Merry Christmas! Hope everyone has a great day.
If the lil yellow nippe valve in the float came out could it flood?There is a way to get essentially all of the benefits of AutoPots with zero chance of ever having a flood, and maybe other benefits too. Take full manual control of feeding. Do not use a reservoir, plastic tubing, the AutoValves, etc. -- Simply regularly manually refill each AutoPot's reservoir as you see fit. I did that for multiple grows, and considered the results just as good as using the 'automated' reservoir/tubing/AutoValves system.
Manual AutoPot feeding also allows much more control of feeding, such as I would often add a day without any feed/water, to allow the coco/perlite to dry out a little bit before it gets saturated again.
I also much preferred feeding freshly-mixed feed, with reservoirs always turning nasty on me. I never saw any upsides in feeding days old feed. Freshly-mixed feeding also allows much broader freedom in use of supplements -- organics, even gunky carbohydrates, can be added with no concerns about tubing or valves clogging. And manual feeding allows much more customization for each plant - different feeds; supplements can be added individually, etc.
Otherwise, what clinched, pushed my decision, to go manual feeding was that I found it overall simpler and less work than messing with the reservoir/tubing/AutoValves.
I saw these double trays and thought the exact thing. Sounds great but they should have spaced them further apart.I'm just saying they are too close for any decent sized strain to do next to each other. Maybe Nuggets or Sour Crack. I bought them for Sour Crack when I had my Hip replacement. So I didn't have to train a bunch of plants with a Total Hip Replacement.
Get the 4 pot autopot kits. Also float some mosquito dunk chunks in the res. Prevents larvae. And lots of fans really helps.I saw these double trays and thought the exact thing. Sounds great but they should have spaced them further apart.
I’m just testing the water for now so I only bought 6 trays and 12 pots. Perpetual grow on the 6 using the setup. No kit since I will be modifying the 1/2” hand water line that’s already mounted. Have been using all sorts of stuff for the gnats including the mosquito bits which do work well. I almost quit growing all together. It’s just way to much to manage at this time. The poor plants. Happy to think the autopots will be much easier and less prone to clogging has me looking forward to it.Get the 4 pot autopot kits. Also float some mosquito dunk chunks in the res. Prevents larvae. And lots of fans really helps.
My heart sunk seeing totes in place of a very awesome structural set up!!I’m just testing the water for now so I only bought 6 trays and 12 pots. Perpetual grow on the 6 using the setup. No kit since I will be modifying the 1/2” hand water line that’s already mounted. Have been using all sorts of stuff for the gnats including the mosquito bits which do work well. I almost quit growing all together. It’s just way to much to manage at this time. The poor plants. Happy to think the autopots will be much easier and less prone to clogging has me looking forward to it. View attachment 991774
When running totally manually, the valves do nothing, are not connected. The whole bottom unit/system becomes just a dumb container for bottom feeding (you manually refilling it rather than the AutoValves/reservoir). You totally can pull out the float/valve unit (or I just left it). And you can always instantly (re)connect your tubing and run automated any time you want to.If the lil yellow nippe valve in the float came out could it flood?