Grow Mediums Pulled the AutoPot Trigger - Help Me Before I Shoot My Own Foot

[ExNavyInSTL]

Today, I ordered the XL - Spring Pot 2-pot version to start.

It looks like this:

I did not order the air dome because I have the fabric pots to spread the air around.

I have a 4 x 4 tent, so I intend to expand the system, but I am also still on the BluMat system. I would like to do a run comparing them both, before expanding the AutoPot setup.

Warn me now, help me escape the noob mistakes.

What lessons did you learn that you wish someone would have warned you about?

I'm probably 6 weeks away from starting a grow in the Autopots, so I have plenty of time to soak up your lessons learned.

 

[St. Tom]

Today, I ordered the XL - Spring Pot 2-pot version to start.

It looks like this:

View attachment 1410785

View attachment 1410786

I did not order the air dome because I have the fabric pots to spread the air around.

I have a 4 x 4 tent, so I intend to expand the system, but I am also still on the BluMat system. I would like to do a run comparing them both, before expanding the AutoPot setup.

Warn me now, help me escape the noob mistakes.

What lessons did you learn that you wish someone would have warned you about?

I'm probably 6 weeks away from starting a grow in the Autopots, so I have plenty of time to soak up your lessons learned.

I've grown in autopots for a long time but ages ago I used to worry about them the pot res getting blocked and used to leave the little lids off and I got lockouts every grow but I turns out leaving them off made the ph in them go crazy so I was keeping the big res in check and didn't realise that was my problem and my only other bit of advice is go light on your food

 

[Bill.de.Cat]

On my 1st use of them.....If using soil mix just use soil, no pellets or anything at the bottom for an even wicking action. 2 of my plants (heavy % sativa) might be suffering some lockout or salt build up while the 3rd (FD's BlackStrap) is doing great even though it's about 3 weeks further along......won't know till done and I take a good look at the root masses, could be cause I was trying AN ph perfect nutes this time as well......did a 3 plant APK run in 1 gallon hand watered pots and it's showing same weird great, middling and poor across those as well.....
No matter what don't get discouraged as with anything new there will be a learning curve...Good Luck.

 

[Olderfart]

I've done just enough growing in autopots to know where the largest dragons are. The largest is the tendency for nutrients to build up and/or go out of balance over time. This is not specific to autopots, it is a common problem with any type of sub-irrigation.

The first thing to do about this is, as @St. Tom says, keep your nutes light. If I go back to salt nutes with coco or soilless peat medium in autopots, I will likely also try a weekly top watering to 20-30% runoff to try to keep nutrient levels sorted, but I have not tried this yet, nor am I aware of anyone else that has. I have done major flushes with many gallons of nute mix in every one of my autopot/salts grows to try to sort issues, but by then problems are often hard to correct.

All considered, if I go back to salt nutes, I may move to automated top watering with runoff rather than autovalves. The irrigation sequence generated by the autovalve seems to be excellent, but the nute management hassle has been a PIA for me. If I could get the soil mix right, autovalves with large pots of soil and water only at least until late in the grow would work really well. My next grow is looking more and more like a combination effort with soil/autovalves in a couple pots, and soilless and top watered salts in a couple more. That way, I can continue to work on a good water only soil mix, and also try getting top watered coco dialled.

Good luck with your grow.

 

[ExNavyInSTL]

Thanks for the advice. I just changed my order to make it 4 pots (Spring fabric) with the 4 x 4 tray and the reservoir stand.

I decided on "more" because I have a 4 x 4 tent now and in the future, I want to run 4 plants most of the time. That way I can maximize the energy cost from running 20/4 lights.

The tray is because of a BluMat carrot issue that flooded my tent. It was only 5 gallons, hence why you see my grow in 10-gallon Walmart plastic tubs. I'll just have to raise my electronics now.

 

[JP1]

The tray is an excellent idea. It's saved my bacon on a couple of occasions since it usually takes a couple hours before you know the valves are leaking. I would also add shut off valves for each of the pots so you can harvest at different times and shut 1 off if there's a leak or problem

 

[LandShark]

The tray is an excellent idea. It's saved my bacon on a couple of occasions since it usually takes a couple hours before you know the valves are leaking. I would also add shut off valves for each of the pots so you can harvest at different times and shut 1 off if there's a leak or problem

This x100! The first time you need to use one you'll be SOOOO glad you did it!

 

[CannabisMingus]

 

[Rasterman]

Today, I ordered the XL - Spring Pot 2-pot version to start.

It looks like this:

View attachment 1410785

View attachment 1410786

I did not order the air dome because I have the fabric pots to spread the air around.

I have a 4 x 4 tent, so I intend to expand the system, but I am also still on the BluMat system. I would like to do a run comparing them both, before expanding the AutoPot setup.

Warn me now, help me escape the noob mistakes.

What lessons did you learn that you wish someone would have warned you about?

I'm probably 6 weeks away from starting a grow in the Autopots, so I have plenty of time to soak up your lessons learned.

My problem was up-potting too late and letting them get rootbound and therefore stunted. This time (last week, actually), I planted a seedling directly into a 10 gallon pot. I'm not one of those people who believe autos can't be up-potted. But I let photos veg for four months, mainly because of space and not design.

And coming from that habit and expecting it to be ok to treat autos like I have time was a mistake. They're marching to the end of their life as quickly as they can and I had to learn not to do anything to slow them down. (Except for the abuse of course, I guess-below.)

For my last auto grow, a Mephisto Double Grape, I intentionally abused one of them. I applied a "chiropractic" technique I learned about on YouTube. I tried to find the video, but apparently if you search on YouTube for cannabis and chiropractor you're offered human chiropractic topics exclusively. If you can find the video, it's worth a watch and very inspiring.

I also topped multiple times, tied down branches, scratched bark off with my fingernails, broke branches and left them alone to heal without taping, lollipopping, extensive repeated defoliation, you name it. It was a seed run, and it was the first time I've tried this. Completely unscientific.

That said, there were two seed-bearing females with very similar yields. But buds weren't as tight and attractive on the female that experienced just topping and LST.

So that's one data point. YMMV but I intend to keep up the cycle of abuse on my end until I learn differently.

I'm not necessarily recommending this because it could have ended badly. But testing like this can be a lot of fun! And I think everyone should deliberately make mistakes, if just to prove or disprove all of the crazy things people say about growing cannabis. You learn more making mistakes and you're not just taking someone's advice. You learn this way, you remember!

That's how I feel and I should know. I've been growing for 14 months and am probably way ahead of the average grower in the mistakes department. I take great pride in that!