Grow Mediums Autopots and ph

[Dudeski]

Lol, yes i wanted to be able to give rep to afn!
I found the one at the bottom of the post. Just my way of trying to tell the staff how good they are.

Once a week would be way better than what I have to do right now.

 

[2Stoned2Care]

Me too bro just finished my first grow in coco/perlite hand watered from start to finish.the excitement of my first grow made me not worry about how much i was watering my girl but by the end watering 2/3/4 times a day got a bit tedious to say the least and that was just 1 plant lol

 

[briman]

Do you run the pumps at a low speed? Just enough to keep the water moving?

yes, if your pump has a setting on it, fill your rez with plain water and play around with the pump and its settings, to see where the sweet spot is. I will have this thing out of the box, playin with the float valves, pump and rez and be a little kid with it! I know that sounds funny, but having fun and knowing your system inside and out, before you throw your medium in the bucket is part of learning, before you are in the middle of things and have to trouble shoot it! Pull the whole thing out of the box, set it up, like in the directions, put 5 gallons of water in the rez and play with the pump and put it all away, do it again the next day or two and visit their website and they have tips for beginners and advanced. Know the system and its parts. It would be unfortunate to have to pull the system apart mid grow and read up on it, especially if you had a beast of a plant starting to suffer!

 

[pop22]

IMO, people cause more problems fiddling with ph than they fix! If your res is between 5.7 and 6.3 leave it alone! I just cpmpleted a grow with never checking the res. I don't believe Hasbrick messes with it either and he grows killer plants!

My friend and I are looking at the autopots to ease the feed water routine we have. My question is does the ph of the reservoir have to be checked regularly once the initial feed/water has been added.

Thanks!

 

[pop22]

Its not about a wet/dry cycle, its about getting to a certain moisture level and maintaining it thru the grow. IMO this is the secret to the auto pots success. The under pot res dries out then fills again letting the water/solution wick up a bit before refilling.

I've only recently started using AutoPots with AirDomes. I only have a 4-pot system (adding 2 more this week). I avoid these reservoir issues by using Advanced Nutrients ph Perfect Connoisseur base nutes with RO water and nearly never bothering to check the pH (with it staying well within the pH Perfect system-friendly pH range). Plus I refill the reservoir every 1 or 2 days. Leaving it longer, at least with what I mix, I get nasty smells and settling of crud/gunk, which can't be good. [Exactly, what is the gunk and debris that forms in complex nutrient mixtures in reservoirs?] I presume the more freshly-prepared the nutrients are the better.

Otherwise, with AutoPots growing and watering are so much simpler, such as compared to drain-to-waste with all its related mess, that even if mixing nutes daily the total time spent tending the plants is much less. So even daily mixing is something I don't even notice. But I definitely want to learn how to maintain a reservoir for say at least 5 days.

Related to reservoir maintenance, I noticed that the 50:50 coco/perlite above a bottom layer of Hydroton balls that I use (as recommended) stays rather moist, never gets to the point anywhere near dry by regular coco standards. I have yet to see the much-hyped wet-dry cycling of the AutoPots actually involve any real drying-out of the media. In that context, I have started letting the plants suck the reservoir dry and have dry trays. So far, doing this for up to a day has had no real impact, with the coco top layers staying just as moist. Next grow, I'm going to let the reservoir and plants go dry more for real, for days if needed, at least during veg, to get the full real wet-dry cycle advantages. Also, not filling the reservoir as often means, such a maybe 2x vs. 4x per week, means that much less work.

 

[pop22]

I used a 70/30 mix.

Are you sure 70/30 is better than say 50/50? As I noted, I am currently using 50:50 coco (both Gold Label and BioBizz brands)/perlite with the bottom Hydroton layer and AirDome as instructed by the company; and the top of my media stays rather moist. I presume it would hold even more water and take even longer to dry out (which it never does currently) using a higher percentage of coco; and that it is not optimal to have perpetually rather moist/wet media. Am I wrong? Is wet(ter) coco desirable? If wet media is good/desired with Autopots, would 80% or even 100% coco be better for our plants?

 

[BII]

Its not about a wet/dry cycle, its about getting to a certain moisture level and maintaining it thru the grow. IMO this is the secret to the auto pots success. The under pot res dries out then fills again letting the water/solution wick up a bit before refilling.

