My Journey with Deep Water Culture Hydroponics: What I’ve Learned So Far

Much respect for moving out of your comfort zone when it comes to growing. Keep at it and you'll be surprised by the result with DWC

Honestly, your hydro grow falls and stands with good nutes. I use TA Tripart but other good brands will do too. It's stable PH-wise even over a longer time.

<- name checks out… dwc is the way to go!!

Expanded clay can change the solution's pH. That is why it is recommended to wash it and soak it in water with the required pH.

I heard that the bigger the bucket, the easier it is to maintain a lower temperature in it. I would take 30-50 liters.

A very simple tip, if you do hydroponics your best friend will be the aquarium shop around the corner :D practically almost everything that is applied in aquariums is perfectly compatible with hydroponic systems, oxygenators, biofilters, and water chillers, look among the most renowned brands that supply materials for aquariums and you certainly won't go wrong (personal suggestion, add a biofilter to give a "home" to the beneficial bacteria and fungi that will clean the solution from nitrites transforming them into the welcome nitrates, only by using a biofilter will you obtain a stability of the values ​​of the nutrient solution in addition to a cleaning of the same, in my opinion it is a must in hydroponic cultures, I started using it more than 10 years ago and never stopped, there was the GHE biofilter with their specific bacteria that allow you to grow at higher temperatures without the risk of root rot, a product similar to the Impello continuum)

That’s dope you going with dwc now I did the fabric pots with self watering base for my first run but wana do the auto pots in coco next run than maybe try dwc 3rd run idk 🤷🏻‍♂️ smh 🤦🏻‍♂️ so many ways to grow its amazing keep up the great work 💚🫡

If I wasn't crushing it in living soil beds I'd be doing it this way. 🫡💪🌱💚

Frozen bottles go right in the slot my friend.

You got this brother.😊

For deep water culture it's a real good idea to have a way to quickly drain your buckets and refill them without damaging the root system or syressing the plant or damaging growth. Use a catch tray and put a rubber plug / cork at the base of the bucket. To drain pull the plug and suck up the drainage via shop vac. Then put the plug back in and refill with water and food.
Makes flushing super easy. And or correcting nutrient burn or pH imbalance. Trust me it's works great and simplifies DWC and saves stress on your plant and roots. AND U 😅

Gonna explode in there soon! Good stuff G

I've re-veged a gelato that a friend planted in August so it flowered right away. He was gonna toss it after he took the one cola so I took it and did the same. It worked but it took forever with only 2 ounces. Love your show bro ✌️🌱

Once you get into water chillers I am out. A simple ebb and flow system does not heat up the water if its out side the tent.

I think you'll figure out DWC. You're smart and you know good people to get help from.
It's kinda funny to see one plant in the huge tent tho.

Great job with the video.

We learn from your mistakes aswell

This video was awesome 💯

Ice Probe is a good option for your water chillers--they are cheap (relatively), designed for small bodies of water, and easy to use. I've used them on my nano and pico reef tanks with coldwater corals and livestock with rock-solid results for years, and considering how most coldwater species depend on zero variance in temperature it just seemed like a no-brainer to me when trying to solve this problem in the past. I love it when people step out of their comfort zone and try something new!

In DWC your PH should move up in veg and down in flower as your plants eat. Normally will stabilize after a day or two.

I stopped DWC because I didn't want a chiller. If your water is in the 60's or 70's you'll be okay.

The most likely deficiency is MG, I'd just use a little Epsom salt on top of whatever nutes you use.

You got this man. 500ppm should be great!

Regarding the amount of bubbling, ultimately the water will only hold ~8-9mg/L of dissolved oxygen at most. This assumes roughly room temperature and sea level pressure. At least this is the case for any standard air pump, or for the water at the bottom of a waterfall for example. I think your pump is producing sufficient bubbles to achieve reasonable saturation, but its been ~9 years since I had access to a tool that could measure dissolved oxygen in water. You can actually get a bit higher than that using electrolysis, but practically nobody uses that for hydroponics. Its more commonly used for fish live wells and whatnot.

Good on you for showing everything. This video will definitely help new hydro growers

On the clay balls red power on the bottom of bag you ph sweet spot is 5.8 water can not be about 70 frozen water battle work and you can never have to much air

500 to 600 ppm

The only problem with getting a water chilller is that if you do this you have to go to rdwc not dwc. I didnt think about this before buying one but luckily I am going to use my chiller for my bubble hash reservoir. What I do to keep my water temps down is to keep the room temp under 70f(just leave my window open or portable ac unit) then add an ac infinity heater to your controller ai to keep the plants warm. Thanks for another great video Mr. Grow it

Magazine

I want an update on the autopot-system you said you would do a run on, is it still a plan or did you scratch those plans by doing DWC?

