Minty - AutoPot Grow - Assisted by 2-Scoops

[Minty]

0.5ml a few weeks for seedlings, up it 1ml for a week then 1.5ml another week then 2ml full on veg, 2.5ml first 3 weeks before dropping back to 2.0ml rest of grow.

Thanks 2-Scoops - to clarify, would this be 0.5ml of each A and B per litre? Should I still be adding CalMag seeing as I am using RO water or just stop using the RO water and use Tap?

[2-Scoops]

0.5ml a few weeks for seedlings, up it 1ml for a week then 1.5ml another week then 2ml full on veg, 2.5ml first 3 weeks before dropping back to 2.0ml rest of grow.

Thanks 2-Scoops - to clarify, would this be 0.5ml of each A and B per litre? Should I still be adding CalMag seeing as I am using RO water or just stop using the RO water and use Tap?

Yes those are for both each of A & B . Those should be on at least 2ml per liter of each or around 1.0-1.2ec now.

Depends what ferts you have bought whether they are for hard or soft water but if soft water ferts then drop calmag stick with RO water but if hardwater ferts then you could risk tap water yes and drop calmag. If your gonna use tapwater you prolly best following the ml per liter recipe i gave its more or less same as ec thing, but those readings do your head in, well they certainly do mine ie > if your hardwater is 0.8 without ferts and you wanna feed 1.2 ec then you need to be feeding an overall ec of 0.8 + 1.2 = 1.8 in total

You`ve really gotta get them back green cus they are growing fast now, i mean in reality these should be a week or two into 12/12 by now if you`d had them in system and done jobby from day one, ok you`ve had some hic-ups but yes, your just waisting time when you could held off from growing these till after current grows are done, shit happens like though and we always get curveballs slung at us from one angle or another i know score their for sure and have all medals. But yes cutting corners or rushing things before your ready to do them properly is never ideal recipe mukka as you know yourself

[Minty]

Thanks 2-Scoops, I do appreciate it.

This grow has been a nightmare from the start as I was fucked about with the loft cooling. I purchased an Air Conditioner which originally had a shipping date of April and now has an estimated delivery date of July. I ordered two inline fans to use until the Air Con arrived and these are under PayPal dispute as the supplier is not even answering emails etc. I have now purchased a 6" RAM inline duct fan and this will be here Monday. I will use this to extract the heat from the loft and re-fit the direct intake back to the tent which should bring down the temps in the tent. The humidity seems to be OK with in maintaining a stable range of 40% to 50%.

I am using soft water nutrients so will continue with the RO approach to the 2ml per litre of both A & B as you recommend. Hopefully they will get some colour back...

[Joker59]

Sorry to hear your having so much trouble bro

[2-Scoops]

Thanks 2-Scoops, I do appreciate it.

This grow has been a nightmare from the start as I was fucked about with the loft cooling. I purchased an Air Conditioner which originally had a shipping date of April and now has an estimated delivery date of July. I ordered two inline fans to use until the Air Con arrived and these are under PayPal dispute as the supplier is not even answering emails etc. I have now purchased a 6" RAM inline duct fan and this will be here Monday. I will use this to extract the heat from the loft and re-fit the direct intake back to the tent which should bring down the temps in the tent. The humidity seems to be OK with in maintaining a stable range of 40% to 50%.

I am using soft water nutrients so will continue with the RO approach to the 2ml per litre of both A & B as you recommend. Hopefully they will get some colour back...

You could prolly get away using those ferts with your tap water its your shout but if its just as simple to get RO water then maybe best idea. I wouldn`t risk hardwater ferts in softwater myself though without calmag, mind you that doesn`t apply but thought i`d put it in. :)

Me wonders why didn`t yiou just buy a decent AC unit from fleabay or amazon i reckon you could have saved a few 100 quid for a machione thatr did same thing.

It`s all good stuff mate. Try to get them in system though fuck faffing around with temps and that stuff we`ll still grow some nice weed to smoke, maybe not strong as it would be with ideal temps but it will get you smashed im sure of it.

[Minty]

You could prolly get away using those ferts with your tap water its your shout but if its just as simple to get RO water then maybe best idea. I wouldn`t risk hardwater ferts in softwater myself though without calmag, mind you that doesn`t apply but thought i`d put it in. :)

Hey mate. I have a water tank in the loft full of RO water so not a problem getting the RO (shown here on the left - with the RO filter hidden behind the beam in the middle - can just see the top of it). Takes about half a day to refill.

