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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!
This was my first auto grow and I am more than pleased with the results. These fastbuds genetics are amazing. These buds didn't get as big as some I have seen. It was a challenge keeping the nutrients right on it but these are some top shelf sticky buds. Smokes smooth and has a nice potent kick to it. Can't complain. I will definitely be growing this again.
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.
This strain dodnt like my system very much. It grew well as far as health, but the buds didnt swell much they ended up thin, leafy, and airy. Has a great fruity smell and nice flavor. Will be great for some concentrate.
This bud ranks among the best smoke I have ever had in my life. The buds look amazing and it kicks you like a mule. Great genetics! I will definitely be growing more of these and you should too!!
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.
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.
Wicked_Stix
