New Grower AutoCobs/AutoPots in 4x4 Tent, Unboxing and Setup

[SPZ]

For the sake of completeness, here are the other supplements I bought

Cal/Mag which I may or may not need since I don't have RO

Silicone, which I gather helps with overall vegetative development

 

[BII]

If you're not familiar, the base nutrients for this system come in an A and B part system. When the two parts are mixed together they automatically balance the pH of your feeding solution. It's supposed to be foolproof but trust me if anyone can put that to the test, it's me!

No, that's not how AN pH Perfect works. The 2 parts do not "automatically balance the pH of your feeding solution." The 2 parts result in balanced highly-bioavailable nutrient chelates/complexes (chemical forms) that can be better taken up by the roots within a very broad pH range. The final mixed pH of AN-authorized (it's feed schedule/calculator) or similar feed mixtures does not really matter. It goes against the basic chemistry involved to try to adjust the pH, with this just adding salts, which disrupt pH Perfect from fully working.

BUT the system best works (or only) with low salt/ion/EC water, and not as well or not at all with high ppm/EC water. You need to use RO or distilled water, or low ppm/EC tap, ground or rain water.

It's best to keep Ca, Mg, Si and other salt additives out of the pH Perfect base nutes and feed those foliarly for as long as you can. Since using Transport/Optic Foliar to feed Ca, Mg and Si, I have not seen any cal-mag deficients (which for my grows is just incredible).

 

[BigSm0]

Got some catching up to do but I'd highly recommend nectar for the gods ph. It's fairly inexpensive and uses calcium to raise the ph. With all the calmag i use I'm sure it helps.

I know bluelab is expensive but I own 4 ph pens and the first 3 weren't bluelab. Talk about spending money. 20+25+45 then I spent 100 on the bluelab. The cheaper they are the slower they are to give a reading. Also accuracy is terrible on the cheaper ones. I have the guardian for my reservoir and just picked up another bluelab pen for my hydro girl. You can see the monitor on the top right. Flip it on and it's almost instant. What's nice about the guardian is you can watch it while you add nutes instead of wiggling the pen.

 

[SPZ]

No, that's not how AN pH Perfect works. The 2 parts do not "automatically balance the pH of your feeding solution." The 2 parts result in balanced highly-bioavailable nutrient chelates/complexes (chemical forms) that can be better taken up by the roots within a very broad pH range. The final mixed pH of AN-authorized (it's feed schedule/calculator) or similar feed mixtures does not really matter. It goes against the basic chemistry involved to try to adjust the pH, with this just adding salts, which disrupt pH Perfect from fully working.

@BII thanks for the clarification. I was wondering how AN accomplished this magical balancing and what you said makes a lot more sense. Did you see my water quality report? I don't suppose my tap water qualifies as "low salt/ion/EC" water at all, lol

 

[SPZ]

Next up.. media! I ordered coco and perlite which I plan to mix together 70/30. I also ordered some expanded clay pebbles to put on the bottom of the AutoPots. I ordered coco in a brick which needs to be expanded with water, which I don't plan to do until I have everything else put together. The pebbles are surprisingly light.

Of course now I'm reading that folks are just using straight coco and getting great results, so maybe I could have skipped the perlite and pebbles, sigh.

 

[SPZ]

Here's a few pictures of the 4 x 4 tent in its box. It is the "Growtent Garden Hydroponic Grow Tent" off of amazon. The directions for putting it together were quite good but I'm not sure I have 100% confidence that the main zipper will last

This was one of the bigger and heavier boxes

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[SPZ]

Here's the Fan, Fan Speed Controller, and Filter. These came in a kit from the same hydro shop where I ordered my autopots. I went with the 6" so I can hopefully run it slower and quieter. These things are huge and heavy, much bigger than I expected! The white cloth is two pre-filters which go over the filter to keep out dust and pot leaves and shit.

The fan came with a small instruction sheet, two brackets for mounting it to a wall, and four screws to attach the brackets. There was no hardware provided for hanging it in a tent, what do they think people do with these things?

