DIY Automated system suggestion

[Odissey]

Hi everyone,

I have been growing in coco for my last grows using AN ph perfect coco and watering 3 times per day till 20 % runoff. I love the results I get (very explosive growth), but I seem to be a bit locked to the grow. Now that I am in quarantine is fine, but I would like to explore a more automatic way of growing that would allow me to do vacations of say 2 weeks without worrying the plants will die. For instance, I have a FB Mexican Airlines that grew tremendously for my space, but she vegged for so long that she is only flowering for a week now and I will go visit my family in my home country in 5 weeks so I will have to probably cut her in 3.5 weeks, which is a pity for a plant with so much potential The only issue is I am growing micro and do not have a lot of space for a large bucket to put inside the grow box.
I have looked into autopots and they seem promising. Does anyone have experience with them?
Any other recommendations?

Thanks!

Odissey

 

[LeGeneGibberellin]

Autopots work great and are easy to setup and maintain. They deliver very good results. There is an 8l pot version for smaller spaces as well.

 

[Odissey]

Autopots work great and are easy to setup and maintain. They deliver very good results. There is an 8l pot version for smaller spaces as well.

So what would be the recommendation in terms of medium and nutes?

 

[LeGeneGibberellin]

So what would be the recommendation in terms of medium and nutes?

I personally grow fully organic in peat based soil and only feed ph'd tap water. This method is very forgiving as it is pretty hard to overfeed and you let the microbes feed your plants. The main advantage is that once you have prepared your soil you don't have to worry about feeding anything else then ph'd water and with an autopot system even less work and mostly fool prove in that aspect. It wont give you the biggest yields but the quality makes up for that big time in my opinion.

For an autopot system you need a medium with very good capillary action, it must be able to suck the water up efficiently. If you choose a peat based soil add at least 30% perlite to it. My base medium is a peat based light mix with very little extra nutrients (50%). Then I add worm castings to promote microbial life and add humic acids to enhance chelation (10%). Perlite for aeriation and drainage (40%) and TNC MycorrMax which adds microbial life to the soil mix. As fertilizer I use Biotabs Guerilla tabs as instructed. 1 tab per 5l of soil broken down to get them spread more evenly in the soil mix. The only time I add something extra is when the buds start to fatten up. Any organic pk rich nutrient that can be dissolved in water or is already liquid will work. I use bat guano dissolved in water and just top water with that.

But keep in mind this is just the way I grow. You can grow dank weed with just promix and mega crop or coco and canna a+b. Just pick what suits you best.

 

[Odissey]

I personally grow fully organic in peat based soil and only feed ph'd tap water. This method is very forgiving as it is pretty hard to overfeed and you let the microbes feed your plants. The main advantage is that once you have prepared your soil you don't have to worry about feeding anything else then ph'd water and with an autopot system even less work and mostly fool prove in that aspect. It wont give you the biggest yields but the quality makes up for that big time in my opinion.

For an autopot system you need a medium with very good capillary action, it must be able to suck the water up efficiently. If you choose a peat based soil add at least 30% perlite to it. My base medium is a peat based light mix with very little extra nutrients (50%). Then I add worm castings to promote microbial life and add humic acids to enhance chelation (10%). Perlite for aeriation and drainage (40%) and TNC MycorrMax which adds microbial life to the soil mix. As fertilizer I use Biotabs Guerilla tabs as instructed. 1 tab per 5l of soil broken down to get them spread more evenly in the soil mix. The only time I add something extra is when the buds start to fatten up. Any organic pk rich nutrient that can be dissolved in water or is already liquid will work. I use bat guano dissolved in water and just top water with that.

But keep in mind this is just the way I grow. You can grow dank weed with just promix and mega crop or coco and canna a+b. Just pick what suits you best.

Thanks for your detailed description. Trouble is, even though I considered it many times, it is not very easy for me to get the ingredients for organic where I live. Except for biotabs if that can be considered organic growing. Regarding coco, won't it have salt build up problems? Will it still have the hydro-like benefits of coco if bottom feeding? I really like the simplicity of not having to ph with AN ph perfect as it saves me quite some time. Is it common to use it with autopots?

