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.
Hahahahahaha @BigDaddyK I've been doing it since 1996. Perlite and only perlite.... some times I'll add a little vermiculite. You must have forgotten about me DaddyK......
@Teamdirtbag2, yeah my first similar setup was in 99. I used to mix half vermiculite but had a lot of overflow issues. Whoever cane up with the piping that just sits in the drain pipe is genius. I used to glue all my drain lines together making the system immobile.
That's really clever lining the buckets with paint strainer bags. That's to keep all the perlite in the bucket, right? Really nice work man. I built a perlite based system once and had to use inline filters to catch bits of perlite - your solution is much more elegant.
I am running my first autoflower grow in a RDWC system and it's much harder to get dialled in than with photoperiod plants. My nutrient EC is only 0.5 - 0.6 which is insanely low (2nd week of flower) but seems to be working OK except the plants start drooping around 2hrs prior to lights off.
Not sure autoflowers are really suited for full hydroponic growing!
@BigDaddyK, Do you have a suggestion for a medium that is better to start seeds in than rockwool? I am not up on a lot of the new stuff out there these days.
@Wicked_Stix, Generally speaking, autos can start flowering anywhere between 4 and 6 weeks, I wouldn't worry too much at this point, but let us know how it goes from here!
@Fast_Buds, would like some advice on my grow please. All of my girls showed pistils between day 21 and 26. They are not hitting flower though. On day 35 now.They have been under 24 hr light from the start. Do you think this is why they are not flowering? Would you recommend cutting the light back or stick with 24? If so, to 20 hrs? 18 hrs? Thanks
@Wicked_Stix, yeah that sounds good. I tried this before but don't think I sprayed long enough, the branch was all weird looking. im going to try the sensi skunk auto and see how it goes, making auto seeds should not be too hard, ill let you know when I start the spray, maybe 2 weeks? thanks for the info. im hoping for the best for both of us
@blendmedmedman, yeah the branch I am spraying does not like it but we will see what happens. Will be fun to cross the fastbuds gorilla with the zkittles or the gsc and see what happens.
I'm curious what you're 1000watt is pulling from the wall? is it the roleadro galaxy hydro on Amazon for less than 100? Cheers looking wonderful. I started on buckets so Im a bit nostalgic
@Wicked_Stix,
No worries I appreciate the quick answer. I'm following this technology like a hawk. I have two of the 300 watts from a year ago that are still performing great.
@starphish, yes it is the $100 on amazon. The full spectrum with uv and ir. I have not been able to test the wattage myself, but have seen a couple tests on it showing 240 watts at the wall. Thanks for stopping by!
Hey man, your girls look great! You can tell you have done this a few times and you got the nutes dialed in pretty well. Mine are doing okay, check 'em out and let me know what you think. They're a week or so behind yours. Peace and happy gardening bro
@mr_green_thumb_ottawa, cool I really like the GSC! I am growing another one now. hope it turns out as good as the last one. Good luck with yours. I will check them out.
@Wicked_Stix,gsc is one of the best to grow and potency in my opinion i have 35 clone done already soon be posted on my grow after im done grape snow train
@Wicked_Stix, autos intimidate the hell out of me haha. I’m gonna need the tolerance for mistakes that photos have. And I sort of want to try to keep all my plants (or a clone of them) alive and in veg for as long as I can for some genetic play someday.
Wow! barley noticed ur pump'n per. or ver. run off back into ur grow like it was hydroponic'z (RDWC)! R u stayn on top off mineralz? If u think about it! It'z kinda like using RO water minus solids!
🤔 That'z a trip, im interested to see were this goes nice I'll stay posted!
@grower_not_shower, Thanks! I really appreciate the info. I agree that 4 will probably be a too much for the space. I would only run 2 photos. I figured it would be better to have too many rather than not enough. I might end up moving 2 if they get too crowded. I have a little room to expand if I set my reservoir under the plants. Just prefer easy access to it.
@Wicked_Stix, I grew autos two times and used this schedule https://www.growweedeasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Recirculating-Nutrient-Schedule-custom.jpg Didn't have any problems/nute burns. Do you think your space is big enough for the canopy of 4 plants? If they are good genetics, in those big buckets, two of those could fill the space.
I know what your going through, one of my Hempy's just topped 45 inches and is just about as wide. I'll get it under the big light as I harvest some of the others. Good luck with the expansion. Peace
@ThatoneAKguy, This is my first auto grow. I expected them to flower at 3 or 4 weeks. I definitely would have done a lot more training if I knew they were going to veg for 6 to 8 weeks. It has been a learning experience. I will be doing a lot more training on my next auto run. Yours looks like she is going to put off some nice colas. Thanks for checking it out!
