That’s only 144watts. They are low power for sure.
Anyways. When you say the ph is that the ph of water in the bucket rite now ? Or ph of water before it is added ?
Ph can swing a lot in a single tub causing a nutrient lockout which makes plant not able to intake the nutrients it needs.
Your plant looks hungry but your nutrients are around 800ppm which should be plenty. So that alone says nutrient lockout.
What have you added to help with the root rot ?
Thanks brother! I see several issues but not sure where to start.
Show us a pic of the bubbles the air stone makes in the bucket as well. Not enough air can cause havoc as well and will make root rot.
Thanks for the reply! That’s the ph right now in the bucket. I’ve been able to keep it pretty consistent the whole grow cycle, usually 5.7 - 6.4. I have added 15ml of Hydroguard three times, two and three weeks ago when I had problems with the other plant and then again, the 3rd time, yesterday when I ditched everything and went to the single bucket. In between the dual bucket and this single bucket I rinsed the roots with 8oz H2O2 and 3 gallons of water, then let it soak in that same solution for about an hour. Then I rinsed the roots off with plain water and they actually looked pretty good then, much better than before. They still look pretty good today.
Those bright white roots are pretty recent, they just noticed them yesterday and they are about double in size since then.
Air looks ok. Just keep up on the hydroguard. Use 3ml per gal when adding water. Maybe 4 for now. Then drop to 2ml per gal when adding water.
Take dead leaves off plant. Just cut em off. It only makes plant work harder.
Keep an eye on the roots. And also think about making it an rdwc.
They sell fittings cheap to connect 3/4 line.
You cut hole and add fitting. Connect the pails at bottom with 3/4 line. Then just have the pump pump from res into grow pail. Make sure the water doesnt spray straight on net pot . I always had the return line a little long so it curves to direct water to bottom.
The sprayers in pail are useless and cause more harm than good in a bucket.
Water level should be 1 1/2 inch from bottom of net pot. The plant will grow roots in this air gap that help it get oxygen , when using sprayers at that area it essentially stops that function from working properly.
This is stated as I understand it. Sounds good to me and when I fixed all these problems when I started growing there was never root rot again.
Here is an example of a seedling that was not top fed and had no sprayers on it.
The last pic showing the air bubbles. They splash the water and dampen the hydroton in the net pot. The seedling grows roots fast to get to the water.
So in my experience top feed rings and sprayers cause more problems than good when it comes to dwc or rdwc.
Also when you add a res properly the water flow alone helps to control the ph and root environment so you have less of a chance for these problems to occur.
Thanks for all the info! I have a bucket ready for the res, just need to connect it up tomorrow after I get a couple fittings. I’ll add some more Hydroguard tonight. The water level is pretty close to 1.5" below the net pot so I’m good there. I’ll trim the dead leaves tonight. Do you think it will come back from this and still produce ok? I’m also going to setup a spare little fridge with some poly tubing to use as a chiller. It’s going to get warm here and I don’t want the water to get above 75, 70 would be better if I can do it.
Ph sweet spot is 5.8. So stay closer to that as much as you can.
It is ok for it to swing up a bit but not to high. When I had a small pail system I had best results with a ph swing from 5.7 to 6.2.
If you do produce anything it will most likely be airy fluffy buds due to the poor quality light. But, may be some great smoke.
This is a common issue with new growers as we have no clue and have to learn. I have a pile of lights and not just any pile. I have vivosun which is amazon blurple junk and then I bought what was high grade super lights. So they said blackdog leds. $550 each for those dust collectors. So 1100 wasted. And now I grow the finest fat buds using HLG and I am so happy I bought them. Those were only $380 each and blow away the competition. Each one will flower a 2x4 area.
So when you upgrade be sure to invest in good lights when you have the chance.
Oh , I grew 5oz my first grow. 2 plants and junk lights. Airy fluffy bud. Was great smoke though. And it only got better with every grow as I learned.
So if I just want to grow one plant at a time what lights would you recommend? My tent is only 20 x 36 so I’m pretty limited.
@dbrn32 what hlg light would @laserman need for a 20x36
I’m guessing a small hlg but I dont know the names of the smaller ones.
Would this work?
It’s only $149 at a the local hydro shop and same on Amazon.
I built my light for what sounds like same tent. Its about 170 watts of 560mm strips, harvested almost 7 zips. I think average cat would appreciate a larger fixture than hlg 100, like two of them maybe. A 260 kit dimmed some would be a good option.
Well it’s official, they’re dead Jim… I thought it was the nutes/low flow but although that probably contributed to it, the temps were likely the real culprit. When I was measuring the EC, pH, temps, I would dip a coffee cup into the res and read everything from that cup. What I didn’t realize was that the cup was cooling down the solution pretty quickly to a temp that seemed just a couple degrees warmer than the high end of ideal. I bought a temp gauge with a submersible probe and dropped it into the res - it was 76.5F and that was in the early morning when the room was coolest. So I googled DIY chillers and bought a couple of peltier plates, cpu cooling fans, cooling blocks, and some black tubing. I connected it up to a separate pump and dropped it into the res. So far I have been able to get the temp down to 66 degrees and it will maintain that within 1 degree! I also redesigned the buckets to be an rdwc and ditched the sprayers. I’ll start another seed germinating tonight and will have the new, much cooler, setup ready by the time it sprouts! I really hope this works out, I can’t take losing 6 weeks of work again!!!
What temp should I be shooting for?
Sorry to hear about you losses. It’ll only make you next grow better. Good luck!
With chiller I go for 70f or less. Right now my system is at 70 says chiller.
I’ll pump it down to 68 during flower and at last 3 weeks or so I’ll go down to 66@chiller, I have a big system so that’s chiller temp at res. Fluctuates in rest of system.
Well it says 71 oops and oh well lol. Stay 70f or less if you can.
Here is the new setup. I changed the plumbing to be my version of rdwc, the solution flows in through the top left and out through the tube on the right. I have the outflow tube set to the height I want the level in the bucket, this allows me to have the reservoir well below the bucket and still maintain the level and no possibility of siphoning it dry if I have a power failure or a pump/timer failure. The chiller is my DIY peltier plate, dual plates actually, and it’s having no problem keeping the temp 65-66 even through the hottest part of the day. I put the silver on top of the lid to keep it from absorbing light and generating heat, so far it’s working really well and has helped a lot to stabilize the water temp. Last pic is a little lady peeking out - she was in a paper towel for 2 days before she had a tail of about 1/2" and I put her in the rapid rooter yesterday at 11:00am, in less than 36 hours she went from 3/8" below the surface to just touching the surface! I’m reducing the nutrient levels, I think that had a factor in my failure with the first two seeds. I’m starting out with somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 of the amount on the Fox Farm label, giving me 252 on the ec meter. I’ll bump that up to 1/2 in a week and then remain at 1/2 until/unless I see signs that it needs more food. Here’s to hoping for a better result this time!
@laserman would you be so kind as to elaborate on your diy chiller 
It’s using the following items from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072TQX2RQ/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A34QA48WJ2B6VT&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C7DZW8T/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_2?smid=A2NNH5C5IP9N3O&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JQ2YDCY/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=A1TG24VCRPTZ06&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EWG6YT8/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_4?smid=A1HDGI9AFU8TMD&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CG2PGY6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PVBG8K1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I’ll try to remember to take a closeup pic tomorrow, it will be pretty obvious how it is all connected.
So far it’s pretty efficient and is holding the temp rock steady between 65f and 66f - a bit above and below but not more than .5f.
Thank you very much!
