An extra set of piping sounds great. i ordered a bunch of fittings and some 1/4 inch tube so I’ll make a duplicate in case i encounter clogs or hard water issues. Living in a rural area with an artesian well is nice in the sense that I don’t have to worry about chlorine or other water treatment chemicals but as i said before my water from the faucet has a pretty high pH and ppm. At some point I hope to do some kind of carbon filtration or something to bring the impurities down a bit.
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My water from my well lead to all kind of problems and was a hell to buffer ph!
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what was your solution?
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I figured that might have been the answer haha
Interesting. I may very well end up with a second rez that I thought would be useless but now I see a value in it. Thanks again for the insight.
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Seems I am always destined to have beans that do not sprout in unison. So right off the bat, first grow I had a plant in flower and one lagging way behind. Being auto’s I am fairly rigid about when I push bloom nutes so I had to do it. It’s handy and I also bought two extra 4 gallon pots and they have been handy to have available too.
Have you tried the smart pot/ auto pot configuration yet? I am gravitating towards that tech.
I am glad I asked because Drip Clean was a product that I was considering.
I really like your level measuring idea that gives me info feedback on several levels. I can track daily uptake and or lack of that would indicate line blockage. I will def implement that.
Part of my slime prevention is using a rez product by Cultured Solutions called UC Roots. I have used there products for several years now with good results.Their nute line is pH stable and I try to use the least possible amount for good results my philosophy being less is more in general.
I am also using a small wave maker, used in aquariums, to keep the rez well mixed/agitated and mitigate the slime from what stagnate surfaces tends to generate.
I have read that aerating the rez is not a good idea. Do you aerate your rez?
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I would think the ppm are from minerals in well water, not a bad thing in that it negates having to add cal/mag usually I believe.
On another level, I have read the perfect pH for water that we drink is 7.0. Having said that, I read this in a Fuji water ad or something(website)that the perfect pH for drinking is 7. I am just curious, having grown up on well water back in the last millennium, what well water pH averages.
@BIGE thus gentleman has the smart pots and just harvested from them recently.
started out trying to aerate the res but the action seems to raise ph across many growers so I stopped the air stone. BNought a small circ pump that was touted to be able to run dry for 36 hours. It died after 12 hours the first time the res ran dry. Now every time I check the depth with that stick, I stir the res up. @puffer1958
That’s what I heard that pH tended to drift upward with air. I bought a cheap aquarium wavemaker on Amazon. They are basically small underwater fans that keep things constantly mixed and I think that also might mitigate the slime problem. Here they are;
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LGRDF8A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Thanks, just bought em. 11 bucks, worth a go.
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And they work ok in moving the solution around w/o raising the pH?
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Imma gonna find out. I did run a small pump until, I didn’t and that little pump, set on a timer to run every 45 minutes, did not mess with my ph. @blackthumbbetty
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Just sowed a couple germed seeds in autopots and was going back over this thread. I saw this post and noticed the " (** full strength in autopots is about half the amount on the bottle)". Does that mean at day 5 you use 1/8 strength of what the bottle says, and on day 10 use 1/4 strength and so on? or does this mean that full strength for autopots should only be half stregnth?
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This is basically correct. For example, I was using Advanced Nutrients. The standard manufacturers rec on the bottle was for 4ml/L. Most autopot growers would consider 2ml/L to be close to maximum for an autopot grow.
If I follow you, yes, 1/4 strength of 2ml/L in my case OR .5ml/L. I’m not sure the exact amounts are necessary. It’s more about the concept of backing off the manufacturers recommended amounts AND strating the new seedlings off slowly with introduction of the nutrients.
I can say that I was pretty fast and loose with the nutrient amounts in those first 21 days. In other words, if the plant was struggling, go easy on the nutes, if you have a vigorous grower, use your own judgment and bump up those amounts for the first top feedings. The point would be not to start at half strength but to work up to it.
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@Screwauger - I looked but did not find this information - are you now using the new Autopot XL with the 5 gallon SmartPot? If not, would you stick with what you have if you had to buy a new system or go with the SmartPot? Thank you so much .
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No. I have my original autopots with rigid pots that are 3.9 gallon pots. I do want to upgrade my aquavalves but I do not think I would jump on the smart pots. I have limited space and I have grown monsters in 4 gallon pots. Can’t imagine the size of the plants in a larger pot and would def stress my space out. @BIGE has the xl smart pots and I believe he still loves them!!
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