Indoor How low (maintenance) can you go? Blumat and Kindsoil test

Update-o-clock on the Auto Berry Bombs. Seriously digging the progress on these two so far. Both plants seem to be a deeper, richer green than usual and so far not seeing any tip buring or discoloration so far. For being at day 42, the buds are already sizing nicely and getting a good frosting going. Supposed to be a 70 day strain according to the breeder, so still a little ways to go as well. Hit them with the cal/mag supplement last night. Next week will be tea time again.

Plant 1, day 42
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Plant 2, day 40
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Group shot
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Starting to see a little fading on one of the main fans. Not much, but in the spirit of trying to listen to the plants better, I'm bumping up the next dose of tea. Started brewing some today so it'll be ready to give tomorrow evening. Only a couple of days change from when they would have received it on Thursday, and not even sure if the light fading is an indication of anything. But going with my gut on a lot of this, and it says go a few days early on the tea so gonna' do it. :baked:

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Leaves are starting to yellow out nicely on the taller plant. Little bit on the smaller, but not nearly as much. Huge difference in this grow over the last Kindsoil, I'd have to say. The buds are so thick, sticky, and frosty on these that it's really hard to capture in a pic. Will try to get some better shots as they get closer to harvest. Think they might make it in the 70 day time frame outlined by the breeder. Their at about day 53 now. Casual look at trichs looks like a ways to go, so we'll see. Gave them a dose of the TLOSoils finishing tea this week and will probably do at least one more next week sometime.

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Hi friend I'm wondering how did you have to dial it in. When you first started this I have been interested. Know I want to give it a shot.

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Here's my little run down on how I setup the Blumat's in the flowerpots. This is based of info I found on other forums as well as the couple of grows so far working with the devices.

First off, the devices themselves are a super simple thing. They use clay permeability to act as a moisture meter. As the soil dries out, it will pull moisture out of the clay cone which will in turn pull more moisture in from the closed reservoir inside the cone. This causes a drop in pressure on the valve at the top and the water flows more.

So the first thing is to make sure that the reservoir inside is properly setup before putting the thing in the dirt. It's recommended to soak the Blumat without the cap on in a bucket of water for at least an hour to make sure the clay is nice and saturated when you start. More won't hurt so if I remember I'll chuck 'em in the water the night before to let them soak. The cap part doesn't need to soak as long but I'll usually let it set in the bucket with the cone for a few minutes. I'll then line things up, jiggle the cap around a bit to make sure there aren't any air bubbles and put the cap on the cone UNDERWATER IN THE BUCKET. This is to ensure that the water inside is filled up to the very tippy top and there are no air bubble inside the cone. Snug the cap down until it stops. Don't go incredible Hulk on it and break the thing but make sure it's on all the way.

Along the lines of soaking the Blumat, I'll also give the soil in the pot a good watering and get it nicely saturated. You're not going for mud here, just nicely moist throughout. I like to try and water the pot when I put the Blumat's in the bucket to soak and let both soak at the same time. If I remember the night before, watering until there is a little run off is about the saturation level I'll shoot for.

Once everything's put together and ready to go, I'll put the Blumat in the pot about halfway from the edge to the center. Push it in deep enough that all of the clay portion of the cone is in the dirt. Then I turn the adjustment dial until there is a steady stream out of the drip line. This clears the air out of the lines and also makes sure the small drip line isn't pinched shut (very easy to happen after being in storage for a while). After making sure the water's flowing right, I then dial the adjuster back down until there is just a drip suspended on the end of the line. I shoot for trying to get the drip to hold for about 15 seconds. Then I dial it down a few more of the little lines on the adjuster from that point to get to my "sweet spot". At this point it's pretty well dialed in except I'll keep an eye on things over the next day or two and make small adjustment up or down if I feel it needs it. As the pot dries out from the initial saturation, the dripper will start picking up the pace and doing it's thing.

One thing to bear in mind with these is that as far as I can tell, they will never fully turn off. Anytime you look there will be a drip slowly forming on the drip line. As things get to the drier end of the cycle, these drips will come very frequently. As the moisture then increases, they'll slow back to dripping very slowly (like a drip every 15-20 seconds). There will be a nice, moist spot right under the drip that will always be wet, while from the top the rest of the pot will feel very, VERY dry most of the time. I let mine go for a week or so when I first put them in just to get a feel for how they worked and sort of "dial them in" before sowing my seeds in the pots.
 
Thank you very much you explained everything I wanted to know really.. thank you. Do you mind if I copy this information and put it inside my log with credit to you of course..

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Thank you very much you explained everything I wanted to know really.. thank you. Do you mind if I copy this information and put it inside my log with credit to you of course..

Sent from my A462C using Tapatalk

Fell free to copy if you'd like.

For what it's worth, here's the original post from another forum that I used to get started myself. I think it was from the Roll It Up forums, but not 100% sure which one I found it one. I had a copy of it I saved off to reference that I was able to dig back out. :smoking:

Hopefully I can pull off being helpful without sounding condensending. I have successfully used TB's for longer than I care to mention.

I have used them in every growing medium with and without nutes, in containers, beds and outdoors with absolute success.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The system is based on actual individual need, not an assumption that all are created equal, (even if they are the same via clones), rather than a timed assumption.

