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Hey lunarman, great answers, looks like you're solid in all areas, though I'll continue the discussion from last night.:
What's your grow room environment? Closet, tent, micro, etc.
8x8 tent in an insulated garage in a northern climate. I have inline fan for fresh air. And I exhaust with inline fan with ducting that goes to vents up in the roof of the garage and not back in to the garage that I get my fresh air from.What's your grow room environment? Closet, tent, micro, etc.
That's a big tent but it sounds like you've got a good plan to keep ventilation under control. More comments further down.
Dirt? Hydro? Coco? Hempy?
Tried dirt but got bugs. Tried all coco/perlite and struggled with it and PH and calmag. Now I use 50% coco that has EWC, Biochar amended in. And 50% HP Promix. And to all that I add in 30% perlite. I grow in small 8 liter pots in an autopot system.
I'm not a dirt fan either, admire those who do but for me it's too much flying blind. With hydro as long as I keep pH under control I know exactly what my plants are receiving. You mentioned problems with coco - the key is pre-treating with cal-mag. If you do that a week or more in advance of starting your grow, practically all problems go away. A lot of growers love the autopots for their flexibility and effectiveness; they are a very good system. But in general, regardless of your grow medium, smaller pots (8 liter) will be better when your grow style leans to SOG / SCROG - a greater number of plants in a smaller area. If you are growing for huge colas then bigger containers with less plants is a bit more effective. But at the end of the argument, total yield is higher with greater # of plants. If you decide to go back toward pure coco, I would recommend a read through one of Nosias grow thread. He does an excellent job of documenting his exact nute regimens using coco autopots.
Temps maintained during lights on and off?
Lights on 24 hrs. temp average is 25C. RH average of 35%.
What's your low/high range for temps? Too low or too high can still have ill effects. And I'm not a fan of 24/0 lighting. Auto's will tolerate it, and you may get slightly faster grow times, but it's not linear to the extra lights-on time. Plus it makes heat control more difficult, and (my biggest objection) it is harder on your equipment. LED's claim a 20 year lifespan but that's B.S.; they DO fail much sooner when no daily cool down cycle is allowed.
What's your nutrient regimen and feed methods? Additives?
Was using tangs Easy schedule of Advanced Nutes. Sensi Bloom A and B and carboload and overdrive. I just switched to Green Leaf MegaCrop, their calmag, Sweet Candy and Bud Explosion. Following the schedule everyone is using for Megacrop.
I'm not familiar with that nute brand so I'll just have to caution some generalities. Autopots are as much an automated watering system as they are a hybrid hydro type feeding system. Traditional dirt grows use drain-to-waste, and with that then 50% nute strength is highly recommended. Pure hydro systems support a stronger regimen. If there's any downfall in autopots it's the ability to monitor uptake of nutrients. It can be done, but it's not as simple as DWC, RDWC or other pure hydro methods. You can try to monitor in the reservoir but I don't feel that is as accurate of a representation of what's actually in the root zone of the plant at the "other" end of the system. But try to monitor ppm's to help determine what a plant wants; i.e. if ppm's go down she wants more nutes; if it goes up your strength is too strong. With your system, you'll need to pay closer attention to the plant's growth characteristics. If leaves are too deep green, too much N. If pale / light green, not enough N.
Cal-Mag - if you are using hard water, less supplementation is required. If you're using RO, a minimum of 4mL per gallon is needed, perhaps more if your micro nutrient bases do not also contain cal-mag. A silicon supplement will also help your plant establish stronger trunks and generally guard against stress. 2mL per gallon is plenty.
Humic / fulvic supplements also have a place in your nute regimen. Not sure if Green Leaf offers one? I use General Hydroponics Diamond Nectar and it has greatly improved my yields and bud density. Check out that or comparable from your vendor.
Are you monitoring ppm & pH religiously? There are differences depending upon grow medium.
I was not monitoring when using AN Sensi since its PH Perfect. Didn't need to. But with Green Leaf I am back to monitoring for now. I aim for 6.0 since I'm using coco and peat.
I have some serious heartburn with AN. Nothing against their product - I think it's fine. But the owner of the company is a raging asshole. When he brought his product to market he spent all his time bashing other vendors' products and trashing how they were overpriced and ineffective. I'll never give any asshole a single cent of my money. Hell, ALL grow nutes are overpriced, but I pay for the convenience and quality control of not having to mix my own. But back to task - I have never used the product, therefore I do not quite understand how their pH Perfect claims work. To be blunt, I don't trust it. The main ingredients of any nutrient regiment that affect pH are calcium & magnesium, and silicon is highly reactive as well. And virtually ALL nutrient salts - N, P, K - and many micronute elements - have an effect on pH. As long as a plant is uptaking nutrients I don't see how any secret formula can assure stable pH.
Don't get me wrong - my hydro grows maintain very stable pH throughout most of the plant's lifecycle. But everytime I change a formulation for a changing plant cycle, I watch it carefully. If I went too strong, the pH is going to come down. If I went too weak, it's probably going up. And if anything bacterial or biological is going on, pH shift is going to be one of the first clues. So even if you're using Virgin Stripper piss for a nute, I feel you still will need to monitor pH.
What style, brand and power light are you using?
I run 2 600 watt HPS lights in the winter in the tent when I need heat. The garage is not heated. Turn them off once we warm up. I have 6 autocobs from bigsm0 as well as my primary lighting and 2 more are in the mail. So in the winder I'm running a lot of light. Also running some UVB rays in the tent.[/QUOTE]
I'm having trouble correlating this to actual light intensity. You have a big tent, but what is the actual grow canopy area of your plants? And I love the multi-light approach that autocobs offer for more concise coverage, but what is the actual power consumed by the autocobs? But here's a problem. Practically all lighting vendors discourage the use of watts as a measure of effectiveness for LED lighting. Conceptually, I agree it is not the best factor. BUT... and this is a huge giant fat-assed butt - the industry has not given us a standard measure by which all lights ban be compared. So regardless of how much they argue, until that happens, the only factor we have is watts consumed at the wall, spread over what grow area? So for example, six 150W COB's provide 900 watts. If that's spread over a 4'X4' grow area (16 sq.ft.) that's putting 56.25 watts per sq. ft. to your plant canopy. And six COB's are going to do a much better job of doing that evenly over the inner and outer portions of the canopy. And that's enough light for a quality grow using any type of light. But I don't know what your real #'s are? And if you're putting 900 watts across your entire 8X8 tent, you're underpowered.
You don't say what your total consumption and canopy size is, but look at it from that perspective. For example, I specialize in single - plant grows in a 5 sq. ft. tent, with LED lights that consume 325watts at the wall. That's 65 watts per sq. ft. Now the other factor for LED's, light intensity - i.e.. how close to the canopy? - can also come into play. You'll have to experiment with that. I can say, the closer to the canopy, the less the plants will stretch. Take a read of the thread I have linked at the bottom of this post & it will explain more. Plus I'd look forward to you contributing your results / specs to that study.
What's that all mean for growing big buds? A picture says it best. I've grown bigger. This came off a tiny plant that was over-powered with an LED too close to the canopy. At least that's my theory for now:
I can't make any more generalizations about your grow area yet. Your original post indicated you wanted big buds, and they will be in your future. Maybe your setup is spot-on, you certainly have put some thought, time & money into it. Are you waiting for the right genetics? We'll see. Keep us posted.
. Both of your gals look like they’re forming some nice main colas. 
