Jay's Home-Brew RDWC Grow - Cookies N Cream X Secret Weapon aka "Oreoz"

[jaywire]

Hey all! New to OG, and have been keeping a journal myself but thought I’d post here. I’ll be making a few posts to catch up on where I’m at today. A little bit about me and my growing history:

Definitely not my first grow! I come from soil/coco, been growing since 2015. This is, however, my first Hydro/DWC grow. I’ve been doing research on DWC for about 6 months and decided to finally build my own. I landed on a two bucket + rez RDWC build, 2" return line and 1/2" feed line, running a HUGE DC water pump (2100gph) with a flow controller. I want the water turned over as often as possible, and also wanted a valve system in the top of my rez to handle everything - emptying the system, feeding into a chiller, etc. Props to a good local friend of mine who helped me engineer, build, and over-engineer some more, this RDWC system.

Picked these clones up from a local hydro shop as I had an extremely odd seedling failure and really didn’t want to start over. My research on the genetics surrounding these clones is, well, hit or miss. Some say it’s a very mid Indica heavy strain, others say it’s a banger, others say it’s horrible. Genetics, amirite? I don’t know the exact cultivar for this clone, the Hydro shop had no idea, it was just a situation where I grabbed what sounded familiar and looked the healthiest.

Specs of Grow:

• 3x3 Tent
• Home Built RDWC System (Approx 24 gal of water)
• 20w Air Pump, three air stones per growth bucket
• SpiderFarmer SE3000
• Vivosun Smart Controller, Recirc fan, exhaust fan
• Humidifer controlled with hygrometer
• Nutes: Mix of Dyna and GH

As of 8/23
Lights: 18/6 for now (250ppfd)

Water Temp: 75F
Water PH: 5.8
Water Starting PPM: 60
Current Water PPM: 225

Ambient Tent Conditions:
LIGHT ON: 77F
LIGHT OFF: 73-74F
Humidity: 50%-60% RH

[jaywire]

Week 1 Update:

In all my years of popping seeds, I’ve never had some germ so fast, then fall apart. They came up out of the rapid rooters within 48 hours, and immediately started to “corkscrew” and lay flat. I’ve had them lay flat and it was always temp and light related, but these two just did not recover. I ended up picking up some clones locally which was not quite what I wanted to do, but popping more seeds just didn’t fit the timeline for me.

8/26:
Grabbed these clones called “Cookies N Cream X Secret Weapon aka Oreoz” - from what I can tell, it’s not amazing but not horrible. I intend to take clones and grow them out, but also pop seeds near the end of flower on these and choose a direction then. These clones are approximately 3-4 weeks old. Stuck these clones in the tent as I didn’t have time to transplant them.

8/27:
These clones came pretty well grown out, nearly 1.5ft tall already with a huge rootball. The downside is they were potted in Coco. After some research, I carefully washed the coco off in some tepid water. Within that Coco was a rockwool cube, which was reassuring. I got 99% of the Coco off and potted them carefully in the net pots with Hydroton, with some of the roots carefully pulled through the netpot into the water.

Due to the fact that some organic material will likely remain in the root mass, I’m going to start adding some Orca to the system.

PPFD: 250
PH: 5.8
PPM: 225
Water Temp: 77F (unhappy about this)

8/28:

Clones have perked up a bit today, no longer droopy and curly like last night when I put them in the buckets. By the time the lights were about to go off for the 6 hours of twilight, they were almost praying. Love to see it. Will check later tonight after the lights pop on and have been on a few hours.

I ordered a chiller last night, as water temps have been trending up. Fortunately, I plumbed my res for a possible chiller so it should be as simple as hooking it up to the barbs I pre-installed on the res, turning a ball valve, and kicking on the chiller. It should be here tomorrow. In the interim, I’m dosing the res with H2O2. Once I have the chiller installed, I intend to stop going sterile and add in beneficial bacteria instead.

Lights have been on a few hours, looking much happier than yesterday.

