Atlas Grease Gun Auto in Home Made DWC

Sprouted no issue, challenge has been getting the tap root to water, lol. Oh and shout out to Multiverse Beans for the hook-up: would not be growing this without them. Started the seed using the papertowl in a cd case method (does that date me?) Once sprouted, used a 5 gallon black bucket with ~4 gallons of water (tap) and 2ml of each of the three part nute system, with cal mag and hydroguard. So far, smooth sailing, never grown an auto in Hydro before (and only grown one photo in hydro, so here goes nothing).

Once the roots hit the water, I moved the Grease Gun over to a RDWC Home Depot special that I made last spring. I managed to grow one photo with it; but it was a nightmare. But I want to try again. My issue last time was PH; I was stupidly using rain water, which has wonderful PH; but it introduced all sorts of crap into the res, making it a mess. I know. Amateur. Plant notes: - Wow, this thing bushed up and shot up quickly. Still in veg, the longest I have had an auto go; and for sure the biggest. The nodes are super spaced out, the growth is, for lack of a better word, lanky. Not what I am used to, but for sure a learning experience. Seems super healthy and happy, have two fans running, one low one high. - No defoliation. Used LST to steer growth and fill out the tent. - This website makes me create all my nutes each time which is a pain, so I will note them here: Cal mag 2ml per gal, Hydroguard 1ml/gal, Silica Blast 0ml/gal, and 5ml/gal each of Flora Grow/Bloom/Micro. The RDWC system: - Inspired by that ride at Epcot where the fish poop is growing vegetables, lol. Got me curious and I am kind of handy, so pulled together some stuff I had lying around and built this. - Main res is a 14 gal white flip top sealed uni-bottom standard kitchen garbage pail. The plant res is a tote (12 gal?) from home depot. - I made a platform that puts the plant tote higher than the return hole in the main res; and used PVC tubing to join it, basically overfilling the plant tote so that pressure pushes the water down and back to the main res. Note that I did install 2 points that can be separated for disassembly/cleaning. - Water is pumped constantly to the plant res by a bog standard aquarium pump and black hose. I have a beefy air pump and five stones distributed throughout. - I have covered everything that even remotely allows light through in spray mounted tin foil. There is zero light where I do not want it. - I have a second pump (not connected in these photos) in the main res that is a feed out to a wort cooler that I have in a running mini fridge; basically a cooling loop that my inkbird controller will trigger on in flower if the res temp gets too high. More on that later; that was a separate adventure.

Cal mag 2.5ml per gal, Hydroguard 2.5ml/gal, Silica Blast 2.5ml/gal, and 5ml/gal each of Flora Grow/Bloom/Micro. Plant for sure in flower. Pictures are over a couple of days. Tiny lower level buds are now tiny buds on long and lanky branches, some of these leaves are really long as well. Overall growing nicely, very happy. Did some defoliation of lower leaves for airflow;

Buds jumping off this thing like crazy, they seem to have bulked up quickly. Not to mention that I am seeing Trichs already, which is amazing. If it keeps this up its going to be frosty as heck. Stoked that this is a HUGE auto growing in water. If I can take this to completion without issues, this is my new way of growing (much fewer plants). Worried about humidity, my 4" extractor has to run most of the time to even keep up. Thankfully humidity outside of the tent is around 25%, so I am controlling it with the intake of dry air. Not sure why my pics of the close up buds are so yellow; the plant is way more green than that. Pretty solid defol getting rid of the shoots that have no future and lower third buds. I have concluded that rain water was my major issue last year, lol. Using tap water and my blend of nutes, everything has been stable and a joy. Have not drained the water once; just keep topping up with either water or water with nutes. Last year I was draining this thing weekly. I use drops to measure PH, I hate those pens, and I have never been steered wrong by the drops. And I have an EC pen that I use - it seems accurate and consistent.

Got a whole bunch of pics when we took the plant out to defoliate a little more (especially at the back). As a result, got to get the roots out for some air: They seem nice and happy. I always am blown away by Hydro roots and how clean and intricate they are. I love that tech gives a plant the perfect thing to thrive in such an un-natural way. Plant continues to consume between 1 and 1.5 gallons a day at its current rate. The trichs are forming all over now, and the buds continue to grow. The tent insides was basically coated in condensation, so got some help and pulled the plant out. Impressed by everything about this plant right now, only concern is my humidity keeps getting a little high.

On a long drive, patting myself on the back for not needing to change my res yet I realized that this was a mistake: no way nutrient uptake is even, I was likely running an imbalance after 6 weeks plus. So went home, took the plant out again (what a pain, lol) and tested my nutes solution. While everything seemed fine, decided to do a clean sweep and I am so glad I did. My pump intake is a foam block and it kinda filters out the roots etc. I added a micron screen around the foam block. When I went to check the screen for debris I found it 100% blocked with organic matter that was all mush. Very gross. Very not good. So got everything cleaned and refreshed, new nutes and some additional trimming. I do see some very faint signs of nute burn on some leaf tips; but I am hoping that I got it early enough to avoid any major damage. Still drinking about 1.5 gallons a day. Starting to smell lovely. Humidity is still the main challenge. I open the tent and let her breath whenever I am home, still doing light defol.

Still going strong, the smell is wonderful when I open the tent; but after defoliating its out of this world. So sticky, lol. With humidity as my biggest concern I have focused a dedicated extractor fan to keep the rh at around 65%. I have also been removing a couple of un-needed, unfrosty leaves each time I open the tent to check on her. Temp is no issue because its been cold. Added some beastie bloomz to the mix, to see if we can fatten things up. I realize its a little late, but I forgot I had it. Overall very easy to manage/grow, reacts well to feeding, I try to keep the PPM at around 1300 because my water starts around 200. Other than that, getting excited to wrap this one up. Its been one of the most successful, best producing and fastest grows I have done yet.

Really starting to fatten up with even the smaller buds looking nice and hard. There is not much under the top layer; it was interesting early on to see that the lower shoots grew so quickly that everything pretty much ended up in the canopy, kinda like scrog but with less effort. I am using a few yoyos to help the sagging limbs, and I continue to thin out leaves that are not coated and getting in the way. Seems to be drinking less, I am for sure topping up the nutes less. Overall still going great, smells fantastic, buds are coming on nicely. I did check the trichomes with a mini microscope and every single one that I saw was solid white. I expect it will likely take a week or so before I see amber, but I know it will be worth the wait.

Buds are getting heavy, clearing out unnecessary leaves to maintain airflow and try to keep humidity down. Everything running as I would hope, getting itchy to chop it down, lol. Trich's are all milky white.

I noticed that the whole right side of the tent had basically collapsed, so harvest was upon us. Using hedge clippers I cut away large chunks of the plant: THis thing is huge. Put some celophane over the cut ends and taped them, had to load them into the tent for drying at a couple of different levels so that it is stacked. Will update once I have dried and cured.