Also there were no instructions for the kit overall, and while it was clear that these things could work together, there were no instructions for how to connect them. I had to turn the fan on to see which end the air came out of lol. I ended up reading online that you should use a small bit of flexible ducting between the fan and the filter to keep the fan from vibrating the charcoal in the filter, so that's what I ended up doing.

Here's the fan itself (in my basement!), you can see I bent the mounting brackets and strung some galvanized wire between them to make a handle that I can hang the fan from.

 

[SPZ]

One last pic before I go to sleep, here's a bunch of stuff I found in basement that I already owned and can now make use of, whoo hoo!

Foam flooring to keep the autopots off the floor
Timer
Submersible pump for reservoir - I bought this to make compost tea but it is the wrong kind of pump for that! Now I have a use for it!
GFCI outlet for the outlet near the grow tent. Safety first, folks
Smoke decector to go over grow tent (which is directly under my bedroom lol)
Small oscillating fan for circulation

 

[Corgy]

Somehow all this looks very familiar.... Lol..... Speaking of autopots and a floor in the same sentence.... Just in case you suffer from less than ideal flood drainage circumstances, a sturdy tray able to hold the full volume of the reservoir, pots and other sundry items founded on the floor......is recommended for peace of mind....

I know of a bloke who emptied a 400 l reservoir on the floor sans tray on the 5th floor in an apartment building....admittedly it was only about 3/4 full at the time, he wasnt home and granted it was not planned, but even so..... He no longer lives there, but he still has an unplanned longterm financial commitment to the building and its underlying restoration.....Apparently the expansive powers of wooden floors + H2O is rather impressive, but I digress...

And there were issues too with the botanical enforcement constables.... So there's a case to be made for a humble and unassuming tray....Rather than exclusively relying on an aquavalve to fend off a deluge.....

In case you find that fan a bit glutinous on the wattage and shrill on the audio, Soler & Palau fans, say the TD Silent series, may be worthwhile looking into.... Or any other in-line fan not sold through a grow shop really....

And what strain(s) to grow.....

.... How about 4 x Dutch Passion Auto Ultimates for starters to properly stress test and initiate them COB's...... Alternatively 4 Think Big or Glueberries if you're more sedately inclined....or any combination thereof.......

ps: you're right, they got ya on the perlite and clay pellets......

 

[SPZ]

Hi all! I've got more pictures coming... from the basement (that's the basement monster if you can't tell)

Just wanted to take a second to thank everyone for the helpful comments...

@BigSm0 Nice rig, man! That is what, a water filter, reservoir with dedicated pH meter for hydro? Sick dude I already have a few tabs open reading about nectar of the gods and bluelab.

@BII Thanks again, your comment has spurned me onto all sorts of research. I think I answered my own question... my water test shows my EC at 0.090 mS/cm and the AN products recommend an EC under 0.160 mS/cm. Lol says it right on the back of the label I posted earlier. Fingers crossed, I could get decent results with my tap/spring water but I'm prepared for a filtration purchase down the line if necessary. I will definitely check out your foliar feeding technique.

@Corgy LMAO man that story, and more importantly the way you tell it, is priceless! Actually a similar thing happened to a friend of a friend. His smallish hydro setup was supposed to run itself while he was out of town, but instead it decided to spring a leak (they do have minds of their own, don't they?). His downstairs neighbor called the landlord when it started raining in her apartment! Lucky for him the landlord agreed not to call the law as long as he moved out without a fuss and paid for the damages. My modest reservoir is in the basement of my own home, and I do own a kayak, but I will definitely look into the tray or other flood containment mechanism.

Regarding the DP strains... why yes, you are talking my language! I actually tried to order from DP a week or two ago but they apparently do not ship to the US. Truenorthseedbank.com resells their seeds, so I'm looking into them. I'm also looking at Mephisto's lineup, maybe some Northern Cheese Haze :smoking: