dutch bucket recirculating grow

This is my first autoflower and my first led grow. Running a recirculating system that has always worked well with photoperiods for me. Appreciate any feedback on autos. My fastbuds strains have popped up nicely and off to a great start so far. My setup is 5 gallon buckets lined with 120 micron paint strainer bags. Medium is perilite. Drain is 1/2" pvc pipe set 2 1/2" from the bottom of the bucket. The buckets hold about 1 1/2 gallons of water in the bottom so there is not an issue of drying out if there is ever a water pump or flow issue. They are draining into a 2" pvc that returns to 15 gallon reservoir that is aeriated 24 hours with an aquarium air pump. An aquarium powerhead pump delivers nutrient solution to the plants through 1/8" irrigation tubes. Currently running 30 minute cycles of water flow every 6 hours. The plants seem to droop a little with more than that. I plan to slowly increase the pump time until i get to 24/7 recirculation. Lighting with a galaxyhydro 1000w full spectrum led. This is my first experience with led. 24" seems to be a good distance at the moment since the plants are towards the edge of the core coverage area. I have also added a 23w cfl 4" from each plant to stop them from trying to stretch. Feeding RO water with GH maxi grow line of nutrients. Only going to feed maxigro, maxibloom, and calimagic unless I see any issues. UPDATE DAY 7. Gorilla glue 2 is not developing very well. I thought it was suffocating in the rockwool, so I cut away enough to expose the taproot on day 5. The roots are slowly making progress.

Getting into the swing of week 2 and they are progressing pretty well except for gorilla 2. She has been behind since the beginning but she is growing slowly. Her roots look healthy, just on a lot smaller scale than the rest. I don't plan on babysitting her. She has to get with the program or die trying... I am germinating an amnesia freebie incase she doesnt make it. I did the first water change on day 8 and increased the ppm to 200. I also switched the pump to 24 hour recirculation and they seem to like it. I am running the water level at less than half capacity about 10 gallons of water in the entire system at this point. Update: The PH was really stable all week. Started the week out at 6 and it only climbed to 6.6 after 6 full days of running. Will be doing a water change tomorrow to start out week 3.

On day 14 the Zkittles showed signs of what I believe is magnesium deficiency as seen in the pic. Its not surprising since i have been going very light on nutrients out of fear of overfeeding them. Day 15 I flushed the system with 6 ph RO water and upped the nutrients to 400ppm. Appearance of the leaves improved. On day 17 all plants were topped except gorilla 2. I will probably end up turning gorilla 2 into a seed plant since I dont think it will produce much. Tested ph mid week and it has not fluctuated at all. Still maintaining a perfect 6.0. This is one of the many reasons I love GH maxi nutrients.

Starting out week 4 with a flush of ph 6 RO water and fresh nutrients upped to 500ppm. They are filling out nicely at this point. All lower branches are making their way up since topping last week. Gorilla glue 2 has showed her first pistils so I started colloidal silver treatment on one lower branch on day 21. She is getting 20ppm strength misted 3 times a day. Will continue until she shows some pollen sacs forming. Note: Always make your own CS because store bought is usually poor quality with extra chemicals in it. Hardest part of the grow at this point is resisting defoliation. Looks like a couple fan leaves are going to have to go soon though. All in all, I am enjoying the grow on these autos so far and I see why fastbuds has such a great reputation. Day 24 they are getting bushy. Putting out explosive new growth and huge leaves. So many branches fighting for the top that it is hard to tell what is going on with each individual branch. You can see the growth in 2 days in the pics. At the end of week 4 all plants are showing pistils. Looks like they are starting to stretch.

