Water only soil grow?

[AltheGardener]

Yes, add more perlite. I personally hate the stuff but it's necessary. The coco and organics in the mix are going to wick and hold water, and you need to balance that out to allow the soil to breathe and dry out when needed.
It makes no difference if you go to huge pots, anything over five gallon will be hellish to deal with watering, and unnecessary. Getting your nute quantities right and making sure the entire pot dries evenly can be a nightmare. The only plant I have in a five is a Taj hash photo. Try to stay at three gallons and let the roots fill the pots. Remember the ultimate size of an auto, there are a few exceptions, is never going to be that extreme, and even when they are scrogged or sogged or lst'd they are going to be top heavy but bottom light.

 

[Gimemy]

Couldn't have said it better

 

[Moose8810]

Yes, add more perlite. I personally hate the stuff but it's necessary. The coco and organics in the mix are going to wick and hold water, and you need to balance that out to allow the soil to breathe and dry out when needed.
It makes no difference if you go to huge pots, anything over five gallon will be hellish to deal with watering, and unnecessary. Getting your nute quantities right and making sure the entire pot dries evenly can be a nightmare. The only plant I have in a five is a Taj hash photo. Try to stay at three gallons and let the roots fill the pots. Remember the ultimate size of an auto, there are a few exceptions, is never going to be that extreme, and even when they are scrogged or sogged or lst'd they are going to be top heavy but bottom light.

Thanks for the advice. The whole getting nute quantities right is why I'm going for a water-only grow, and why I'm questioning pot size. I don't want to mix nutes anymore at all, I want it all in the pot from the start.

Coast of Maine says 15gals is enough to sustain a photo seed to harvest with no additional nutes. I know autos like lighter feed but surely they need more than 20% of what a photo needs?

 

[AltheGardener]

Oh yeah photos and autos are two completely different things as far as the size of containers, and the strength of any nutes, etc. Almost everyone recommends half strength for the common ferts. Autos burn easily, especially nitrogen overload. Read around the grow forums for specifics on all this, and on the soil only grow, there are folks there that have made the mistakes and learned so we don't have to, lol.
To be honest on any auto plant in a three gallon pot is going to finish roughly 110 days or less, sometimes much less than that. My dark devils were 80 days. You are never going to deplete a good quality organic soil with one plant in that short a time. I rarely use nutes myself, once at bloom time, once at four weeks or so for veg, organic Neptune's. Easy to do, worth giving them a boost. But not necessary with as I said good quality organic mix.

 

[AltheGardener]

oh, this is why I was confused. You can't equate the soil nutrition to soil quantity in that equation. If that soil will sustain a photo through the entire period, it will most definitely sustain an auto for such a short period. The soil is dense and rich enough from the get go.

 

[Moose8810]

Gotcha, I already have a bunch of perlite so I should be set to get going after my current girls finish out. Just need more pots. If I go the 3gal route, would that be a limiting factor size-wise? Would you recommend running more than 4 plants to fill out my space?

 

[Deke]

Im in day 14 of my first water only grow. Im all my research prior, 3-5 gallon pots were best for autos. Mine are in 5gal, they were supposed to go outside, then I decided to keep them in. So I probably would have gone with 3 gal bags.

 

[AltheGardener]

three gallons won't limit your plants. They will be able to fill the pot with roots and develop a strong canopy. Once you get set you'll see. Just don't overthink it too much, we often over=worry the plants to death, and we forget they know what they're doing, too.

 

[burlybob]

I'm growing a dark purple in a water only grow and I do not like it my plant is over a month old and it still as not got to it after 2 and a half week it only had 3 sets of leaves so I started using my Jack's 3-2-1 it is about 35 days old now and here is what it looks like

 

[Gimemy]

Looks to me like there's more than water in that bucket what kind of medium are you using