PPFD: 250
System PH: 5.8
PPM: 220
Water Temp: 77F

Chiller will be here tomorrow. Priority 1 is getting it set up and get the water temps under control.

[jaywire]

8/29 Update:

Chiller installed! Water temps were reaching 78 with lights on today. Got chiller installed, as of a few moments ago we were under 73 and dropping so it’s doing its job.

Roots appear to be stretching from the net pots into the water, so I’m going to let the water level come down about 1-2 inches naturally and mark off on my indicator. Will be removing top feed rings once I see more roots in the water.

These two continue to look happy. No remarkable changes other than some signs of root growth into the water.

PH: 5.8
PPM: 210
PPFD: 250
Water Temp: 73F and falling, target is 67 (achieved within a few hours)

[jaywire]

8/31 Update:

We’ve had great temperature control with the chiller. Very pleased with that! Added in a full dose of Orca on the 29th after my update.

But the biggest update is - we have had some explosive root growth! They took off since the 29th and raced into the water. I dropped water levels about an inch to give some more room for air root development.

Above the water we’ve had no real change. Seems they’ve been working more on root development. Now that we have some good root development into the water, I imagine this next week we will start to see the plant start to take off.

I have noticed PPM trending down and PH trending up as expected, so it’s taking some nutrients from the water. Good news. However, the right plant is starting to look a little unhappy. Attached some photos of the right plant, a little droopy and the inner part of the upper leaves is looking a little pale. I’m hoping dropping water levels a little will help with that drooping.

As for the paleness in the leaf, I think I needed to add a little more juice, so I went to week 3 on the chart and added about 35 PPM.

PH: 5.8
PPM: 250 (60+180+10 overshoot)
PPFD: 400 (at the very top of the plant)
Water Temp: 67F

A note on PPFD: I think I’ve been misreporting that, I’ve been measuring about halfway down the plant for some reason. The PPFD might be high, but the plants do not seem too unhappy? (unless that’s the slight paleness in the right plant?) Some insight by others here would be welcome and appreciated!

Also, what are some thoughts on topping these two pretty aggressively to try and bush them out? They came as very stretched out clones, and I wouldn’t mind bushing them out to put them under a trellis. I’d honestly like to take the top half to third off as clones and give them to my buddy. OR I could start laying them down and training them. Thoughts? Not sold on clipping aggressively.

[jaywire]

9/3/2024 Update

Wow, a lot has happened since my last update. The paleness in the leaves, and the drooping? They were HUNGRY! The paleness was a Magnesium and slight Calcium deficiency starting. I was also PH’ing down too aggressively; by keeping it at 5.8 so religiously I wasn’t allowing the system to drift into the PH range where Magnesium is most effectively absorbed.

Damage from the Mag/Cal issues:

I was following a Hydro chart by the kind fella at “How Weed Grow” on YouTube, but it seems my plans just wanted more food than his chart called for. After going through the ringer on this Cal/Mag issue I’m a LOT more confident, haha!

As of now, levels look like:

Water Temp: 66.7
Tent Temp: 75.7
RH: 65%

Water PH: 6.12
PPM: 515
EC: 1.03

Lowered water level ~1/2"
Brought lights down a little closer and adjusted power to a DLI of ~30

Roots are looking great, really diving into the water. I have been doing a full dose of Orca for the bennies every Sunday, and intend to keep this up through flower.

And after increasing EC and letting PH drift up a bit (and a good dose of Epsom Salt into the res…) they’re back to being super happy!

[Gpaw]

I’d top them but I’d shy away from an aggressive topping, just out of caution.

Are you planning on checking your daily power usage?
I’m weird but I like doing that…

Cheers
G

[jaywire]

So I actually ended up doing a combo FIM and laid them flat under a trellis so… HST?

As for power, great minds think alike! I have the entire setup on a smart plug that tracks power usage. As of a few minutes ago without the chiller:

[jaywire]

9/4 Update

So, today I found out my Apera PC60 was set to the .7 scale for TDS. So my PPM readings have been wrong. I decided to go to EC a few days ago… this solidifies that decision. PPM as a reference only.

