Great grow Sleep! I'm a long time reader, first time poster with a big question for my next grow...to be started in the next week or two as the supplies arrive. I'm starting with female seeds, C99 and a CH9 Aroma. I've always been a dirt farmer, hand water grower. I do the LST/SOG method for a nice even canopy. I'm converting my system to AutoPots (2) with the 12 gal rez. Question is what medium should I use? I'm thinking Coco with some vermiculite or perlite. I know nothing about coco. Should I get the coco bricks that expand? These seem like a stringy coco medium. Or should I use the coco in the bag which seems like a chunky coco type stuff? Stringy or flakes? sounds like 30% vermiculite is the way to improve the coco medium. I also have an air dome for each of the two pots. I've also considered doing the compost and vermiculite/perlite media with manure or guano in the mix and running clear water in the rez to avoid the tds/ph issues. Also purchased a purple kessil h350, planning to use this with some flouro's for the 2 plant grow. I have a nice home made grow box, measures 2'6" deep x 4' wide x 5' high. Any advice to get me off on the right foot would be greatly appreciated. I apologize for the noob nature of my questions...but thanks for any help you all could provide. Peace, Boxy
Hey Boxy and welcom to the city where the grass is greener. Don't feel so bad about the noob questions, we all start somewhere and most of us are here to help. This is my plan for next grow, going to fill the bottom up with enough perlite to just cover the airdomes, then going to fill the rest with a mix of 50/50 perlite/coco. To start the seeds I put them in red party cups with only coco, after about 2 weeks or they look like they want a bigger home move them into the autopots. When transplanting into the autopots give them a good soaking with only phed water and let them drain good. Once drained move into the autopot trays, hook up the rez and add 1/4 nuit mix. From here some will say to give them a lite top watering tell the roots hit the res at the bottom, but I don't. Also, I run 5 gallons at a time in the res, it last about 6-8 days depending on what stage in the grow I am at. Then I disconnect and clean the res real fast with hot water, hook it back up, add 5 gallons of tap water, and then 30ml gh micro, 45ml gh bloom, 5ml of cal/mag+, some drip clean, then PH to 5.8, and done for the week. In flower starting the 2ed week I add in 5 teaspoons LiquidKool Bloom tell about week 6. Then switch to dry koolbloom for about 2 weeks and then a week of plan water that I dont even bother phing. I don't have any experience with vermiculite in the mix, and the only coco I have used and will most likey keep using is botanicare CocoGro coconut fiber. I dont even rinse it, just add water to puff it up, add some perlite, then mix is read to go. I dont have any experience growing organic, but it is something I have been wanting to learn more about. I think if you could come up with a good organic compost to last the whole grow and just feed plain water from the bottom it might have a really good chance. My guess is the airdome would help so much with that. It just seems like more work than I want to deal with right now and the way I am doing it, is so damn easy. I mean if I wanted too, I could leave the plants 100% percent alone for about a week (longer if I had a bigger rez) and know that they are doing awesome. As a hobbyist grower, I don't think I could ask for any more...wait I take that back, LED's need to get cheaper!!! Also Boxy or anyone, please feel free to post here with your experiences when using the Autopot. Theres very little credible information with growing our ladys in them and I would like to see that change because I think there are a lot of other growers out there that could benefit. Also, on a side note I am not affilated with this company or any other one in anyway, I just stumbled upon them from anther grower here in the coco grove. Thanks cola
Thanks Sleep - that's some good advice. I hope to have all supplies in hand and up and running in the next week or two. Good to know there's someone out there who has had good success with an autopot grow. It should be interesting to see how 2 plants do in the AP's and under 2 of the new Kissel 350 LED's. I'll make a few updates on this thread and prolly have some questions too. Stay tuned! Peace, Boxy
Thanks Beeze, I should get a much bigger harvest this time around and I have no signs belaching on the buds. They are also starting to smell like some sour dankness. If I dont close the door when I open the tent you can smell it all the way downstaires.
12/12 Day 45 Hey all, hope everyone had a great xmas and got some dankness from Santa. Almost done with this grow just got a few weeks left. Next week they will start adding dry KoolBloom then just fresh water after that. Right now I am looking to harvest middle of next month. Then it will be time to pick out two new strains to put in the Autopots, just not sure what ones I want to grow next. I am thinking ill do some Skywalker OG and something else. Anyways enjoy the pics...
Crazy frosty! You said you had no bleaching this time? What was the closest you had the Advanced LED?
I thought you were using a Blackstar? I've recently purchased a bunch of new LED's (a pair of Blackstar 240w and a pair of Northern Leitz 380w) and none of these rat bastards give any kind of distance from plants info. I've read to keep the Blackstars between 12-16" above the canopy... Tips?
Nope Beeze, been using 2 300 watt diamond series LED's. The Blackstars you can keep closer than the diamond series. Last few grows I had the diamond series at 20" above the canopy and they bleached the shit out of the buds. So I moved them up to 30" and have not had any bleaching in this grow.