Indoor Auto Pots, Blueberry Domina, and Hubbabubbasmelloscope!

[pop22]

UPDATE:
And we are a go! Seedlings reached transplant stage this morning so I transplanted. Mixing worm castings with the coco for the seedlings helped keep the medium from falling apart during transplant as I had hoped. smooth going actually!

So they are in their Autopots! I prepped the pots with a light watering with a 450 ppm solution of Grow More Sea Grow 16-16-16 and 100 ppms of cal/mag in RO water. I ph'd to 5.9. I'm going to try using 5.9 all thru the grow. I did that in my very first hydro grow and grew a 6 ounce White Widow that was a spectacular plant!
This is my first time using Sea Grow. i've heard good things about it so figured I'd give it a try. I may use Maxi Bloom for flower as I have some left over from my hydro grow and it was purchased prior to Monsanto taking over GH, or I'd have trashed it!

Got to go back and clean the valve and try, slopped crap all over it! I took the cover off days ago when I watered the pots to watch for it to run out the bottom So I could tell how much water that would take.

Pics of my babies:

 

[pop22]

the white powder is Diatomaceous Earth. I sprinkled the top of the coco with it and around the seams of the tent. Next I'll get some Neem cake (Thanks Corgy!). Messy stuff though

Yesterday, I bombed the room with the Raid fogger. DAMN! If anything lived thru that I'm moving!!!

 

[Cartman]

Cool thread to read thru.. those air pots look very promising and the more you look at them the more you realize that is what most of your big nurseries use.. go buy a small flower for your yard in a 6" air pot and the roots are bound and crawling out the bottom ready for transplanting, so I think your going to have great success.. I just picked up some felt pots to try out and for less mess.. but will be watching how this comes out too.. very nice, clean setup man, luck

 

[pop22]

After seeing the success of many other auto pot users, and the convenience of being able to go away for a few days without worry, I had to try them! And the simplicity of gravity fed watering system appeals to my KISS principals. I'm already planning to purchase more of them in the future.

I'd love to fill my greenhouse with them!

 

[pop22]

Update:

I was nervous as it seems to not be a common practice to transplant seedlings when using coco. Understandably so as the medium always stays fairly loose. Adding the worm castings to the seedling pots accomplished two things, it charged the medium with beneficial bacteria and fungi. It also helped keep the medium intact at transplant, I didn't loose even a crumb!
And once again, my technique of transplanting when the leaves of the seedling just exceed the width of the pot payed off. As usual, my seedlings have not only adapted to the new pot, they have continued to grow without missing a beat! They are already noticeably larger than when I transplanted them.

NOW comes the hard part, watering properly until the have established their root zone. I already see that is tricky with coco. As I watered each pot before planting, I'm going to just mist the surface a couple times a day for a few days.

 

[Corgy]

Where's them airdomes.........alongside the soil pots, I also grow in a couple of mapito pots alongside which I think is similar to coco, and until the Auto-system is switched on I water until runoff, i.e. saturation, and no harm seems to be done......without air-injection I can see it might be a little tricky though.

Are you planning to aerate your reservoir?

 

[pop22]

didn't have the money for the airdomes, that will be a future upgrade. The parts for my DIY LED are eating up my budget for now.

 

[Wile e Peyote]

Update:

I was nervous as it seems to not be a common practice to transplant seedlings when using coco. Understandably so as the medium always stays fairly loose. Adding the worm castings to the seedling pots accomplished two things, it charged the medium with beneficial bacteria and fungi. It also helped keep the medium intact at transplant, I didn't loose even a crumb!
And once again, my technique of transplanting when the leaves of the seedling just exceed the width of the pot payed off. As usual, my seedlings have not only adapted to the new pot, they have continued to grow without missing a beat! They are already noticeably larger than when I transplanted them.

NOW comes the hard part, watering properly until the have established their root zone. I already see that is tricky with coco. As I watered each pot before planting, I'm going to just mist the surface a couple times a day for a few days.

Pops one of the best ways of watering in coco (ronins method) water about 250 mls per plant straight down to get the tap root to the bottom of your pot I feed about 1/4 strength nutes for the first week second week water in circles plant outwards to get them roots everywhere [emoji2]

 

[MeefChief]

Pops one of the best ways of watering in coco (ronins method) water about 250 mls per plant straight down to get the tap root to the bottom of your pot I feed about 1/4 strength nutes for the first week second week water in circles plant outwards to get them roots everywhere [emoji2]

That's what I did that grow and my stalk is much larger on these plants. These girls are HUNGRY, so I'm assuming the root zone is massive.

 

[pop22]

Thanks guys! i'll water them like that!

And my girls are doing well, growing nicely. The Mars Hydro Reflector 192x3 is on the veg setting, first time i've used it that way. See if i can save a little power without hurting my girls. Next week I'll crank it to full power. I'm running 24/7 right now. The wire you see in the pic is the outdoor temp probe I stuck in the coco to track soil temps with, out of curiosity. Over all I'm pleased with this so far!