Me wonders why didn`t yiou just buy a decent AC unit from fleabay or amazon i reckon you could have saved a few 100 quid for a machione thatr did same thing.

In terms of the AC unit mate, I have a full room sized one but it is way too loud to be situated in the loft which is directly above my bedroom and my house is a tiny little cluster house so I have to be mindful of the other 3 neighbours which is why I went with that small portable AC unit. I reckon if it works as well as they say (10℃ difference) and is as quiet as the videos I have seen it should work really well. BUT... obviously have to wait and see, it was a gamble mate especially as it is a kickstarter/indigogo campaign etc but it is the 2nd generation and so far I do have high hopes for where I want to use it. Time will tell mate as without cooling the overall loft the air conditioner and water cooler are not going to be able to do shit.

The problem is that my loft space is tiny so it just cooks ;o) The good news is that, now that I have ordered the additional 6" RAM extract fan (which turned up today) - I finally got a tracking update on the AC unit and it should be here Tuesday - FFS ;o)

The RAM seems to be a nice fan with two speed and is reasonably quiet (well it should be once I get some duct on it) - also like that they use 'Kettle/Pc/IEC (C13)' plugs and sockets so it fits right into my setup:-

Unfortunately the 6" to 4" adaptors won't be here until about Tuesday and my roof tiles are 4" but with all this shit finally arriving I should be able to get the temperature under control

[Minty]

but those readings do your head in, well they certainly do mine ie > if your hardwater is 0.8 without ferts and you wanna feed 1.2 ec then you need to be feeding an overall ec of 0.8 + 1.2 = 1.8 in total

This is exactly why I decided to go the RO approach in the first place - just to simplify some of the variables - you have seen what I can mess up with just a few variables - the less I can influence the better I reckon ;o)

Thanks for clarifying that as I was always confused in how you should be dealing with background traces.

It`s all good stuff mate. Try to get them in system though fuck faffing around with temps and that stuff we`ll still grow some nice weed to smoke, maybe not strong as it would be with ideal temps but it will get you smashed im sure of it.

All these mistakes are 100% on me mate and I do feel bad but worst case I have more seeds and if we have to start again it's not the end of the world like. All the mistakes are hopefully ones I wont make again.

I did have a question in terms of how I should have been feeding them up until now as I have been top feeding them still and only just today started feeding them from the bottom (although the AutoPot valves are still not being used) - maybe I messed something else up with this?

[Minty]

Minty ignore that schedule and follow jimmies advice mate. Its hard i know but sort of sit back let jimmy tell what they need and not need and you do the leg work. Most importantly though take notes and watch the plants and ask why they are doing this and that. I hope that makes sense it will help you to learn to read the plants rather than just numbers.

Agreed mate, I think I am trying to learn too much too quickly. It's hard cause I am interested and want to be good so tend to google shit but that alone is a problem until you are experienced enough to actually rank the google results yourself against context and that is going to require experience which I do not have.

Gonna sit the fuck down, and do what I am told now and just appreciate the awesome help you all are giving me. It is much appreciated even if I do keep fucking up at the moment.

[2-Scoops]

The problem is that my loft space is tiny so it just cooks

Can you not just put a run of ducting down between your wall eaves, basically run a some duct to edge of loft and you should be able to stick a run down inbetween the inner and outer wall skins (eaves), this air will be cooler than just pulling in warm air from loft. As well as doing that you could then insulate outside of your tent so it isn`t baking in the loft heat with summink like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from ... acat=41498,

The other way is to build a room in a room with the insulation stuff or cheap black and white sheeting, a stapler and some wooden slate lat, basically you insulate around the tent, lets say a 12inches gap between insulated wall and tent then you add your air con and just cool that air inbetween tent and black & white sheet wall, in so doing that should cool your tent down, i would think it also leaves no heat footprint done right and i dont think you would need to pull in fresh cooler air from eaves if doing the room in a room thing. But yes i would think first way to try would be pulling in cooler air from eaves the first move and if that drops temps 1 or 2c only then you think about insulating the tent. Just shit in my head floating around is that like

All these mistakes are 100% on me mate and I do feel bad but worst case I have more seeds and if we have to start again it's not the end of the world like. All the mistakes are hopefully ones I wont make again.

