Found a new way to dissolve my maxibloom…I put the measured powder into a 2 litre bottle, add 3 cups warm water, throw in a rock for agitation, cap it, shake vigorously and bring to work, let it sit shotgun in the work truck and slosh around all day (8-9 hours)…viola…completely dissolved.
This is to make my rez 1/4 strength…started at 1/8 strength (not 1/4 strength as stated earlier)…need my ppm pen.
Little bubbles are all that remain (and the rock I tossed in).
Took the cxb3590 down and put up the dual vero. Have it about 12" from the tops and running at about 30-40% power.
Maxibloom is at 1/4 strength and silica at 1/2 strength, air pump is running at 10 (max).
Girls won’t stop stretching!!! Gonna pummel them with light till they do what I want.
Might be an idea to get the BBQ sticks out bro they’re getting a bit leggy there 
Gonna get some of those coffee stir-sticks…used toothpicks once to identify some cuts from other cuts and the toothpicks turned moldy…same with the skewers…want to avoid using organic materials like wood.
I buggered up by not letting the roots accumulate in the rockwool before putting in net pots and then to the bottom of the net pots…would have eaten up 2-3 inches of those lanky stems.
The good thing is the stems are holding up to the air movement…I’ll prop them up if it looks like they’re struggling to hold themselves up…hoping the silica helps keep them strong until they’re “woody” enough to hold weight.
Effin’ rights!!! I have tons of those!!! I put a bunch in my garden to keep the cats from squatting on my zucchini!!! My raised bed is not a big ltter box!!!
VEG. DAY 7
Sept 11
1/4 strength maxibloom, 1/2 strength silica, pH stays at 5.8 - 6
Ppm pen should be here any day.
All but one plant has fallen over…I was gonna stake them up but figured, meh, I’m gonna train and top them anyway, so I’m just gonna let it ride.
Les roots
If anyone wants to help me out, please vote for me here (link below)…could really use this light.
Thanks much, gang!!
And this is why I love dwc…upped the nutes the other day and the plants noticed.
Here’s DAY 7
Sept 11
Skinny stems, small leaves, lanky growth, lots of stretch…
Here’s DAY 8
Sept 12
Lowered the light (a couple days ago, I believe), upped the nutes (also a couple days ago) and I was rewarded!
Stronger/thicker stems (started to lift back up after falling down), double+ leaf size, nodes nice and compact, what looks to be the beginning of some intense vegging about to happen!!!
I dropped you a like bud! Can you help me with my “DWC” setup? I’ve never attempted this before… I bought a “power grow” 5gal system with a 10” basket off eBay, it also came with a small round air stone and air pump… my plan was to upgrade the tiny stone to a 6-8” manifold//sprayer/mister at the bottom of the bucket with the air pump supplied in the kit, but adding an additional small water pump inside hooked up to a 6” drip ring that I also grabbed to keep a continuous flow over the roots. Is this dumb or does it completely defeat the purpose of having a DWC kit? (And I haven’t even started worrying about PPM’s yet as I don’t own a PPM meter and I’m so lost here) There is nothing in it yet, it’s just sitting in the corner of my grow room, empty… waiting for some love!
Any help is appreciated from anyone with DWC & Hydro experience! Many thanks 
ahead of time, if you have the time…
IMHO it sounds more complicated than I have found is needed, and misters are notorious for blocking up however as a techy type, I get it lol… I use an eight inch white air stone and a shit tonne of air. So my airpump puts out 30l air per minute for two 30l tubs and a 13 l crate I use for breeding. Excessive probably, but in general the more oxygen you can get dissolved in the water the better for a number or reasons… for example nutrients are utilised more efficiently etc. Also if you keep the water level at about 2 inches below the top the roots will naturally grow towards the water. I have used an aeroponics system and it did have marginally faster growth than DWC, however IF you are doing real aeroponics, instead of a misting version of DWC, you need high pressure around the 100psi range and a droplet size of around 50 microns which will require specific nozzles. My water here is too hard for this and gets blocked constantly.
