Grow Mediums Newbie Autoflower Grow (autopot)

[newautoflower grower]

Hi @lunarman … I just gave them some water top feed right before I took the pic … forgot you said to bottom feed it .. next time I will bottom feed ..I have a friend over and we are doing a movie day so I will weight them later on this evening

Thanks for the comments on the LED light .. I am doing a movie day so I think I will put up the Led light tomorrow .. I am so excited .. I thought I would have to wait a few weeks as I read on line some keep them under CFLs for a couple of weeks....

 

[lunarman]

Bottom feed after a couple of days of them being above ground. Don't bottom feed right at the first. Get the meter. Don't guess.

 

[HemiSync]

Hey Hemi. Not surprised this subject has come up again and we cross paths. You remember the nasty build up I was getting? Well its gone now. I bought an RO Buddie 4 stage filter (including de ionization) for $50 and rigged up a system in the laundry room to keep a 50 gallon tote full. The tap water here is over 200 ppm (glacier fed) and my newly filtered water is 0 ppm. For a while I was mixing my tap water 50/50 with bottled RO water (which gave me about 120 ppm) and was still getting that nasty build up.

So I think its the hardness that causes this but also the composition of the tap water. Calcium etc. I ran 10 plants for 6+ weeks using megacrop, calmagpro, sweet candy and had hardly any build up. Now I'm using Advanced Bloom A/B (Tangs Easy) for flowering and again no build up happening. The RO buddie ranks up in the top tools I have bought for growing.

That’s great you got one that inexpensive and it’s working out for you. I remember your frustration with that buildup. Looked like you could build a wall out of that stuff. Hard water could be the culprit I have no doubt.

It’s funny about mixing up the nutrients with warm water. I take five gallon water dispenser bottles and fill them from my rain/snow barrel and carry them inside. When I start mixing the water is usually about 50°F this time of year, if not colder. I measure out the cal/mag and MC separately add them to the five gallon bottle and grab it by the handle and shake it back and forth. No premixing of any kind, just dump and shake. Check the EC and I’m done until the next day when the water has warmed up to room temp 65° and I shake again, check pH, add .5 ml AN’s pH Up which usually raises it up to 6.5 and I dump into the reservoir. Check pH and EC again after it sits in the rez overnight and if all is well my testers do not come back out until I fix up five more gallons. The pH with MC has been so steady, I don’t even worry about it anymore after the refill.

 

[lunarman]

That’s great you got one that inexpensive and it’s working out for you. I remember your frustration with that buildup. Looked like you could build a wall out of that stuff. Hard water could be the culprit I have no doubt.

It’s funny about mixing up the nutrients with warm water. I take five gallon water dispenser bottles and fill them from my rain/snow barrel and carry them inside. When I start mixing the water is usually about 50°F this time of year, if not colder. I measure out the cal/mag and MC separately add them to the five gallon bottle and grab it by the handle and shake it back and forth. No premixing of any kind, just dump and shake. Check the EC and I’m done until the next day when the water has warmed up to room temp 65° and I shake again, check pH, add .5 ml AN’s pH Up which usually raises it up to 6.5 and I dump into the reservoir. Check pH and EC again after it sits in the rez overnight and if all is well my testers do not come back out until I fix up five more gallons. The pH with MC has been so steady, I don’t even worry about it anymore after the refill.

Man, it is so crazy how some of these nute and water things are so different for people. Works one way for one person, and totally another way for someone else. Both @slowandeasy and myself get some PH drift with MC but you and most everyone else don't. I stopped using MC in flower on this grow and switched to Advanced PH perfect Bloom instead just because I was worried about the lack of buffering and what PH issues would do to the flowers on a very important invested grow for me. I'd prefer to use Greenleaf because of simplicity and price. So I'm going to keep trying to find a good mixing regime. I think part of it is I mix up 20 gallons at a time so some of it sits in buckets for a few days and then in to the res. I might need to mix less at a time and keep it fresher.

Apologies to @newautoflower grower for sidetracking your journal!

 

[HemiSync]

Man, it is so crazy how some of these nute and water things are so different for people. Works one way for one person, and totally another way for someone else. Both @slowandeasy and myself get some PH drift with MC but you and most everyone else don't. I stopped using MC in flower on this grow and switched to Advanced PH perfect Bloom instead just because I was worried about the lack of buffering and what PH issues would do to the flowers on a very important invested grow for me. I'd prefer to use Greenleaf because of simplicity and price. So I'm going to keep trying to find a good mixing regime. I think part of it is I mix up 20 gallons at a time so some of it sits in buckets for a few days and then in to the res. I might need to mix less at a time and keep it fresher.

Apologies to @newautoflower grower for sidetracking your journal!

First off apologies to @newautoflower grower for sidetracking your journal, we didn’t mean do it.

You grow a lot more plants than I do, so I can understand you mixing up so much. I think you are going to find that is not it either. When I do travel I put 10+ gallons in the rez and a week or two later when I get back the pH has only fallen 0.3 or less. Worse time I ever had with pH was when doing DWC with distilled water. It would swing wildly all over the place with no rhyme or reason.

 

[newautoflower grower]

No Worries @lunarman and @HemiSync … I think every piece of knowledge is good …. LOL …

Not sure whats going on with the lemon haze I thought it would have spouted up by now but no signs of it .. I guess I will just have to wait it out and see what happens...

 

[Mr Green Fingers]

It’s my understanding that

Air stone messes with ph because of the oxygen being pumped into the solution

Submersible pump just moves the solution and doesn’t inject any air so I can’t see why that would affect ph. I though the problem people had with those was that they put off some heat and raised the temp of the res. A solution to that would be to put the pump on a timer. Something I’m actually considering doing so it kicks on to mix things up once a day. Maybe have it turn on and run for 15 minutes to a half hour daily.

When I do my nutrient mix for my DWC buckets I always set the ph 0.6 lower then my target number as once in the bubble buckets with airstones the oxygen in the water will make the ph rise afer a couple hours by this amount for my set up, after that initial rise though it should then stabilise

 

[MassMom]

No Worries @lunarman and @HemiSync … I think every piece of knowledge is good …. LOL …

Not sure whats going on with the lemon haze I thought it would have spouted up by now but no signs of it .. I guess I will just have to wait it out and see what happens...

Hi New Autoflower Grower


I am not new, but still consider myself a novice grower.... learning every day. You have found the best spot to get fantastic information from incredible people. If not for this forum I dont know what I would have done. Good job so far!!

xoxo

 

[newautoflower grower]

Thank You @MassMom .. I am going to do an update in the next couple of days as the Dark Devils seem to be doing really well. She is starting to get her true leaves.. They are small but they are starting …

 

[newautoflower grower]

Hi Everyone ..
A quick update .. I have attached pictures of the Dark Devils. They are 4 days since popping up through the soil... . they are doing really well .. I think I am giving up on the lemon haze .. she doesn't want to sprout .. If they don't pop up by Thursday

I am going to start a different strain or maybe 2 more dark devils as they seems to be thriving … ..I am happy though with the dark devils...