So in your view, Autopots need and should not have their medium go through wet-dry cycles, rather the constant small incremental feedings overall keep the coco at a fairly constant moisture (with aerated water), with this the goal. Seems very plausible and likely a major or even the main benefit with Autopots. This and the remarks so far appear to presume that the coco vs. the bottom/Hydroton portion of the pot is where the root growth and activity takes place. But I haven't seen that this has been fully resolved. There has not been much related testing with Autopots reported yet.

A few questions for all Autopot users:
1) In my doing post-harvest root examination so far on a single Autopot pot (too small a sample?), nearly all of the roots were in the bottom/Hydroton portion, not in the coco. This suggests that the Hydroton layer is what we should be most concerned with, not the upper coco layer. How does this fit in (or not) with the presumption that fairly constant optimal coco dampness is what is desired, and the perhaps related presumption that the roots grow mostly in the coco?
2) Can anyone contribute any observational information on these matters? For example, has anyone else yet done a post-harvest examination of Autopot roots? Were the roots in the bottom/Hydroton and/or in the coco?
3) Would Autopots work even better if some real wet-dry feeding cycling were added? Autopots, on their own, look to do rather well at constant incremental feeding to maintain consistent media moisture/wetness. Would adding some wet-dry cycling improve the grow? For example, why not say once or twice per week close off all your valves (for a day, 2, whatever it actually takes) and let the coco do some real drying out; then turn the system back on again for say another 2 or 3 days (then off again)?

 

[pop22]

You pose some interesting senarios. I'm game for anything that makes any existing system work better! This is why an auto pot section for our forum is a great thing, considering the growing interest in them. We can experiment and see what works and what doesn't, and share our data with everyone!
ROI doesn't have this level of interest in auto pots!

So in your view, Autopots need and should not have their medium go through wet-dry cycles, rather the constant small incremental feedings overall keep the coco at a fairly constant moisture (with aerated water), with this the goal. Seems very plausible and likely a major or even the main benefit with Autopots. This and the remarks so far appear to presume that the coco vs. the bottom/Hydroton portion of the pot is where the root growth and activity takes place. But I haven't seen that this has been fully resolved. There has not been much related testing with Autopots reported yet.

A few questions for all Autopot users:
1) In my doing post-harvest root examination so far on a single Autopot pot (too small a sample?), nearly all of the roots were in the bottom/Hydroton portion, not in the coco. This suggests that the Hydroton layer is what we should be most concerned with, not the upper coco layer. How does this fit in (or not) with the presumption that fairly constant optimal coco dampness is what is desired, and the perhaps related presumption that the roots grow mostly in the coco?
2) Can anyone contribute any observational information on these matters? For example, has anyone else yet done a post-harvest examination of Autopot roots? Were the roots in the bottom/Hydroton and/or in the coco?
3) Would Autopots work even better if some real wet-dry feeding cycling were added? Autopots, on their own, look to do rather well at constant incremental feeding to maintain consistent media moisture/wetness. Would adding some wet-dry cycling improve the grow? For example, why not say once or twice per week close off all your valves (for a day, 2, whatever it actually takes) and let the coco do some real drying out; then turn the system back on again for say another 2 or 3 days (then off again)?

 

[ThaGreenBandit]

Gentlemen, No airstone, just a small submersible pump to break the water surface tension in the rez is ideal and the Warehouse Manager, Ricardo "Ricky" Perez, from the Autopotsusa site will give you the same information. He is a stand up guy and loves to talk gardening! Using a product called "drip clean" will help break down the sluge and the pump will keep it mixed and not able to settle in the bottom of the rez. Also, 70/30 Coco/perlite is better in your container. I'm going to bubble my water in a 5 gallon bucket, add nutes and dump it in the rez. I would still check your ph daily, until you get dialed in!! Its still hydro and the plant can take more water or nutes, depending its needs.

Thanks for the drip clean tip, @briman. Started my first auto pot grow a couple weeks ago, and I been lurking, gathering info. Res buildup was something I was sweating, but you addressed the issue for me. Thanks, my dude. Drip Clean came in the mail today...

 

[big moe]

I'll share a little with what I do. I know everyone's water is not the same. I don't have any PH problems. I use Dyna Gro Foliage Pro all the way through. I add Dyna MagPro when I switch to 12/12 for about 2 weeks.
I run air stones in my reservoir I PH nutes down to 5.7 to 5.8 and ever time I check it it's in the range of 5.5 to 6.2 so I don't even check it anymore. I also run Dutch master Gold to keep reservoir and hoses clean.
I use Promix HP with about a inch or two of perlite