Indoor DogterB's DIY Octopot Wannabe - Run #1

[DogterB]

Hello all! This is my first journal on AFN and I am really looking forward to this run. As always, comments, advice, and considerations are always appreciated as we are all constantly learning.

Okay, here we go. I've been growing for about a year and a half now and have only grown in soil. I got tired of all the nute mixing, pH'ing, and watering, and always seemed to never have enough time in the day. I have moved over to the organic soil side of things and have had some help from @pop22 in making some soil. This will be the first run with this mix. To mitigate hand-watering, I looked into many growing styles. I was very intrigued by the Octopots, but couldn't justify spending the money on them (I'm a broke med student). So I set out to make my own. Here's the jist:

I bought these tubs specifically due to their size, strong lids and build. I used a soldering iron to melt holes in the lids big enough for a net pot to fit into. These will serve as individual plant water reservoirs. The tubs are interconnected and all watered from a separate small bucket that has a float valve. This keeps the water level constant in every tub. The small watering bucket is fed via a 5 gal bucket outside the tent. I have a 6 pot setup in a 4x4 tent, but with the sizes of the tubs, I could pack up to 16 of these tubs in there if I ever wanted to give sea of green a go.

This is an older pic and not completely assembled, and I have since swapped in all fabric pots. I cut a hole in the bottom of all pots so that the net cup hangs through and into the tub. I did an experimental autos run with this setup and was surprised at the amount of roots that grew into the tubs. This really works out as a soil/hydro hybrid.

This is an experimental run to see how this soil mix works. I'm trying to be as much "water only" as I can and only supplement with teas and top dressing. My soil mix is as follows:

Soil: Base Mix, Equal Parts

• 1/3 Coco coir
• 1/3 Organic potting soil
• 1/3 Organic composted cow manure

Admix:

• 60% Earthworm castings
• 20% boxed soil nutrients (I used Dr. Earth's Home-Grown and Flower Girl)
• 10% lime
• 10% Epsom salt

This was my first attempt at soil making and used a 0.75cuft bag of coco, potting soil, and manure, then mixed in 1.5 gal of the admix. I let this sit for about 7 weeks before potting it up. Unfortunately, I didn't make enough soil for all 6 pots (my bad), and had to use FFOF that I had to fill the last 2 pots. We'll see how that goes.

Previously I have focused on growing mostly freebies or cheap seeds that I had gotten, so I could play around with my style and setup without feeling like I'm not doing justice. This run I'm digging into the good stuff! Last run I mixed up a couple of seeds and didn't know which was which, but not this time! I made everyone their own name tags so I know who's who. I'll try not to burn down the tent with this fire!

And here's all the babies in their final homes. Seeds were placed directly into pots, in coco pellets on 5/1.

I already know that I want to reorganize this setup. I want to move the water inlets and tubing to the back of the tubs and against the wall to keep the tubing out of my way. I also want to have it so each tub has its own shut-off valve, since I need to let the plants get established a bit before turning on the water.

For lights, I have 2x QB96's on the right side of the tent, each powered by an HLG-185. On the left side of the tent I have an HLG 350R.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look! Feel free to follow along, I'm sure it will be at least entertaining if not interesting. Questions, comments, and concerns are always welcome. Much love!

 

[pop22]

Looking forward to your grow!

 

[DogterB]

Checked in last night and all the ladies are above ground, day 4 from planting directly. Had some pushing up soil by the 2nd day after planting, but all are now above ground. I guess this is day 1 of the grow? That when you all start your day counts? I'm keeping my tent at around 86F and have humidity domes over the seedlings. I still need to get my humidifier moved into there. I only have one inkbird humidity controller and currently it is running in my photo 2x2 tent. She's only got a couple more weeks of flower before she gets chopped so I'll probably swap the humidity controller out early to get it in the big tent to control the humidifier. I dropped my lights a little bit to try and avoid them stretching too much. I'll get some pics up soon, currently trying to survive this last week before finals next week.

 

[DogterB]

Here they are!

And then there's this one, my Froot by the Foot from Atlas Seeds. When she was breaking the surface, I could see that her tap root was curled and not diving into the soil like it should. I covered it some more with soil and let her ride. Today she was like this. I propped her up after the pic, fingers crossed.

 

[DogterB]

Day 5 (5/10)

Not much is going on, but a sudden heat wave has had me scrambling. I'm currently awaiting a new 6" fan and filter for the 4x4, so exhaust is non-existent at the moment. The 4x4 got up to 92F and my lights are only at like 30% right now. Didn't help that when I got home the house was 86F. The girls are doing well, kinda chilling and working on their roots so no big growth at the moment. One, the Grizzly Crinkle, may be having some issues. She's up and started to throw out some leaves, but seems to have stalled out and is behind the rest now. I covered her back up with a dome, hoping that helps. As long as she stays alive, I'll let her go. My last run had a slow burner that was janky, but ended up being one of the highest yielders that run.

 

[Bill.de.Cat]

I always seem to end up with an odd ball or 2 and I keep em going as long as they live.

 

[DogterB]

Well, I'm gonna have to call it on my Grizzley Crinkle. She popped up no problem, started throwing her first leaves and just stopped . I had hopes that she was just taking her time but she's since gotten brown. I'll pop another this weekend to replace her

 

[DogterB]

Things are sitting pretty as far as I can see. Tent maintains around 85F and 82% RH. Reservoirs are still empty, have to let them get bigger before I can open the tap. I'm still getting my lights figured out for seed starting, and apparently had them too low in the beginning. A few stretched too much on me, so I cut some plastic cups to put around them. The only thing I had on hand was a little left over FFOF, so that's what they got. Now they are all standing strong and on their way.I was going to replace the Grizzly Crinkle I lost with another one, but I held out until Monday evening because I got a package in the mail. I received my Twenty20 Mendicino pre-release Ogreberry F4 testers. They are from group 2B "Sour Grape" pheno. I put it directly into soil that night. I will start a separate journal specifically for this one, but will continue to update about it here as well.

 

[DogterB]

Sitting pretty for the most part. The late addition Ogreberry is coming along fine. My Froot by the Foot (front right) is struggling. Burnt leaves, stunted compared to the others. I asked about it in the infirmary but didn’t get much. The left side now has the water turned on. Waiting for the Ogreberry to get a little bigger before the right side gets turned on. I topped all on the left and the middle on the right. Was going to put a screen up but so far these are staying short and manageable. I’ll be tying down any branches that shoot up.

 

[DogterB]

Another update pic. The left side is growing strong, @pop22 soil mix is killing it so far. On the right side, the FFOF is just not keeping up. The Ogreberry in the back right corner that I replaced the grizzly crinkle with is doing great, sitting in mostly the soil mix but had to top off with FFOF. Water is on for both sides now.