Green Inferno: you asked for help and Mr. Natural was nice enough to respond. If you didn't agree with his advice, oh well, it didn't cost you anything did it? But he took his time to try to help you. If it was me and you gave me the same static I'd tell you the same thing only I wouldn't do it as nicely. I'd likely tell you to get off your ass, do your own research and I'd scratch you off the list of people I'm willing to help. We have a lot of lazy clowns in some of these forums who don't want to do their own homework, they ask for help, we give them our best guess/advice and they don't even have enough class to say thank you. Instead, they give us static. Oh well, just remember: what goes around comes around.
If you don't agree with what he says get someone to house sit your plants or come in and check on them on a daily basis and plan your absences around your growing schedule. That's what the rest of us have to do. I don't like the idea of leaving my plants alone, even four days. I did it once over a long holiday weekend and I came back to two out of five dead and a third one close to it. A buddy of mine lost all of his crop that way. Last month I shut down my operation altogether for almost three weeks, the first time in about five years, so we could go on vacation. I'll start it up again in the next few days, but one thing I've learned about hydroponics is that it's very unforgiving with with absentee farmers, especially with what we're growing. Now my policy is: no days off until the harvest is in. Some thing to think about.