Heres some advice screw dwc an keep doing soil runs with organic nutes. Definitely a better end product

Keep topping that bruh 💯

Thanks for the update.

Chris I think 1 critical issue is the blu planet nutes are falling outta suspension faster the plant can use or when they wanna uptake they are outta balance .


Switch to Jacks 321 and that will help on at least one front. Also in continuous feed systems ideally you’d want a lower PPM . Between the water being bubbled , ppm , It can cause rapid ph swings and having nutrients in higher concentrations. Everthing snowballs rapidly and causes issues.

I’d use something like Jacks that stays in suspension better and lower ppm doing that alone should cause things to smooth out.

Try placing your bubbler pump in an air conditioned space, the air interacting with the water should cool it.

Put the air pump outside the tent, air pumps heat the air a bit. Great stuff.

Perfect face for I how I feel when I think about going hydro.😅

i'd pull back your ppm, try to keep around the same as you PPFD for lights during veg... like 400 ppm and 400 ppfd

I think you’re fine with the air. I use 2 small air stones in 1 - 10 gallon bucket (6 gallons water) roots are tremendous & bright white.

Keep your room temp under 80 for best water temps. Always fun videos thanks. 👍🏼

Biggest suggestion that I can make is let your water sit for some time after adding in your nutrients before PH testing. If you PH test right away and add in PH up/down too early, it can cause PH fluctuations leading to nutrient lockout and it's harder to come back from a stunted plant in DWC.

My first time ever growing indoors I decided to run DWC and boy was that HUGE ambition for myself. I spent several grows dialing it in and ultimately ended up switching to soil and using organics thanks to Derek at TheBudLab and the community over there. After several grows in organic I realized that the work needed to keep DWC stable was way out of my capabilities as a first time grower, but I also learned so much that helped me with organic growing. It's something I want to go back to one day for fun, but DWC is not for the faint of heart. Love seeing videos of you trying new things and don't get discouraged of the process.

Awesome 🤩. Dude. I use clear tubing. I don’t get any algae in my tubing. I’ve been doing DWC for about 1.5 years now. I’m loving it. 👍👍👍😜🤪✌️🤟🤙

Use a fan at floor level to cool the bucket and do not change the light?🌲🌲

That rust I see almost every grow. CalMag ratio is different from plant to plant if you growing different strains using one reservoir for you mixing.

vevor water chiller cant beat the price for home grow

Don't know if it was said, but the main reason for washing the clay is they can change your PH, so normally with new ones I wash in PH'd (5.5) water.
Being that you have a smaller amount of water your PH is bound to change more, but anything between 5.5 - 6.5 is fine, also depending on what PH up/down you're using you'll need very little of it and it wont take very long to show the change (5 - 10min max). ie: Im RDWC 200L (50 gal) I use the strong acid PH up/down, to take mine from 5.8 to 6.0 I can use as little as 5ml, I put the 5ml in run my pumps and wait 5min. If you do put way to much PH up/down in don't try to fight it and put the opposite in, just make a new batch and dump the old water.
Water Chillers can be tricky in that some run copper piping and some nutes will leach the copper from the piping, putting excess copper in your grow.
The main problems water temps will really have is root problems (root rot) and less O2 (but it's minimal), running H2O2 will really fix both those problems (50% h2o2, 1ml per 10L every 3 days), if you're not running benies. But water temps are nowhere near as important as has been made out, the main reason ppl worry about it is root rot, I've never had it and had temps as high as 30c.
800ish ppm seems fine, It really does depend on what the nutes say as a product like Athena runs 1500ppm 3.0 EC during veg, in early veg I run about 2.

DWC is crazy fast growth, but it’s a ton of work compared to soil.

Ppm is to high bring it down to about 350-400 you’re just waiting nutrients also your water temp should be 68-73 degrees trust me your girl is going to take off and ph 6.0 don’t let it go above 6.5

Bro, that plant will explode. Do you and keep it moving.

With the frozen water bottles make sure to add salt to the water so it takes longer for it to melt.

Great video I've been wanting to do hydro for the yield but need to get my experience up first. ALSO Can you get 420scene on your podcast 🙏

I'll stick with my Earthy soil, thank you very much! It ain't broke ... who needs the complications! :)

Damn DWC is a bitch

...good luck. I'ma stick with soil 😂