Dragon Meds Portal Automix...Let the indoor LED wars begin!54"X20X34" microgrow

[Gabro]

What "strain" are you growing, pal?

I been trying to figure it out... but I guess I might be too high, to simply spot it.



I wanna get to see your darlings.

Do you mind if I stay around?

 

[G.Leave]

Welcome hazy and Gabro! Thanks for commenting!

Gabro - These seeds are from the Autoflower portal giftshop. I am growing an automix, which can be any strain available from the portal. Who know what I am gonna get!!

 

[loopy looper]

I'm curious too my man, can I subb up join the action sir? Lol

 

[Gabro]

Woah... I loved the "random" factor in the experiment.

By a matter of fact I am very interested in this seedmix.

Is it from a certain breeder or I understood it good that it goes to an even more vast range of strains?

Thats what I call "pheno" hunting! )) and I quite love that!


I really want to purchase a dwarf mix. I just donno which to pick.

I know little bout em...

 

[G.Leave]

I'm curious too my man, can I subb up join the action sir? Lol

welcome loopy looper! Happy to have you man!

Woah... I loved the "random" factor in the experiment.

By a matter of fact I am very interested in this seedmix.

Is it from a certain breeder or I understood it good that it goes to an even more vast range of strains?

Thats what I call "pheno" hunting! )) and I quite love that!


I really want to purchase a dwarf mix. I just donno which to pick.

I know little bout em...

The reason I went with the seedmix, rather than one of the 10 auto strains I currently have, is I didn't have any idea on how well the cab would work out due to heat, humidity ect and the portal automix were freebies with the other strains I bought. So if the plants simply died due to excess heat or whatever, it wouldn't be such a loss. The seeds are available at the Autoflower portal giftshop and can be any strains from the breeder stone or N.W. These strains could be any of the fanstastic portal strains like Stone 99, Stone Dragon, Sour Lemon, Amnesia Stone(lots of review on different strains available in the dragon med review section)

 

[F.N.]

Thank you for the nice compliment. You can run leds 24/0 I have for months at a time. Keep them clean between grows. I have had not one problem knock on wood. I will be watching this with enthusiasm take care bro

 

[G.Leave]

Thank you for the nice compliment. You can run leds 24/0 I have for months at a time. Keep them clean between grows. I have had not one problem knock on wood. I will be watching this with enthusiasm take care bro

Thanks for the advice all around fairlynew! Great to see this old dog learning new tricks! I have been running seedling/veg photos for 24 hours a day for years now(plants to be put outdoors), and all I have seen is one thing...explosive growth rates.
Hopefully the growth doesn't explode "too" much for this auto grow. haha
Going to be testing my training skill on this grow that much I know!! Plan on pulling out some cool stuff I have messed with training wise.(the "S" bend, being my favorite to limit vertical growth) My goal is to keep the canopy 6 inches from the light by the end of harvest.

Alright so I mentioned DIY airpots. I would have just bought airpots, until I realized that I'd have to special order them, and finding a source was a pain in the arse, so I opted to make some myself.
I cut the tops off of four 5 gallon square pails on the tablesaw(carefully while only moderately stoned...lol) I wanted to see how much of a difference it would make with a slightly deeper pot, so I left one 2 pots an inch taller than the other 2. This part was a bit of effort. Once the top of the bucket was cut off, due to the cutting of the rim the top was floppy and didn't hold its form very well. So I cut a bunch of 5/8" maple sticks and predrilled the ends before screwing the outer frame together ensuring it was a nice fit around the top of the rim. Then I took a bunch of screws and screwed the top of the bucket to the new frame I made for the top. Now its nice and sturdy and gives me somewhere to add a whack of screws, which i'll use to anchor a series of fairly stiff wires to use for training.
Now I wanted these DIY airpots to be almost like the real thing. Drilling small 1/8" holes in one inch rows was where I started. Real airpots aren't just drilled holes though, they need some form of concavity so the roots naturally want to flow into the air holes. I found by heating a row of 5 holes, and then using the back end of a 1/4" drill bit pressing firmly from the inside of the bucket, it would leave a decent cave for the roots to grow into. Warming the plastic with a paint stripper gun worked very well to soften the plastic enough to be able to leave a decent cave, and get the concave feature of the airpot's side drainage holes, though not nearly as exaggerated as the bought airpots.

It was a bit of effort making these, so I decided that I would test them out side by side versus regular buckets before I dedicate the time to make more. I ended up doing one short and one taller airpot to see if there is much of a difference. Using non femmed seed, who knows what's going to happen in this grow!!

 

[dirty budster]

Sounds like a neat setup Greenskell, I'm in..subbed. Best of luck with the grow!

As for the LED, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to run it 24/7. The LEDs and driver most likely reach temperature equilibrium within 15-30 minutes so I can't see how turning it off a few hours would make a big difference. It's all about accumulated hours on, whether it's on/off or on all the time the LED will last a certain amount of hours. In some cases leaving it on could make it last longer as power up/power down cycles can be more stressful to components.

 

[Discretepete2676]

I'm subbed in and can't wait to see what this brings. Micro surprises. Lol

 

[G.Leave]

Sounds like a neat setup Greenskell, I'm in..subbed. Best of luck with the grow!

As for the LED, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to run it 24/7. The LEDs and driver most likely reach temperature equilibrium within 15-30 minutes so I can't see how turning it off a few hours would make a big difference. It's all about accumulated hours on, whether it's on/off or on all the time the LED will last a certain amount of hours. In some cases leaving it on could make it last longer as power up/power down cycles can be more stressful to components.

Interesting info! Thanks man..it all makes sense what you are saying. Cool...first run I will run it at 24/7, and we'll see what happens...get some pics of the setup and the girls tomorrow guys...thanks for checking it out!