Today saw a lot of the same.

Water: 66.9F
Air Temp: 74.6F
RH: 64%

PH: 6.15
EC: 733
Water Level down but not much

I ended up deciding to bump up EC a little more. She’s finally dialed in and putting some extremely good looking roots down into the water. I also laid her down under the trellis and started tucking nodes, and FIM’d while I was at it because why not? I want her to throw some more branches out.

Brought the EC up to .944, PH to 6.1 and going to let it cruise, probably just top it off and bring PH back down to 5.8 or so when it hits 6.2. She’s likely going to get real hungry and thirsty with the stress I just put her under.

I will say, I’m impressed how fast the nodes I tucked under the net started growing back up. I tucked this morning around 9am, and the photo I included in this update is about two hours old and they’re already growing up!

One thing I noticed here is the right plant, which seemed to take the Mg deficiency a little harder, has had much slower root development. The left plants roots are taking off big time!

[Thurgood]

Welcome to overgrow! Thats a wickid cool grow you’ve got going. Ive always loved rdwc but never tried it myself. I will be following along. Keep up the good work.

[Frankken_Ford]

I typically start my plants around 400 PPFD and 400 PPM. I keep my Ph in the 5.8- 6.2 range, I let it drift. The only time I adjust my Ph is at res change. Chiller is set to 68. As soon as plants get 6"-8" tall I bump the EC to 1.2- 1.4 and let it ride until about one week of flower. Lights at this point are 800- 1200 PPFD dependant on the plants reactions. My EC in max bloom is anywhere from 1.6- 2.5, once again dependant on the plant. When I finish the EC is down to 1-1.2 and lights are about 800 PPFD.
I run PA Hydroponics RDWC 4 13gal pot setup for many years, just took it down this last weekend. Grows some monster plants if you’re not careful.
RDWC will teach you quite a bit about plant management.

Nice setup! Looking forward to watching the grow.

[jaywire]

Wow, awesome information and makes me feel a lot better about my lessons learned so far - the biggest being to let the PH drift! Second biggest lesson was using EC over PPM, and raising it until the plants protest. I underfed these for at least a week, and recovering the right side plant has been difficult. I’m fairly certain these cuts came from two different pheno’s, as the left side plant has been an absolute champ and hasn’t complained about much of anything.

I took a lot of inspiration from the PA Hydro RDWC system, as I’m sure you can tell! I just wanted something a little different.

Thanks for all that info, I’m definitely going to make a note of everything you said.

[jaywire]

Been a busy few days since my last update, but that doesn’t mean nothing has happened! I have my Magnesium issue pretty well handled. I’ve been keeping my PH up around 6.1-6.2 and adding some CalMag and a little Epsom salt to the water, I also did two foliar feedings of some water and epsom salts, which really seemed to completely stop the magnesium issues.

Since increasing EC and PH, growth has absolutely exploded. I have been re-tucking bud sites every day, the roots are filling out on both plants, and we’re getting gorgeous fresh green new growth.

These girls are HUNGRY! They drank 1300ml of water and pulled nearly 100ppm out of the water over the last 24hrs. PH remained stable, all very good news. They’re looking extremely happy.

Currently I have it at:

EC: 1.1
PH: 6.15
DLI: 45

Roots in the water are exploding. I’ve been doing a weekly dose of Orca and the roots seem to be LOVING it!

And these root photos are a couple days old, I didn’t get any yesterday or the day before.

The right side plant is recovering very well. It’s still behind the left plant, but I am thinking of taking the top node off the left plant to slow it down a little bit. As you can see below, it has two other bud sites it’s fighting.

I think ultimately the right plant may not catch up, but I think it won’t end up that far behind and by halfway through flower, it’ll hardly be noticeable.

One thing that sucks is I know very little about this “Oreoz” strain, so I have no idea how long flower will be. Hoping it’s short; I have some HSC “Blueberry Muffin” seeds DYING to get popped and tossed into RDWC.