 

[Mizzo81]

Thanks for your detailed description. Trouble is, even though I considered it many times, it is not very easy for me to get the ingredients for organic where I live. Except for biotabs if that can be considered organic growing. Regarding coco, won't it have salt build up problems? Will it still have the hydro-like benefits of coco if bottom feeding? I really like the simplicity of not having to ph with AN ph perfect as it saves me quite some time. Is it common to use it with autopots?

Just started using autopots and growpito. They r a sponsor here and have a very interesting product. Check out their subforum where they r doing a test grow with some folks using autopots and some just hand dipping the pots in solution. Megacrop 2 part with sweet candy is my nutes. For two weeks u would need a bigger res then what the smaller systems come with.

 

[karlkutta]

Hello Everyone! i am growing in some old soil, about 1.5-2yrs old that i keep reusing. I am now feeding with MecaCrop, calmag, and a pk booster.
I leave town frequently for a few nights and have a bucket setup with a pump and dripper hose that I can turn on remotely.
I have currently 3 plants with each plant having a 1gallon/hour dripper on them, so if I run my pump for 30 minutes, each pot gets about 1/2 gallon of a gallon of water.

I have to mix the nutes into the water bucket (2.5 gallon capacity) in advance and I had been struggling with the PH staying the same. I have now isolated the biggest factor in my PH creeping up - which is the calmag.

How long are you out of town for?
I can send you a pm with links to the items on amazon that I use. that would be wifi switch, pump, also remote temperature and humidity meter. I control my entire tent with the wifi switches, was really easy to setup

well, here are links to amazon, i hope this doesnt violate forum rules, sorry if it does.
+++
https://rb.gy/k8uf8t - water pump and lots of accessories/fitments
https://rb.gy/nn3pv5 - wifi plugs
https://rb.gy/6pygez - temp and rh monitor (needs a power cable)
https://rb.gy/jqqw6g - dripper kit
+++

you will need some other misc supplies, do you have home improvement / hardware store around? that would make it easy picking up some tubing and plumbing bits

 

[Death The Cultivator]

So what would be the recommendation in terms of medium and nutes?

I would go with Growpito Sim Mix and Mega Crop. Growpito has an incredible water holding capacity compared to anything else with a higher air capacity than coco. I switched from coco two years ago and I've never went back. The Sim mix is reusable. Using the same mix from two years ago perpetually.

Autopots are an excellent suggestion as soon irrigation is the most efficient way to water plants and will conserve more water/nutrients in conjunction with Growpito than other mediums.

Mega crop is a simple 1 or 2 part nutrient that in conjuction withthe Growpito only requires an EC or ppm of 500 the entire grow for success.

F | T |F Growery: Ace Seeds Limited Editions+Optic Foliar Testing

Now technically Zamaldelica x Kali China isn't a limited edition anymore but it was lol. Welcome to the Grow My cloning efforts have been less than satisfactory and I was behind due to life issues so this grow is late. Going to be running Zamaldelica x Kali China again with 12 clones...

• Death The Cultivator
• May 20, 2020
• Comments: 65
• Category: Cultivators Club
• Blog: F | T |F Growery

 

[Mizzo81]

Agreed with @FTF_damien50 my first run is going smooth also coming from coco.

 

[Simplicio]

I'm doing the same as Mizzo81 for a 2 plant test grow, AutoPots, Growpito, and Megacrop.
The only maintenance required after a couple weeks is keeping the ~12 gallon reservoir full.
If that's too much, a larger storage reservoir can be used.
Or jugs of prepared nutes can be left for someone to pour into the storage res when it gets low.
I'm using the 2 plant, 2.2 gal Easy2Grow version of autopots.
While following the Vapor Pressure Deficit chart, they drank at most 1 gallon per day, and the average was probably 1/2 - 3/4 gal, so my res lasts for about 2 weeks.