Hard to believe week 5 is already here!! Starting out with a 10 gallon flush of 6.0 ph RO water and fresh nutrients upped to 550 ppm. Happy to see that all the girls showed pistils less than a week of each other so fingers crossed they will all mature close to the same time. Zkittles... I have pulled about 10 fan leaves but she is still thicker than I would prefer. Just going to let her do her thing for a while. GSC... Definitely seems to be the easy plant of the bunch. She is always happy. Gorilla 1... has hit a harder stretch than the other ones. Sure they will stay up with her though Gorilla 2. Considering she started out with problems she is growing well. Doesn't like as many nutrients as the rest but tolerates it. Still treating a lower branch on her with 20 ppm colloidal silver 3x a day. Hoping to see pollen sacs before the end of the week. System has ran perfect the past couple weeks. No ph fluctuations at all. Zero maintanence other than weekly flushes and water change. Couldn't ask for a better run at this point. My galaxyhydro 1000w seems to be doing a great job. Hasn't skipped a beat running 24/7. Very satisfied with the light coverage and penetration. Amazed at how cool it runs. Update day 33. Gorilla 1 showed signs of calcium deficiency. They are starting to drink a lot of water. Added .25 tsp per gallon calimagic when I topped off the system mid week. Will be upping the dose on day 36 water change. Update day 35 had to pull some fan leaves. Mostly from the Zkittlez. The growth is just too dense and a little challenging to keep under control.

Starting out week 6 with weekly 10 gallon flush of 6 ph RO water and fresh nutrients. Upped the calimagic to 1 tsp per gallon because gorilla 1 has been hungry for calcium and increased maxibloom. The plants all seemed to be happily hanging out in veg mode so I cut the lights from 24 to 20 hrs and they all started putting on pistils after 2 days. Not sure if this is a coincidence.... Really wanted to push them 24 until the end but I am looking for a fast harvest on this run. I am going to run 2 six shooters on the next run and let them go 24 all the way. Having to pull a few leaves pretty much daily to keep them under control. They have all built a pretty good branch structure. Just need to pack on those buds now.

They are growing well. The issue at this point is they are way too overcrowded. To the point that it will affect my yield if I keep them where they are. Gorilla 1 wants the entire room to herself. The good thing is that I can easily modify the system so I will be expanding the space in a couple days when the light gets here. Going to test out the roleadro 1000w dimmable light. The plants still seem to be pretty resistant to hit full flower at 20hr lighting. I have cut out grow nutrients just giving maxibloom and calimagic now. Will update sime more photos once I get them organized so they are actually able to be seen. Happy growing! Day 49. Got the new light and it is pretty impressive so far. The third cooling fan is a nice addition even though the 2 fan light cools great. The light is longer than the regular 1000w and more of a spread between the diodes. I think the dimmer will be nice for seedlings and the daisy chain will make life easier. The 2 gorillas have the original room for themselves now. Gorilla 1 has spread out nicely already. Set up a temporary area for the zkittlez and gsc. Had a huge amount of dying leaves on the bottom of all of them from lack of light. Released 20 ladybugs per plant and about 1000 outside as a preventative measure since spring is here and I am sure aphids will be breeding everywhere soon.

Started week 8 with the usual 10 gallon flush of RO water and trying to keep the ppm around 600. The girls are getting much bigger than I expected. They are drinking over a gallon of water per day. I added a half tsp maxibloom per gallon when I topped off the system mid week because last week they were hungry after topping it off. Zkittlez and Gorilla 1 are flowering nicely but GSC and gorilla 2 just refuse make the switch. They put off a few pistles but very much in preflower still. Gorilla 1 has passed 40 inches and has some decent bud sites coming along. 1 of these gorillas could easily take up a 3x3. My ppm pen started reading -27 after adding nutrients so its not working. I am just going to maintain the same I have been giving them for now and try to read the plants to see what they want. Excited to see what these girls producs. I have a feeling they will pack on some weight.

Week 9 is coming to an end and it was a pretty smooth week. I was given some fox farm bloom trio so I added a small amount of open sesame and beastie bloom this week. Gorilla 1 is frosting up pretty nicely. Gorilla 2 still has not hit full flower. Zkittles is starting to bulk up a little but not near as potent looking as gorilla 1. GSC is just now finally starting to flower. I cut back the lights to 18 hours this week hoping that it would trigger everyone to get with the program and put off some nugz. A little disappointing that most of the girls are not further along but I am sure the extra weight will make up for the wait in the end. Looking back on the grow so far, I will be doing a lot more training and cutting on my next auto grow. They are definitely more sensitive to nutrients than photos, but topping didn't stress them at all and I think they can be trained harder to get better results. Thanks for checking up! UPDATE midweek. Tested the ph today and it was about 5. I have not had any ph fluctuations most of this grow so I am thinking the open sesame and beastie bloomz is causing it. I will be discontinuing those with my water change end of week.