@Wicked_Stix, look at my Moby Dick xxl in pre flower. She is 3” at 3 weeks at best. I use crazy LST on them and at pre flower I just let them do their thing and raise the lights. I should have 8 good kola locations on her and hope it turns out for the best after hyper stressing a couple of the branches by accident.
My lights in the budget tent are SUPER cheap pieces of junk too. I play to move my G8 900 into this tent and get rid of my 400 HPS for some HLG quantum 304 boards.
@Smowkabowl, Yeah it is getting pretty rough. I see all these auto grows with nice compact plants but you and I are stuck trying to keep them contained. Im going to give it one more shot with my six shooters after this and I may be going back to photoperiods. I am not moving any faster than I would with them.
Man, your garden is looking so nice! I think I'm going to flush my garden this week. They are starting to fade and I've got some amber. The thing I've noticed as the plants are finishing up is they are not as colorful growing hydro rather than organic. I got some purple and other colors, just not as spectacular. Peace
@Wicked_Stix, I gave 'em the last feeding today and will start flushing tomorrow. As far as my next grow, I'm not sure yet. I am going to take a short break, evaluate techniques and come up with a plan going forward and I have to go out of town in May and will start again in June. Also, I'm going to do a couple in the great outdoors. I just got some FastBuds Lemon AK, Zkittles, Tangie and WestCoast OG. I also received some RQS Royal Cookies Auto as a freebie. So, I got some great choices and I'm leaning toward Lemon AK and Zkittles indoor and some Cookies and Kush outdoors. We'll see. Peace
@Smowkabowl, I just checked yours out and looks like they are doing great. They will usually start to get more colorful a few days into flushing. I dont like seeing a lot of amber on mine so I start the flush as soon as I see some as long as they are mostly cloudy. Im excited to taste all these buds! I was going to run my six shooters next but got ahold of some fire clones that will be going in the buckets soon. What do you have planned after these?
@Wicked_Stix, your garden is looking great. Nice and frosty. BTW, I am getting close to the end with my buckets and was thinking about the flush. When is the best time to start? I was thinking about 5 days of pH'd RO water should do it, considering I water them every day. What do you think? Peace
@Smowkabowl, I try to run flush 4 times a day for about a week on mine but have done 4 or 5 days and it seems to clean them up pretty good. On your first day of flush it is good to run about 5 gallons through to wash out any salt and mineral build up on the roots. You dont have to worry about overwatering like soil. You can flush them a few times a day of you want
Talk about an interesting system. Do you not have pH fluctuations by aerating your water? Looks like I could learn a few things from your experience. I'll be tagging along if you don't mind. Your FastBuds look good for their age. They should really start taking off this week once they get their roots going. Check out some of my other diaries, I got some FastBuds going on 4 weeks in coco. Peace
@Smowkabowl, Yeah the ph is really the only thing I have to monitor on the system. I usually have to bring it down a little every 3 or 4 days. The GH nutrients seem to buffer it better as I increase the ppm. But a little ph increase isn't always a bad thing. The plants ability to process cal and mag is better at a ph of 7 than 5.5. So it really doesn't hurt to let it climb a little. I will be keeping up with your grows also. Good luck!
@CRiSPrGrow, Yes I built it on a pretty small budget. Running a cheap aquarium powerhead pump and air pump. It is minimal maintainence. I like them. I added a little more details on the setup.
@BarrieGrower, you have to try the GSC and the gorilla glue. You won't be disappointed. I just took advantage of their 5+5 promo and got 10 of each coming. I'm very happy with fastbuds
EC pens break so easily, even if you put them into the solution just slightly too deep. always keep a bunch of them around just in case... sometimes the shop will swap them out for you if you put on some doe eyes lol
@CRiSPrGrow, I have had a couple aphid outbreaks in the past and I would much rather stay ahead of them any way I can. I just dont like spraying anything on my plants. Idk why but never liked even foliar feeding. Thanks for checking it out!
@Smowkabowl, The 24 hour light I had on them and light distance helps keep the nodes tight. I topped them and I tie down any branch that tries to take off. I try to save all the stretching room I can for flowering. I am out of space for them to spread out more at this point though. Just have to let them go up now. I thought these autos would stay small or I would have just ran 2 in the space that I have. Its pretty overcrowded.