thing.....you may want to readjust your formulation that you are using and drop those plants back to about 1000....if they were my plants this is what I would do at this point:

RO water (or distilled)

CalMag.....450ppm
Bloom.......450ppm
L Karma.....100-150 ppms.

And thats ALL I would give them. 1700 at that age is just wild. :wtf:

International Cannagraphic Magazine Forums - The Complete guide to Sick Plants,pH, and Pest troubles!


Keep your ph between 5..5-6.0....check it as often as you need to to keep it in line. ;)

thanks a bunch WH you're always a help to the grow community.

I am using R/O water from whole foods, my ph is in the 5.7-5.9 range. during veg I tried to stay in the 5.6-.5.8 range, but zandor said in a grow report to start slowly raising your p.h the further you get into bloom to like a 6.0. fuck I hope I'm not misquoting him...

my RH has actually been down in the mid 40s ever since my worthless apartment management decided to fix our A/C. yea.. that was lame. Like i said though I'm getting a mini dehumidifier.

is there some kind of flushing product I can use to clear the algea? and how would I do that being that i'm in DWC?

I feel like at this point some of the lessons I've learned would be...
Avoid rockwool all together, go straight from something like peat pellet (for seeds) or rapid rooter (for clones) into hydroton or clay pellets, using a mesh pot I can then transfer into DWC to finish with.

dont mist unless theres a reason to.

cover the base of the plant with trash bag plastic or something of that consistancy.

...and use cal mag & liq karma right from the get go.

yeah and also zip ties and be used to safely secure CFL cords if CFL's are being suspended by the cord, and will allow easy height adjustment.

also.. sativas are a bad idea for a closet.

thanks again! that is a very straight forward formula!

CalMag....yes....right from the start... My hydro guy is very strong on 50% of the main nutes being CalMag and using RO water (my hydro guy walks on water btw) then the rest in bloom nutes then supplements. It's always worked well for me. :)

Sounds like your ph is fine.....seriously if it's at 5.8 vs 6.0 during bloom or day 6 or whatever dont' stress.....it doesn't have to be perfect. :eek: If you have your ph between 5.6-6.0 I think you're good....that's my rule anyway and again...never had issues.

Maybe just not enough CalMag? Or perhaps too much of something else (at 1700) that would cause the plant not to uptake a certain nutrient etc....everything interacts. (I say that like I know what I'm talking about but I don't really....I read it somewhere :D)

Good luck :)

so after looking at that link I'd say I had a Phosphorus deficiency during vegetative growth.. good to know! and I will be bookmarking the hell out of that shit. :(

What kind of grow formula were you using?

well, I think my problem with the high PPM's is that I was just going by the bottles and not aiming for a certain ppm. During veg, in a 10 gal res, I had like 700ppm. But I'm still using the same ml per gal so I dont know why it turned out so high... I did delute the 1700 though, I managed to not be careless enough to just plop em back down in that radio active shit.

Hesi, its an all in one grow product. for both grow and bloom, its just one bottle. Im leaning more and more towards using GH 3 part for my next grow, mainly because I know where to find a solid week by week formula, but also it just seems like it would be a little more precise than an all in one solution.

Texas Hydroponics :: Plant Nutrients :: Hydro Nutrients :: HESI :: Hesi Hydro Grow

what do you make of that?

oh shit formula...

liq karma 30 ml a gal
cal mag 25 ml a gal
super thrive 1 drop a gal
hesi grow 50 ml for 10 liters

Sorry I got lost last night.....we have dial up and it cut out.

I think id use something that is not for both grow and bloom....they are so different that I find it hard to believe you can adequately cover the needs of the plant in both stages with one set of nutes.

Its cool, I apreciate you following up so thoroughly :D

oh I'm sorry, I did'nt convey that right. Its not all in one as far as stages go, its all in one for each stage: 3 part mixed into 1 grow product, and 3 part mixed into 1 bloom product.

So I used Hesi grow for VEG, and Hesi Bloom for bloom.

Ahhh....ok....you're good then. I'm not familiar with that line so can't say if it's good or bad but I have a feeling you just let a few things get out of whack.

I would stop the superthrive for blooming. By about day 28 of bloom approximately you should be up to CalMag...500ppm.....bloom.....500ppm.......then your Lk which I use at a about 6 mls per gallon or so (depending on my mood :D) and it should work out to about 1200-1300...then I'd stay with that until its time to flush. Keep your ph between 5.5 -6.0 and you shoulld be good ;)

Do you have fans blowing around to move the air? You should if your humidity is that high and you may want to think about using some sort of fungus/mold spray on your plants as a preventative. I found out the hard way, however, not to overuse these products and to make sure to pull my light preeettty damn far back for a few days so as not to burn the plants. :(