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A Guide to Building and Operating Bubblers


MU

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hi thegrower

the nutes are canna aqua and i have a small pump recurculating the nutes around in the buckets... what nutes do you use ? i remember reading what you use but cant find it ?

canna aqua should be fine as its the canna nute specifically for recirculating systems, which dwc most certainly is.

i use 3-part nutes, adv. hydro of holland, very similar to GH 3-part, although my next bubbler grow will be with canna aqua... ;)

the ph did fluctuate a little last time i changed the nutes as i dont have a big enough vessle to pre mix the nutes in so i mixed up the solution in the buckets using tap water - kept an eye over the next few days as needed.

if youre using the water straight out of the tap without letting it stand for 24hrs, then the res ph can/will change over the first 24hrs, but should settle down after that.

i usually set my initial res ph to 5.0 which will rise in 24hrs to to 6.0, i then reset it back to 5.7, and it stays stable after that.

your ph sounds fine at 5.8, dont think thats the problem.

the background ec is 0.4 i guess the nutes are a little about 1/3 strength - being a hydro novice i just kept an eye on the ec - figured i would keep an eye on the plants - they burnt a tiny bit at 0.7 so i backed it off to 0.6 and they seemed fine.

fine, except for the remaining claw-like leaf curl??? could the leaf curl be a result of the burning when at 0.7 ec or has this happened since?

a little above 1/3 strength may be a little too high, the optimum strength i found with my bubblers was 1/4-1/3 strength nutes, but other people seem to get away using much stronger res's, so youve just got to find what works for you.

what are your enviro stats like and also your res temps?

Edited by MU
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Well the grow room is in my garage but the light does a pretty good job of keeping it warm - the temp has not dropped below 15c and the soil plant in the same room has no leaf curl...

the curl is effecting the new growth so i think its an on going thing - will try borrow a camera and show you ....

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a little above 1/3 strength may be a little too high, the optimum strength i found with my bubblers was 1/4-1/3 strength nutes, but other people seem to get away using much stronger res's, so youve just got to find what works for you.

I use VitaLink Grow for vegging and VitaLink Bloom for flowering (with the addition of B'cuzz Bloom Stimulator) and I follow the instructions on the bottles: 3ml/litre (so 150ml of A + 150ml of B goes into each 50 litre reservoir). I use tapwater but I have a water softener which may or may not make a difference - I have to buy nutes specifically for softened water - because I only ever fill the thing up with salt when I remember to....which is not very often! I drain and refill the tanks every Monday and top up daily with tap water.

I can't speak for Canna 'cos I've not used it but VitaLink seems to be the best DWC nutrient I've found yet. Ionic stuff's crap, Bioponics used to be fantastic but then they changed the formulation and the stuff used to precipitate out of solution in storage :guitar: before you got a chance to use it! :yinyang:

I don't get leaf claw or burn and the ladies look lush and green.

Mind you, I never pH either.

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ive not used vitalink mapcap and ive not seen it on sale here in switzerland, so thanks for the info...

it seems quite common for people using canna aqua in bubblers to use them at 1/3 strength but like you, i cant speak from experience as ive not tried canna aqua yet.

with 3-part nutes i found 1/4 strength to be ideal for vegging and 1/3 strength for flowering worked well for my bubs.

Edited by MU
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K Mu - thanks for all your help, i've decided that im just still running the bubblers to hot - backed down to 0.6 again and the plats are a week in to flower - just starting to show. What i'm going to do is keep an eye on the over the next week and see.

interestingly - the ec dropped to 0.2 i thought this was crazy as the background ec in teh water is 0.4 ? any ideas ?

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hi mu fantastick thread m8 enjoyed every page. this is off topic but mabee you might be able to give abit of advice? these three girls 2 w/widow and 1 derga mata have been in veg for about 3 months been triming them to keep the size down i suppose there about 9" tall o and they were put into flower to sex. then back

to veg. they are in allmix and in pots as you can se, i was going to make them into mums and do some cuttings. but i just realise xmas is not far away and ime gonna need moore puff than ive got. what can i doo with these plants. the thing is ime normally nft wich is all ive ever done, and i dont fancy carrying pots of dirt into my loft and bringing the used stuff back down again. bit easier with old nutes just pump it out with hose pipe and straight into a water butt and chuck it over the lawn. but any way as these plants are in dirt could i just wash all the dirt from the roots and put them in net pots and make myself a bubbler put them straight into flower and be puffing it at xmas time. ore am i dreaming. any help wold be much app. t.f.k.

