Gelato - Hydro First Grow

—

Using four 5 gallon bubbleponics buckets with a top feed and gravity fed reservoir. Top feed with gravity fed reservoir circulates a flow to each plant of about 5 per hour. Each bucket including reservoir holds about 3 gallon making system 15 gallons. Geminated seeds directly in the rockwool in its present container. Started with store bought drinking water and had to add Cal-Meg, now am using well water and need for Cal-Meg has lessoned. LST has been challenging. All growing better than expected. Growing in a custom L shaped grow room 5x10 + 5x8 (about 90 square feet area), along with other plants.

Struggled with possibly a calcium and magnesium deficiency on #4. Had to remove some damaged leaves and now have separated it to her own reservoir. Has not stunt her growth, she is bout 5 inches taller atm then her sisters. Flow has been a struggle, if I was do one thing different is go with a 1" drain system instead of the 1/2" it presently has. Started with a drip, yet due to clogs and wanting a faster circulation, I changed to a steady flow over the clay. Presently #1 - #3 are on one reservoir and #4 on its own reservoir (In the video above shows #4). It's been a matter of adjusting the output flow and tubing size to get maximum flow without backing up the drain system.

All showed signs of flowering a few days ago. Had to put #4 back with her sisters due to a pump failure. Now have all four Gelatos running off a $11 fountain pump from Harbor Freight. Good flow, had to turn pump down. For a $11, I'll put a couple of these on the shelf for back ups. Changed all feed lines to 3/8 line dropping down to 1/4 at flow tip. Had to turn pump down onto min to get a good flow that would not backup the system. Flushed system using Sledge Hammer and changed from Fox Farm to GH for nutrients. Mostly due to cost point... we'll see. My son and I are growing together, sharing jobs: I do the hydro setup - he does LST and lights and such. He does Fox Farm with his strains and aim more towards GH.

On day one of week 6 (7-15): G4 seems to be the only one that continues to show some kind of deficiency. The height of which is 17 inches and is the tallest, they range from 12 to 17 inches. Despite this system is held together by chicken wire and bubble gum (no actual chicken wire used), and my serious lack of knowing what I'm doing, I think for the most part the girls are looking good. Added a picture of the grow room, fortunately with growing autoflowers we can have windows. You'll be able to see unlike most indoor growers our biggest restrictions are room for width not height. 7-20: Been a few challenges. Adjusting proper feed flow, occasional leaks, dropping pH meter in res, loosing dropper in bottle of nutrients and such. Yet it's been going well, Fast Buds Gelato growing great. Gelato #4 grown about 6 inches in the last 4 days, other gelatos growing wide like a thick bush. Definitely will look at going with a 1 inch drain in the future. 7-21: End of week 6... Had to spread plants further apart due to the widespread growth. Gelato #1 is 18 inches tall, Gelato #4 has grown to 24 inches tall and all are about 32 inches wide. Excited to see what unfolds this next coming week. Not listing the amount of pH down due to I'm adding about 1 1/2 gallons of water a day, due evaporation and they are thirsty girls. Using 3 gallons jugs for water replenishing. My well water is about 7.6 pH, adding 14 ml of pH down to each jug to get me close. Unfortunately our pH meter got dropped into a reservoir, so it died. Waiting 7 days for a replacement to arrive, so in meantime I'm using a pool test kit which by no means is accurate yet gets me in the ball park. In the near future plan to have an extra pH meter on the shelf for such mishaps.

7-23: I don't know how much I'm losing to evaporation. A week or so ago been adding about 1/2 gallon of water a day to the reservoir and here last few days been adding a couple gallons a day. Makes me think these girls are thirsty! Gave them Great White this time, in others to come I'll probably only give this twice in their life; at the beginning of week 2 and week 6. Being we are not growing in a tent, yet rather a grow room we are restricted more on width than height. Originally we set this room up to grow 12 girls... At that time we were growing in soil and seemed very reasonable. Changing our autoflowers from soil to hydro made fast and important changes. Now looking at the size of these 4 gelatos... hard to imagine 12 plants in this room that size. Either in the future we will need consider how many we are growing in what stage or expand. 7-26: Noticed earlier this week, I have roots growing into the sight tube (which is why I don't lift them very high to look at the roots). Think in the near future I'll probably change some of my lines to colored tubing, especially the feed lines to slow any algae growth and also the first 6 inches of drain line where I can see roots. My little boy found a Praying Mantis outside and he got relocated to our indoor garden. Learned earlier this week General Hydroponics makes a Flora Micro for hard water, I seriously need to research that. In these parts well water is extremely hard. I don't know if there is any hydroponic growers out there that have to deal with hard water... if so please send a comment about it. 7-28 Ran in an interesting problem today, G1 overflowed 😟. Roots have grown so massively there's no where else for them to go other than into the drain tube. Upon checking all were similar. So had to clear the drain tubes, split the system into 2, to where there's just 2 buckets per reservoir. Shorten drain tubes for less restriction and slowed the flow a bit. Gently try to make a hole in the root cylinder by the drain. The first picture of the roots above is on the 22nd and the next is 6 days later on the 28th. Fortunately they don't have long to go. G1 n G2 measures 25.5" , G3 is 15" and G4 is 29".

Roots really took me by surprise, was not expecting that. Yet apparently are very healthy and rather have too much root than not enough. Giving the girls no more grow nutrients and still been having to add water daily. Due to the overgrown roots causing drain flow issues, I separated the girls into 2 systems. 2 buckets per reservoir and slowed the feed to accommodate the slower drainage flow. As far as I know they seem to be doing good...growing and flowering. 😀 Definitely need to look into larger buckets, 7 gallon buckets are expensive and not much more room, yet might be the way to go. 1" drains need to happen.