leaving my grow while on vacation

jimmylegs

Active Member
i am 23 days into my grow and could use some advice.

here's what i have: Auto strains: Auto AK, and Auto White Russian, 2 each. all are very healthy. they started flowering.

FFOF Soil, in 2 gal bags under a 400w HPS cool tube. Garden temps averaing 80-84 deg. RH between 25-40 (a little low).

Using Fox Farms nutes. Have gotten to full strength on last watering. I am following advice from others and feeding nutes with every other watering. I was going about 1.2 litres for each plant, every 2 days. It has been 3 days since last watering and plants could probably go until tomorrow...that would make it 4 days from the last nute water.

So I'm heading out on vacation for just over a week and have set up a dripper system with a 7 gal res. i have tested each dripper to deliver about 1.5 liter in 8 minutes.

per my schedule, the next water will be without nutes and I can do this before I head out.

I have figured out that it will get 4 waterings while I'm away - at every other day.

Here's my thoughts. I think i would rather risk a little extra water than having them dry out - the soil is draining well and plant/pots wont be standing in any runoff. So i will set up to water 1 liter every other day.

I was thinking that I could use 1/2 str nutes in the res, which will have an air bubbler - at least they will get some food.

when I get home I will water with straight water (assuming that they are still alive!) and then get back on schedule with full str nutes.

anyone have experience with this, or have opinions?

thanks,
 

jimmylegs

Active Member
i got this: Hydroport Watering Manifold. its got 8 outlets. bought some 1/4" line and some stake drippers. it was a little time consuming to get each dirp stake to distribute a similar amount of water, you use a screwdriver to adjust the flow. If i had some more time i would get a constant flow dripper (i.e. 1gph dripper). then it would just be a matter of calculating the time.

i think it will work well provided we dont have any power issues while im away. I think that there are probably better ways that dont rely on power, but then my lights require it and if the lights go out, then i have another set of issues. so I'll risk it.

any ideas about the nutes in the res?
 

jimmylegs

Active Member
oh...and make sure that the drip stakes are above the water line of the reservoir....otherwise the pump will turn off and the water will just keep on flowing...just like syphoning gas.
 
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