I would like to start another grow soon but I will be away at least a week. What can I use to make sure the plants get watered while I am away?
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My auto watering system is a nephew named Scott. lol.
Seriously, though, if you haven’t started yet I would wait until you get back. Young plants are extremely sensitive to watering practices. They need tending daily with small amounts of water.
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Google SIP (sub irrigation planter)
Thats a Bruce banner growing in a homemade SIP, you can make them out of all kinds of stuff and it’s not hard at all.
I discovered how easy autopots are to use and i now do 99% of my plants in autopots or a SIP of some sort.
Depending on how much water your SIP holds, you could go a week easily longer if large enough.
Mine holds about 2 gallon and through veg that was plenty for the week, now that it’s in flower it’s about 3-4 days
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Drip system and a bucket with enough solution to last the time your gone
Limited-time deal: Upgraded DIY Automatic Drip Irrigation Kit, 15 Potted Houseplants Support, Indoor Watering System for Plants, with Digital Programmable Water Timer https://a.co/d/7UKvY1F
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can i borrow him? lol
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If only for a few days, the cheapy automatic watering systems from amazon work. I hook mine up when the plants get big enough that I have to move them around when watering. Just get some black hose so algae doesn’t build up.
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They make an adapter that screws onto a plastic bottle, 2 litre or smaller, it looks like a tent stake, that just gets pushed into the soil to support the bottle in the up right position. It has knob and dripper attatched to set for the desired drip. Cheap even offered thru wallmart.
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They are advertised under Hot Best water spikes, cant believe nobody has ever recommended these, principles of an IV drip system. @Hoggwild
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Lol, that’s a good one
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I use autopots and also gave 5 gallon SIPs a try.
I grew purple haze photos in the SIP. They worked great up to mid flower
Then ran into ph issues
I flushed the peat and perlite medium thoroughly and drilled holes in the out bucket and finished the grow with normal top feeding.
Do you do anything to prevent or manage issues and deficiencies? If I were to use them again I would go with autos thinking a shorter life cycle would work better.
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There is a system called Blumat you could look at
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I think i remember seeing you’re grow when this happened last year 
So this is just my “school of thought” but it seems to work.
But I run alot lower ppm with anything i bottom feed.
My thought is, theres never any run off, nothing is ever washed away, so every mineral i add stays and builds up, so I don’t increase my ppm in flower like most do.
My first few plants in the autopots I tried running ppms like i did with top feeding and it never seem to workout to good 
once i started running lower ppms its not been an issue.
Im literally useing half the nutrients i use to 
Starting with water thats below 100ppm, that bruce banner auto in the SIP is on just under 500ppm and the giant The white og in the spring pot is a little over 700ppm.
This is with coco-coir/perlite, i tried peat one run and it was the worst half way though flower i believe my ph was off from the peat breaking down but just my thoughts
.
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I use Jacks, either 321 or TAP nutrients, and am leaning more toward the “less is better” line of thinking myself. I currently have a top fed Afghan being fed Jack’s TAP. I rarely feed at full strength which puts me at 1100 - 1200. I regularly feed at 50% or 75% rates with 25% runoff (coco & perlite) I am using the same rates with autopots. However, I have to throw in a PHed water only occasionally.
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What medium are you growing in? I’m hooking up a Rain Point auto water system (WIFI) for while I’m gone. When the plants need some moisture I’ll run it manually from my phone. So the medium can make a difference of when water is really needed. I’m home to water more than away but there are those times.
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The auto watering drip trays made by ac infinity work very well. I’ve run 70/30 coco/perlite in a 5 gallon fabric pot had a plant in mid flower last November I was in Cancun for 10 days the plant didn’t miss me at all.
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I do that in my outdoor garden but without the dohicky. I used to drill a hole in the lid but now I just invert the bottle and press into the soil. Depending on how the soil drains it can last over a week but if the bottle falls it’s empty in seconds.
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I’ve been seeing people doing the bottom watering system and it seems to work well. I can’t remember who that was, can you @Borderryan22!
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I had a little cheap Amazon automatic drip feeder. Until the discharge hose came off and fried the thing. But I haven’t done bottom feeding.
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I do very well with bottom watering systems “autopots”.
Heres my current grow.
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Ya know, growing up, i was a bottom feeder 
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