Lighting Bigsm0 and the cob addiction

[BigSm0]

Merry Christmas! Hope everyone has a great day.

 

[Tiny Bubbles]

Merry Christmas @BigSm0

 

[midIN]

Hey big SMo @BigSm0 check out what couple 3500k and a 2.5 week flush one week cal/mg I'm testing I'm really loving it for the cons its 8.5%cal 4.5%Mag 2ml/gal is my test start rate. But any way 1.5 week cal/mg, boost, sweet candy, week 2 water and gave me this for Ghost Toof by @mephisto.genetics 292.03 wet and dense as both my mules ducks in the back 40.

Not one smaller or less hard as a golf ball. I shit you not. Using as a foliar spray and its doing crazy wonders with 57% rh and 78F temps

 

[midIN]

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.

If the lil yellow nippe valve in the float came out could it flood?

 

[BigSm0]

I do have some more reading to do but wanted to chime in. As @pop22 mentioned the top of the pot drying and the use of diatomaceous earth is a godsend. I recently went to my hydro store and the idiots didn’t even hide the yellow sticky trap. It wasn’t yellow at all. Thousands of gnats covering the paper. My aphids, gnats, thrips all came from this sht hole. Years of fighting with them before I finally figured a solution and it’s nearly flawless but I’d rather not use a chemical to kill these things when I can most likely prevent them.

Another thing is I have major humidity issues being in an outdoor building. Insulated with roxul insulation which is key for high humidity areas, insulated floors, walls and ceilings but without the 70pint dehumidifier running 24/7 my humidity would hit 95% in two hours tops. I am convinced the air pots and the constantly moist soil adds to this so this was a major selling feature for me. The other thing is I something I didn’t think of till after running the room as it was for a long period of time. My flood tables drain to the outdoors so blumats weren’t really an issue if it came to flooding which has happened numerous times but I’d rather not dump any nutrients outside if I don’t have to especially being about 50-75’ from my well. I believe the setup I got has 1/4” lines. Basically 8mm. My blumats were also 8 mm but were reduced down to 4mm. This is where my clogs happened. I do have a double reserviour which helps, my pump that fills the second res has a filter which is always cleaned, the pump was elevated to prevent sucking any thicker slurry from the bottom, an in-line filter and still clogged near the end of the cycle. The 1/4” will help a lot. I bought the 3.9 gallon pots. Probably end up doing 70% coco and 30% promix.

 

[BigSm0]

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.

I saw these double trays and thought the exact thing. Sounds great but they should have spaced them further apart.

 

[lunarman]

I saw these double trays and thought the exact thing. Sounds great but they should have spaced them further apart.

Get the 4 pot autopot kits. Also float some mosquito dunk chunks in the res. Prevents larvae. And lots of fans really helps.

 

[BigSm0]

Get the 4 pot autopot kits. Also float some mosquito dunk chunks in the res. Prevents larvae. And lots of fans really helps.

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.

 

[midIN]

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

My heart sunk seeing totes in place of a very awesome structural set up!!

 

[BII]

If the lil yellow nippe valve in the float came out could it flood?

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.