There are a few tricks and a learning curve. Their service life is indefinate, so regardless of the initial cost, they are an absolute bargain! If your needing several hundred of more, form a relationship with a local shop and make a deal to prepay for an order directly form Canada, and you could cut the cost in half. Just be patient with customs.

It helps to understand exactly what makes TB's work. You have a porous cermaic cone, a plastic control cap with a small bladder connected to a pin which exerts pressure on the silicone feed hose.

As the growing medium looses moisture, it attempts to draw from the cone creating a negative pressure inside the TB. With the drop in pressure, the bladder is pulled down allowing the pin to reduce pressure on the silicone hose and you begin rehydration.

The design is brilliantly simplistic. Regardless of what my fellow enthusiast may have come up against, once the basics are mastered, the only control issue will be caused by human error. (sorry)

Now to address a few of the concearns.

Proper adjustment is a bit tricky at first. Be patient in the beginning, and the free time you gain will simply blow you away. Hosing can be fun, but there comes a point where you start feeling like a hose monkey!

Make certain your growing medium is absolutely saturated. Instert the cone midway between container and trunk. Press the cone in to where the plastic cap meets the cone. If the ceramic is exposed, it can cause erratic drip control due to evaporation. Extend the silicone drip hose to center of container. If you are using 10 gal or larger, you can use two TB's or purchase their drip extenders which allows you to drip in multiple locations using one TB.

Loosen the adjuster cap until you have a steady flow. Slowly and patiently turn the adj. cap clockwise until a drop is suspended at the end of the drip hose (important!). Again be patient and watch for 15 seconds. Now turn the cap clockwise and additional notch or two depending the level of saturation you are seeking, (this will take some attention over a few days). Once you have found what works, in the future it will be an absoulte set and forget. I do not reccommend readjusting to flush. Top flush with a hose. Once you got it right, don't touch until your resetting for your next go. At the end of the cycle, rinse the cones, remove the caps and store in clean H20 (preferably r/o).

If you are experiencing flooding after you perfectly adjusted the TB's, it will be the result of one of three issues:

First being a pinched drip line. To prevent this, before setting, completely loosen adjuster, pull the silicone hose to it's intended location and proceed with adjustment. Once adjusted, never pull on the hose!

Second would be a improperly soaked/filled/sealed TB. You must soak the cermaics in preferably r/o water for several hours. When filling (preferably r/o water), you must place the top on the cone under water making sure there are no air bubbles inside the cap. When sealing the unit (under water), make sure you tighten securely without going too far. You can strip them, thus no negative pressure, thus cone dries out, thus wfo!

Thirdly, supply and demand. The elevated reservoir is limited in scope when dealing with agressive thirstly babes. If you have a dozen little girls, this method works fine with the distribution hose supplied in the kit. If you are looking for fool proof delivery for thirteen to infinity, you must pressurize your system. I won't go into technical details as there are so many options, but the end result needs to be an endless supply of 6 psi. Ironically, you will eliminate many sensitivites with the higher pressure.

If you run out of pressure for even 5 thirsty minutes, you must, resoak, refill, readjust. No way around it.

I have read several complaints of the TB's not being able to keep up with severe demand. If set up properly with 6 psi, that would be impossible. At 6 psi, a TB will shoot a tiny but steady stream six feet.

With the problems I have read, the majority are from the supply end. If all you are getting is drips with adjuster wide open, you must elevate your tank or pressurize. Often times, if you have adjusted the TB's properly and you are experiencing flooding, it is because your supply could not keep up, the cone lost some of its internal water and you lost the proper balance of internal negative pessure and the pin is not applying the proper force on the drip hose. Once this has happened, you cannot adjust you way out of the problem. You must remove TB and start from square one.

Once you have taken care of the basics, you will never feed any other way.

In regards to production, that will always be a never ending debate. In regards to my own experience, in a commercial like scale, it is the best way. Each container has it's very own personalized system. If you have a dozen container hobby deal, then picking up each one and checking it twice is not only feasible, but enjoyable.

TG
 
This may end up being the last update on the two Auto Berry Bomb's before they get chopped. Getting very close to finishing up now. LOVING the results on this grow. The modified Kindsoil and the TLOSoils teas produced two awesome plants. Smell is amazing, strong sweet with obvious berry traits and that unmistakable cannabis smell. The carbon filter had a hard time keeping up a few times. Colors are starting to change nice as the leaves are yellowing and falling off (well..with a little tug help) at an increasing pace. The taller, couple day younger plant is loosing the faster while the shorter fatter gal started really catching up on the yellow leaves in the last couple days. Bomb Seeds lists it as a 70 day strain, and think it's going to be really close to that.

Plant 1, day 62
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Plant 2, day 60
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simply OUTSTANDING
 
Harvest night finally here!!! Acutally meant to do it a couple nights ago, but life happens and got busy and stuff so that's just how it goes. :smoking:

Anyhow...thought I'd post up the final shots of plant 1 while I'm taking a break between the two. This one older than the other by two days, and was one that got stretchy the first couple days before I was able to lower the lights. Believe that contributed to her being a bit shorter, stockier plant than her sister over all.

Auto Berry Bomb, day 73:

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