Oh it’s in the “probiotic” family, I start my soil a couple weeks before planting with the bacterias and fungi to get it going good so I guess what I’m saying is there’s no to soon and these little critters help your plants with food, roots, n fighting off diseases molds and bugs. It’s mother nature’s go to for everything
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Im gonna try that in my next grow, letting the soil cook for a couple weeks.
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Hey, @Docnraq, sorry for the very slow reply to your question. Been going through the love/hate relationship with trimming a harvest the last couple days. This was from my first hydro grow since the mid 80s, and boy did I make some wrong turns along the way. But was able to get it finished in about 11 weeks of flowering, and I learned that mistakes slow things down even in a hydro grow. Ended up with somewhat small but frosty buds of Bruce Banner with a kinda weird looking two tone color. The biggest problem with leaving the hydro for more than a couple days is the ph drop.
To my surprise the soil tent turned out to be much easier to leave for a week. This was my first tent, it was before growing was legal in my state. I placed the tent in the basement furnace room in order to keep it out of sight. I had to put the tent on a platform in order to bridge a drain line. This is for a sink, and it runs across the floor to a floor drain located just in front of the platform. After using the new tent for a couple months. One day I was sitting on a bucket watching the run off pudding in the low spot in the tent’s floor, and thinking this is going to be a ongoing pain in the ass. This was when it occurred to my dumb ass that the run off was puddling just above the floor drain, and a drain through the bottom of the tent was all that I needed. So I cut a short piece of a very large drinking straw and sealed it into a hole that I drilled in the tent floor and platform. Now the run off makes it’s way to the drain tube then to the floor drain and gone.
This tent has just one Skywalker clone that was taken from a reveging plant, and this turn into a large bush that filled the tent. This plant is in a 5 gallon bucket using air injection on the roots, and running Mills Nutrients. So not having to worry about draining with an automatic watering system. It was easy to make a drip ring, and set up a pump and schedule. Setting the timer for to run the pump for 10 minutes on and 24 hours off, and this was delivering 1 gallon per cycle. Supplied from a reservoir with 12 gallons of nutrient mix. This was a little bit heavy on the water supplied, but worked fine until I could return and continue to water as needed.
Thanks for asking, and I will follow up with some more info about the temperature and rh reading in my tent.
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Great looking setup, and plants my friend. That two tone is crazy! Made me do a double take.
I think the reservoir temperature has a lot to do with the color. I had over fed them and it took two weeks and four reservoir changes to flush. During the flush I started dropping frozen jugs of water in the reservoir. This seemed to cause the leaves and bud tips to turn purple, and increasing trichomes production. During the second week of flush the green parts started to go pale, and the purple continued to darken.
This is one of the lessons learned, don’t be so quick to dismiss those who say you need a chiller. While my reservoir stays at 72 - 74, since this borderline for the need for cooling the reservoir. I could grow without a chiller. But being able to cool the roots for those nice colors maybe easier and better than trying to cool the air.
During last winter while in soil the cool air did not change colors as much as the cool hydro reservoir did this summer.
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I want to setup some kind of system so I can water more then one plant at a time. Id grow more plants if I had time to manage them all. 12 plants would take forever to maintain the way I do know.
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I rigged a pump and timer to auto water four plants and it worked pretty well. Not as well as autopots IMO.
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I recently set up auto watering because I’m working two jobs. Short cycle timer and irrigation parts saved my plants. Best thing I ever did. I purchased drip rings from drip depot, and the manifold to split the lines. The rest was irrigation tubing purchased locally.
I have it set to water for 5 mins every hour.
Azos is a great product and can be added anytime. Mycos a similar product for root development, but I think they may have similar bacteria and fungi in the ingredient list.
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Im not so much looking for an auto feed as I am a way to distribute the liquids I intend to give them to multiple plants at a time, can you point me in the direction of something that will split 3 gals equaly to 4 plants?
That’s a very good question, AutoPot or a DIY waterings system?
Since the AutoPot has a couple disadvantages. It is not easy to flush with them or check run off numbers, and the fill valves can malfunction causing some flooding problems.
I believe this decision needs to start with a couple questions about your grow location.