Started the week with the usual 10 gallon flush. I let the reservoir run a little low this week and there was a little tip burn. And a little calcium deficiency. Will be adding calimagic to the top off water next week.The girls are looking pretty good though. Zkittlez looks pretty average and the gsc started flowering later but the gorilla 1 is going to be a frosty lady. Gorilla 2 is nice and big but she was just starting to flower so she had to leave this diary because she would have held the whole system up. Cant have that...

Started the week off with a flush and water change. I backed off on the nutrients because they are all too dark and showing a little burn this week. Gorilla is getting close. Trichomes are starting to cloud up, calyxes are swelling. Im thinking another week on her. The buds are smaller than what I am used to but they are looking pretty dense and tasty. Aroma is a sweet chocolate lime Zkittlez is making good progress. She appears to be a little leafy and looks like it may have airy buds. I hope I am wrong, she still has some time to swell up. The GSC has towered over her so she isnt getting as much light as she should. Hard to believe but she has a sweet citrus smell that is exactly like popping a handful of skittles in your mouth. The GSC is the late flowerer but she has spread out and become massive. Packing on some nice looking buds at this point. Pretty excited about her. Still a little early to describe her smell, but it is pretty good. She is still the toughest plant if the bunch. Always happy. It has been a fun grow and learning a lot here.

I started the week off early with a flush and water change. Unfortunately I am not able to add photos since I will be away all week. Just filled the system to max with 20 gallons of nutrient solution. Really putting the system to the ultimate test leaving it unsupervised for over a week. I believe it will run smooth. Be back to update next week...

Started the week with thw usual 10 gallon flush and fresh nutrients. Had to leave the girls alone for a week and everything ran smooth as far as the system, but got some pretty good light burn on the gorilla and GSC. Just affected a few leaves no bud bleaching so they are still looking good. The gorilla is showing about 5% amber so I took her off the system and started flushing on day 91. Started her off with a 10 gallon ro water flush and will be hand watering 2 gallons 4x per day. Probably only going to flush her for about 3 days The zkittlez been pretty much shaded by the gsc so her buds are not swelling very much. I have had to keep the light pretty high away from her since he gsc has gotten so big. The GSC has turned into a massive girl stacking some fat sticky calyxes and she is going to put on some pretty decent weight. This has to be my favorite of the bunch as far as being a really easy plant to keep happy. Day 95 pulled the gorilla trimmed most of the fan leaves. Going to hang her in the dark until she dries enough to jar up. Will update her harvest when she is dried. Thanks for stopping by. Happy growing!

I pulled the gorilla and she has a couple days of drying left. I started the week off with the usual 10 gallon flush and fresh nutrients. The zkittles is starting to show some amber but I am going to let her go a little longer for some bedtime smoke. She is nice but not swelling up as much as I like to see. I don't think this is a great strain for my setup. The GSC is stacking up nicely and putting on some fat sticky buds. Can't stress enough how happy I have been with this one. She has been a happy plant from the start and looks great. She is going to yield an easy quarter pound. Got more of these beans on the way already. I'm thinking she has about another week before flushing. Can't wait sample some of these fastbuds. They are excellent genetics!

Enjoyed growing this strain. I will definitely be growing auto flowers again. It was a challenge keeping the nutrients dialed in but they handled my abuse well. I will he doing a lot more training on future autos. Fastbuds does not disappoint! Great genetics and tasty buds.

Well we are getting close to wrapping this one up. I will definitely be running some more autos soon after I finish up my photo grow that I started. The zkittles flushed for a week and chopped her today. Buds are on the leafy side but she smells nice. Started flushing with 5 gallons of ro water on the gsc today she is showing a few amber and mostly cloudy plump trichs. She is definitely a top shelf strain. Nice sized calyxes covered in frost. Will be hand flushing her a few times a day for a week or less.

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This was my first auto grow and this gsc was the happiest and healthiest strain that I ran. She never showed any signs of my mistakes that the others did. I went low and high on nutrient levels a couple times during the grow and it didnt affect her at all. I definitely recommend this strain. Its at the top of my list.