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hi tfk

ive seen a few threads on various grow forums where people have washed off the muck and stuck the plant in a bubbler with complete success.

ive not done it myself, but i know its possible.

cheers

mu

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interestingly - the ec dropped to 0.2 i thought this was crazy as the background ec in teh water is 0.4 ? any ideas ?

assuming your meter is working correctly, i dont know why the ec would drop below the background ec, so cant advise, perhaps if you post a thread in general problem solver forum or hydro q+a perhaps someone else might be able to help.

ive read that 1/2 the background ec is available to the plants but ive also read that the background ec should be totally discarded as not being available, so not sure what to believe, but that would seem to imply your background ec is partly available to the plants, if the ec has truly dropped to 0.2 as a result of the plants taking up nutes and theres not some other funky business going on... :yinyang:

Edited by MU
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hi tfk

ive seen a few threads on various grow forums where people have washed off the muck and stuck the plant in a bubbler with complete success.

ive not done it myself, but i know its possible.

cheers

mu

cheers for the earlly reply mu, appoll for :yinyang: t.f.k.

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cheers for the earlly reply mu, appoll for :yinyang: t.f.k.

no worries mate...

heres a couple of OG threads which talk about transplanting from soil to bubblers...

if you do an advanced search on OG for "bubbler soil", searching Titles Only, and Show Results as Threads, you'll see theres loads of stuff about it on OG.

dont think anyones done that here which is why im pointing you to these OG threads. (mods, hope thats ok.)

Linky 1

Linky 2

Linky 3

hope that helps! :unsure:

Edited by MU
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Yeah , Transplanting can be done quite easily from soil to hydro pebbles.. I have just done this with another BigBud that was grown from clone in soil, potted up to a 11 litre pot.. I just broke off most off the soil and about 1/3 of the rootball as well..

When placing in waterfarm or bubbler just flush thru with PHed water for 2-3 days to clean last bits of muck out and then just Rhizotonic only for 5-7 days to give the root ball time to recover before adding nutes..

Hope this helps.. :unsure:

Pickle :yinyang:

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no worries mate...

heres a couple of OG threads which talk about transplanting from soil to bubblers...

if you do an advanced search on OG for "bubbler soil", searching Titles Only, and Show Results as Threads, you'll see theres loads of stuff about it on OG.

dont think anyones done that here which is why im pointing you to these OG threads. (mods, hope thats ok.)

Linky 1

Linky 2

Linky 3

hope that helps! ;)

cheers mu for what ya done i tried thanking you last night but i just couldnt post kept locking up ;)

ive printed out the first few pages on knocking up a bubbler gonna give it a go next week ive googled the aqua fiz blocks longest i can get as of now is 10 " but ill keep looking for the 12" ones, once againe many thanks for your knowlege and time. top man :stoned: and thanks to pickle for the heads up on soil to hydro method. probs go with the bubbler havn't got much of a clue about them pebbles just thinking about carrying them up into the loft seems bad enough. :) . t.f.k.

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wow!! saved that in my favorites. hydro porn shop. cheaper than i was quoted for the aqua fiz and they got the 12" ones as well lol getting a twinge in mi pants oooooooo, look at them pumps, core and that silicone tubing. youve made my day m8. cheers, t.f.k.

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Mu mate - HELP !

The plants are not doing so well in flower ! - im mixing up the canna aqua at about 1/4 strngth and that gives me an ec of 0.6 - over a few days the ec crashes to 0.2 - thats 0.2 below that ec of the water out the tap !

I'm confused as hell - the ph is stable slowly climbing from 5.5 to 6.0

I realy am not sure whats going on and the plants are looking pretty raggedy as well :-(

Sorry - still no digicam ...

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