1 Can you just drain the run off or accidental overflow? If your location requires pumps and float switches to remove it. This would probably be a bit much for the average home grower, and it is just more things to go wrong. With the absence of a simple way to drain, the advantage goes to the AutoPot.
2 The AutoPot requires that the reservoir be elevated above the fill valve. With the DIY the drip rings need to be elevated above the reservoir. In order to prevent siphoning of the reservoir. Either of these can be somewhat challenging to deal with, and should be taken into consideration.
In my small tent, I find it is better to use the buckets with air injection. I normally just top feed to a run off, and let it go down the drain. Also the bucket makes checking run off numbers and flushing very easy.
When we leave for a few days. I sit the reservoir in front of the tent, drop in the pump hooked to the drip ring. The hardest part is dialing in how much to run the pump, and also the timers that will work can be difficult to find. The worst that could go wrong is the pump not cutting off or a hole in the reservoir. Either one would result with the contents of the reservoir going harmlessly down the drain.
Nice! That is where I will begin looking. Thank you Covert!
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Im found out today Ill be living in this damn apartment for another 14 months. Starting Dec 1st…growing in an apartment takes just a little bit of fun out of it all. The drain would be so stress releaving when doing automated feeding and what have you.
A drain is high on my priority list. After using the drain on the first tent. When I installed the second tent as a veg tent, and there was no drain close by. I put this tent on another platform but a little taller one. I did this so that I could put a drain tube in this tent also, and just slide a drain pan under the platform.
This worked just fine, until one day when it occurred to me that putting a reservoir under the platform would make a good hydro set up.
To this now.
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Sorry about the apartment. I am sure you are anxious to be, where you can do what ever you want. In the meantime, I think it is smart of you to stay within the limits of your location, and do to best you can with it. From the looks of the pictures you are doing a great job.
Wouldn’t it be great to build a grow room from the ground up?
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Thats the daily dream my friend. Maybe even a spot or two in the back yard for a raised bed cannabis garden 
Also looking to start a San Pedro and Peruvian Torche garden. Cant do none of that here in this lil concrete box.
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@Docnraq, I have done some more testing if the temperature and humidity in different locations in my tent. Even with good air movement and exchange rate there is a lot of stratification of temperature and humidity.
One thing that was surprising is that the temperature and humidity above the light was almost exactly the same as on top of the canopy. I sit one hydrometer on top of the light with the top of it’s case in the exhaust duct opening, and the other hanging on top of the canopy.
I found that it kinda breaks down to three areas, and the average constantly went like this.
Above canopy area temperature 80 degrees, rh 47%
Inside the plant at 2/3 of height 77 degrees, rh 52%
Bottom of tent 75 degrees, rh 54%
Based on this, if I was using a VPD chart I would use the measurements from inside the plant. To me this confirmed that the top of a canopy is a bad place to get reading for VPD. Like I have been preaching about.
If you want to use this to tell when the plants need trimming. I would compare the humidity in the plant to the bottom reading. If the plant reading is becoming equal to the bottom, (The plant reading should be lower than the bottom). This may indicate the plant is holding too much humidity, and needs to breathe better.
Hope this helps someone else!
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Seems like the best place to have your control probe is just under canopy level. RH reduces the further up the tent you go so having the probe where RH is highest would be helpful to eliminating mildew during flower. You would want to lower the temp trigger to make up the difference but only by 3 or 4 degrees. Am I making a sound conclusion from your testing?
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I think everything that you are saying is correct.
Personally I don’t even worry about trying to control humidity as long as it is around 50%. If it is starting to stay close to 60% or 40% I will pull out the VPD chart and see if it it worthwhile to pull out the dehumidifier or humidifier.
Also I tend to disregard any reading above the canopy, as you know I like to use the shade and closeness of the middle of plant. Now I know this is not possible with small plants then I just use the bottom of the tent until the plants are big enough to shade the sensor. This takes what about 3 weeks.
Just trying to give some insight about sensor locations to those who live by the VPD.
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Dabs mostly. Though I have dropped a few dabs into my vaporizer with some flower for a kick in the bowls! Works really well in there too. Id like to cook with it but wont until I can one of these.
This will allow me to do “jar tech” sauce and diamond seperation. I intend to cook with the sauce and dab the diamonds.