FD's Guide to Growing Hefty Autos in Small Places.

Ok guys i have been dragging my knuckles on this for too long. This thread will be dedicated to my actual grow technique. I will have everything in here from the way i germ seeds to the way i harvest and everything in between.

ill cover my soil mixes, teas, water adjustments, feeding schedules as well as the recipes for the soil and teas that i use. My goal is to teach how to grow the bud lumps you see in the small pots i use. I feel if you use this you may have the same success that i do when it comes to autos in small places.

Bare with me as i will update this on the regular, but will be locking it to get it all organized.
 
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can anyone comment back on how the ph level is before and after the oxygenating? I would like to know if the ph differs and how i should go about measuring the ph with nutes before feeding.. i believe i read somewhere on here that the ph was up 1.0+ more after being bubbled
 
can anyone comment back on how the ph level is before and after the oxygenating? I would like to know if the ph differs and how i should go about measuring the ph with nutes before feeding.. i believe i read somewhere on here that the ph was up 1.0+ more after being bubbled

Hey dude where im from my tap water comes out at 7.4 and after been bubbled for 24hrs its at 8.1! So i just lower to 6.8 - 7 and pour in! No probs so far! :smoke:

Also i learnt that after i run the 8.1 bubbled water through a brittle filter it lowers it to 6.5! :toke:
 
Going to try to follow your soil mix closely for my next grow. However I don't have enough Egg shells and I might not find Epsom salt for a decent price.

Can these ingrediënts be replaced by something else?
 
I have one little stupid question though: How can you get the end of the cable on the bottom of the water? 0_o it floats!

Tie it to a piece of rock Hugo. Or anything heavy. Just make sure it doesn't poison your water like some metal's could.
 
Bubbling your water to add oxygen is the single BEST idea I have read on this forum or any other. I started with a Pineapple Express at about 6 weeks with some serious ph and deficiency issues and it rebounded remarkably in its last 2 weeks before chopping. I have used the "bubbled" water on an Easy Ryder that is 4 weeks old today and exploding. It has been very happy from seedling to a bushy beast. It has 11 bud sites at the top of the canopy. Knock on wood.

Thank you FD for sharing it!

KS

Sorry for commenting on such an old post-- but I've seen quite a bit discussion about aerating water prior to using it, and thought I might share my experience.

While its true that it adds o2 to the water, it also adds CO2 to the water, lowering the PH through formation of carbolic acid (h2co3)

When I check ph after bubbling air, the measured PH is really low--- but --- there isn't much PH buffer, so it's fine to add the low PH water directly. The PH goes up very easily.

I use RODI water for my plants, usually don't add nutes. But bubbling my water is a habit from my salt water aquariums-- and the plants seem to REALLY love it.

I also keep some aragonite on the bottom of my water barrel. It buffers up the PH as the CO2 dissolves, and adds calcium and magnesium to the water as the aragonite dissolves.
 
So then would the calcium carbonate produced in castings from a worms digestive tract counteract this effect and buffer a tea being bubbled without the aragonite?
 
So then would the calcium carbonate produced in castings from a worms digestive tract counteract this effect and buffer a tea being bubbled without the aragonite?

Honestly, I don't know. Aragonite is almost pure calcium carbonate + magnesium carbonate with some other trace minerals. It seems to keep the ph at around 5.5 or so after vigorous aeration.

For worm castings, I would guess that it would depend greatly on the concentration of calcium carbonate.

Best way to find out would be to try it. :)
 
I usually get higher pHs after aerating. Not much of a buffer resistance also. Am I the only one?
 
Normally I get very level ph from my teas. On this last one it was completely out of wack but I think that's from me being lazy and buying "purified" (probably tap filled in the back) water from the local corner store. I also used a half ass soil mix with not too much lime in it this last run and it cost me. Effing laziness is my plague.
 
Great info, right on. Im going to give this method a try. One Love.
There are several of you that are already doing this and are seeing the results already. Wiz has seen some astronomical changes in his gals since he has been treating his water in the way of my method.

Most of you know how important it is to give the plants we love what they need. What do you think would happen if you could super charge their growth in an area that is only ment to provide small and minimal yields? Well i can tell you that if done correctly and checked on the regular, you can pull yields in 1 gal 6in pots that the guys growing in 2 and 3 gal pots get. The best part about it all, its in the water that you feed them.

Most of us know that the roots of cannabis love o2. The more that we can get in there the better the plant will do. In this section i want you to forget about what is above the dirt and focus on the roots. I know its tough and we get what we want from the top, but if we don't take care of whats below you can forget about anything from the top worth smoking. The roots of the plant are the most important thing about your entire grow. If they are not healthy they just can't perform.

So i needed a way to get the roots as much o2 as possible allowing maximum up take of water and nutes. If i could do this, the roots would remain in great condition producing a better plant on top. I stumbled across what is now known to most as the Amended Water Method. I knew that the ideal pH for uptake in soil is in the 6.2-6.6 range. If i could administer the water to the plant at a perfect pH at all times i know i would be able to keep the roots as well as the plant healthy. So i started gathering rain water to get a consistent pH balanced source of water. This was a great idea but soon realized that the water over time would loose the pH and go back to the 7.0-7.5 area.

I solved one problem and then gained another, i was still having to buffer my water and this was something i didnt want to have to do all the time. I began to test a theory, i added some of the oxygen tabs from the aquarium section to the water over night to see if the pH would change. It did not and it stayed this way for all three days that the tab lasted. As the o2 left the water it began to migrate its way back to the neutral pH. I then knew if i kept the o2 in the water all the time i could keep the pH balanced. Little did i know i was doing something that was going to give me some unrealistic yields in tiny tiny pots.

The method is a follows. You can do this to any type of water that you are using to feed with I prefer rain. May it be tap (let it set for a day), Distilled, R.O., rain or filtered water all of these will keep a perfect pH balance as well as bring a whole new level of life and growth to the plants. So this is what you need to do. I use 1 gallon jugs to hold my water while i add the o2 to it. After you have filled your Jugs and pH'ed them to the correct level drop the pump into the water and let it bubble. I run my pumps 24/7 to do 2 things. 1. This allows the water to have the maximum o2 it can have at all times. If the water temp drops you can cram more dissolved o2 into the water. 2. Keeps the pH perfect in the water at all time all the way to the end of the jug.

So when you apply this water several things happen to your advantage.
1. The roots get a high oxygenated dose of perfect pH'ed water which allows maximum uptake by the roots allowing the plant to eat.
2. As the water temp rises in the soil it begins releasing more o2 into the root system, giving them more time to grab the available o2 in the water.
3. All of the o2 keeps the root system healthy as well as keeps any pathogens at bay with the extra o2

All of this allows for the plant to be in good health at all time. This allows it to fight pathogens, bugs, as well as disease.


So keeping a constant fresh, balanced, pH corrected, and oxygenated water source around your grow WILL improve everything over all. The plant vigor, health, size and most importantly the buds.
 

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