I did wanna learn you how to grow great big nice yielding plants, good style in the system from off, but yes what with one thing or another shit happens at times.

I did have a question in terms of how I should have been feeding them up until now as I have been top feeding them still and only just today started feeding them from the bottom (although the AutoPot valves are still not being used) - maybe I messed something else up with this?

Slightly different and a bit less ec than i would run a run to waste set up, but not too much difference, but you still need to feed plants through tops for a few feeds or so when they are in their final pots till roots have spread a bit and are reaching pot bottoms, then bobs your uncle your away. I mean by time plants are in the system what with potting up once firstly they should be on around 0.8-1.0ec feed and theirs really no need to go over 1.0ec in your system except first 3 weeks of bloom and then 1.2 ec works for 3 weeks of 12/12, what with plants being at their hungriest they`ll ever be at that time before dropping it back to 1.0. Your not feeding to run off so salts can buld in pots easily if you overdo it a bit with ferts and it`s gonna be much more a fuck around to flush pots out quickly if that happens and it needs doing, but cus your bottom feeding shit can go south much faster than feeding run to waste and its much harder to correct cus they won`t just come out of system once they are in and full sized plants to slam under a tap to flush through and if you don`t know what your looking at and going by charts or google ;) then yes shit may go south quickly, if you think they need more ferts and they don`t. But yes if you can learn how to read your plants just by looking at them, you know simple stuff like if they are under or overfed, pale or dark green, so if they really dark green which maybe later in bloom if ferts have been slight overdone, you can just ease up on ferts to 0.8ec, but if they look happy why fuck around. Newer growth always looks a paler looking green by the way its not a sign of underfeeding. But long story short between 0.8 and 1.2 ec, possibly 0.8ec early on when they go system and later in flowering, it depends really.

I think I am trying to learn too much too quickly. It's hard cause I am interested and want to be good so tend to google shit but that alone is a problem until you are experienced enough to actually rank the google results yourself against context and that is going to require experience which I do not have.

I`d have learnt you lot from start to finish you`d have been smashing it good style.

Oh yes all that dribble ive just spouted makes the system sound a tuffy when its prolly one of easiest systems around to smash it good style with. But yes you could smash 4 crops nice yielding crops a year in that if it tickled your pickle .

You need to turn the system on, i hope you tested it firstly to see iff valves and all that crap was working rightly, but just fill tank with water AnB and a great big air stone or you could go the flooming route instead of an airstone, i`ll let you google "flooming v airstones" :p maybe even do both lol .

A great additive i wouldn`t be without is soluble silicon i use growt technology, look it up it`s ideal for harsher hotter conditions amongst many other things, in fact its onkly additive i really use all time through grow with AnB

[Minty]

Can you not just put a run of ducting down between your wall eaves, basically run a some duct to edge of loft and you should be able to stick a run down inbetween the inner and outer wall skins (eaves), this air will be cooler than just pulling in warm air from loft. As well as doing that you could then insulate outside of your tent so it isn`t baking in the loft heat

I have two sides to the loft that have outside walls (it's a cluster home) so I could run a duct to one side and use that as the air intake route. This would allow me to use both roof tiles as extracts with one dealing with just the tent and the other dealing with the area outside the tent.

Space is too tight up there to build a tent within a tent type deal but I have been looking at that insulation material since Josh mentioned it and I am fully up for doing that it's just a bigger job than I can do now. I need some more flooring adding to the remaining of the loft space and plan to tackle that at the same time.

You need to turn the system on, i hope you tested it firstly to see iff valves and all that crap was working rightly, but just fill tank with water AnB and a great big air stone or you could go the flooming route instead of an airstone, i`ll let you google "flooming v airstones" :p maybe even do both lol .

A great additive i wouldn`t be without is soluble silicon i use growt technology, look it up it`s ideal for harsher hotter conditions amongst many other things, in fact its onkly additive i really use all time through grow with AnB

I checked out that Flooming and it sounds pretty cool with some obvious benefits once setup correctly, for now I will just drop in a massive air disc - and read up some more on that one. Interesting...

I do have some Silicon on order since (I think Marcus, or bigbadbillybob) mentioned it but again I am cursed with Internet orders - My favourite place to order stuff from (previously 2 days max delivery time) have updated the website and now my orders are not even going thru!

God Damn it... I'm fucking cursed - web sites do not work for me - It's because I am a web developer I reckon!