Wedding Cake | Seed Junkies | Plat LED

Alrighty... so... I wanted to have the best of both worlds, hydro and soil. 40% of my girls were in cheap soil though... I filled my reservoirs, tried to oxygenate them well ( half assed it I have learned ), and watered every 3 hrs with oxygentated nutes ebb and flow, into 3 gallon smart pots. Had I dont this right, would it have worked? I learned the hard way that overwatering kills... my hope was that if I was to continuously refresh the water ( as in hydro ) I would have a constant supply of oxygen and in the pots with spendy airy peat based soil it did seem to work, but in the pots with the cheap stuff ( from when I was broke and it was time to transplant ). - it didnt. they got super unhappy looking like nute deficiencies a plenty... tried to address by searching the nute deficiencies and fixing... first epsom salts amending.. When transplanting I smelled the problem under the pots... root rot. Did I know to add a fungicide when doing a recirc with soil? Nope. Do I know now? Yep. But heres the thing: would that even have fixed it? Can you do recirc with soil? Is that stupid? I hunger for the ease of automated watering, and I am hunting for a solution that does not risk overwatering the plants.... I cannot bet on 'hyper oxygenated water constantly flowing through and replacing the old' at the moment unless someone steps up and says ' yea, that would work, I do that ' The solution I have found - best so far, is this one https://www.happyhydro.com/collections/blumat-systems/products/blumat-medium-box-kit-automatic-irrigation-for-up-to-12-plants Has anyone tried that product? Sensors in each pot for under $10/plant, adjust to make it perfect and it never over waters. Partly Im asking because I am being guided by a new mentor who suggests aiming for living soil, and have been doing my research, found this: https://overgrow.com/t/whats-your-favorite-living-soil-recipes/17984/2 This pursuit started when I was spraying everything under the sun ( only organic ) to try to kill aphids, and each spray would subsequenty burn the plants. Some solid googling, and I am now using neem exclusively, and mixing a plant food into it. The article pointed me to Neem, Silica, and Maybe aloe.. And while Aloe is on order, I mixed up the following ( feedback? ) Neem, Silica, Kelp, Humic Acids, Fulvic Acids I followed a guide and made 5 gallons of the stuff so I dont have to keep mixing it up. Just sprayed, and sprayed, idea being that I am actually feeding the plants while knocking down the aphids. Planning to try a pyrethrium bomb as well. Been fighting these guys since the mom plant came ( she came w em ). Present day, my system uses a peat based nute infused light quick drain rogue soil baseline On ebb tables with drip Most likely drain to waste, but decided overwatering was killing em / slowing them with experiement #1 ( above ), so the waters off, transplanted into dry soil to dry them sooner, they are still 3 days after transplant, measuring 10/10 on the moisture scale What did em in? Trying to narrow factors here, these are the possibilities I see - Overwatering - sure, but if it had better oxygenation would that had eliminated the problem? - Trying to recirc in a res with soil - ummm... dont know anyone doing that. - Trying to recirc without funcicide in the rest... def could be ( referring to bacterial fungicide, all natural ) - Spraying with everything under the sun thats organic ( could be ) Anyhow... Im coming out the other side I also found some mold growing on the wood in the roof of my garage... meh... I had been following VPD studies, which indicate that with Co2, plant ideal growth temps hit 80 - 85, and the corresponding ideal humidity based on VPD charts is thus 80% RH, so I tried it, without covering the wood in the garage.. and the beginnings of mold... experiment over. Inbirk controlling dehum now, running at all times - check Humidity down to 60% RH with 1 dehum, setting set to 50% RH, thus getting a 2nd dehum Temps at 75 with co2 at 1500 Plants gotten no water for 3 days, letting em dry till 45% moisture, then will use auto drips moisture sensing ( 1st link ) to boost to 55 and keep em in that range Recirc with soil most likely over, will swap to drain to waste, and will hook up a sump in the drain buckets/ reservoirs / tubs to channel that waste to the back yard where I will put some veggies in Restructured away from grow tents, ditched em, took one out, spread out the tables, got rid of the scrog net, so I FINALLY have access to the girls from all around the tables instead of having to 'wing it' in solid canopy with no access to certain ones... Planning to feed with my custom feed/neem blend likely daily or 2x a day till I see ZERO aphids, with a bomb in there somewhere to really trip that cord and hopefully make it through bloom w no bugs 20% of the growth tips look unhealthy from the root rot issues, so clearing the reservoirs, resetting them, adding fungicide to the new ones, just a smidge, and switching to drain to waste... Damn... last 4 weeks have been nutty... so many lessons, so fast... had I never pruned, nor scrogged, nor defoliated these girls would be at 6' already, and Im thinking that would have been smarter, since I am still not dialed in enough to confidently flip to bloom. Also going to take immediate steps towards creating living soil, adding vermicompost, a couple inches, on top.. might add clover cover crops, and doing a super deep, super strong innoculation with recharge Replacing my ghetto fans with oscillating fans And looking into a dosatron, to be able to ditch the reservoirs altogether... Phew... geez... this was a hard zero to google it to try to get pro couple weeks for this couple of plants Im trying to keep alive and kickin. Damn.