Re ppm. I haven’t owned or used a PPM meter in about 4 years, once you get the ratio sorted for veg/flower, all I worry about is PH. That said, I have a rez so that helps mitigate PH and nute fluctuation. Adding a res of some kind would probably be an easier bet that would give you results nearly as good as pure aero but without the maintenance overhead.
1.94 grams of maxibloom per litre right the way through… 1/4 to half strenght for the first few weeks as above, keep the Ph 5.8 , let it wander a bit between 6.6 - 6.2 ish and that’s it, change out your nutes every 3 weeks if you don’t have a res and that’ it.
Hey Bullettooth,
Thanks for the like, mang!
Sounds like you’re on the right track. But like slain said, more often than not, simplicity is key…but definitely have to watch that pH. The sprayers/misters and even the drip ring sound great in theory…but they would just be another thing to break down. I’ve ran a 5 gallon bucket with a nice air pump, dual 5" air stones, using the Lucas method and had some awesome results. I’m even trying to simplify it more by just using maxibloom and silica, rather than a big line of nutes. Once I find which of the 6 plants I’ll be keeping, I want to run a brute garbage can with a single plant, scrogged, in my 2 x 5 x 7 closet.
…and slain, do you use the maxibloom veg to finish? This is my first try doing this, so if you’ve got experience, please share!!!
Yep… all the way through. It’s known as the “lucas formula” and is worth doing some google reading about…(edit,I just read the post above and you already know it ) It is a tried and tested system. I also add a few extras like fulvic and some kelp and mycorrhiza but these are purely optional and I have seen and done MANY grows all the way through with the one ratio. I have been known to be lazy enough to throw seedlings in a full strength mix without issues except on the occasional very sensitive plant, which I tend to get rid of anyway.
IF you find the plants are super bushy and you want to stretch them a bit so they are not growing all over themselves and blocking the light as can happen with straight indicas… then the simple fix is to get hold of some Calcium Nitrate to boost nitrogen levels and add it to the mix in veg at a rate between 0.5 - 1.2 grams per litre of water in your system. Start on the low side and see how the plant responds as this can have a dramatic effect on stem stretch. Then simply drop the calcium nitrate in flower. Also I woudl say the seedling stretch is all about the distance to the light, I try to get the light as close as possible without frying them to stop them ‘reaching’ for the light.
Simple is good imho 
Fantastic info! I used my Google machine to look for straight maxibloom journals, but most were outdated (2015 +/-). I saw that ultimately people were getting desired results and were referring to it as the Lucas method (same n-p-k ratios, correct?), and using the bloom and micro recipe before, I figured I would just try the mb.
My light has a dimmer, so would I be able to dim it a bit to get some stretch back if need be?..or would that just reduce speed of overall growth/vigor?
I have a little experiment with using calcium nitrate going at the moment that shows what I mean… These are two of the same Skylwalker OG plants a few weeks into flower, the larger stretch one got calcium nitrate, the smaller bushy one didn’t… big difference huh? See what final yield does I guess.
Also what is calcium nitrate? Is this something my local shoppe would have?
Wow!!! That’s crazy!! Do you have a journal with this experiment that I can follow?
Cclcium nitrate is just the salt of calcium carbonate and nitric acid, similar to the way Ammonium nitrate is the salt of ammonia and nitric acid. CN will supply both extra nitrogen as well as loads of calcium and unlike AN can’t really be used to make explosives so is much easier to get.
You should probably be able to get it at your local hyrdo shop… although most hydro shops these days seem to no longer stock the base nutrients, instead they stock the same shit repackaed in shiny bottles and boxes and bags and charge 10 times as much… Calcium nitrate should be easy enough to find… eBay is a good source over here in Oz or my hydro shop offered to get me a 20kg bag for $35… enough to last a life time.
Not yet… I keep meaning to set up a journal because I basically always have a number of things on the go… I might get around to it in the very near future though 
