New grow room Autopot grow

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AREA 51 IS FINALLY COMPLETELY BUILT!!!

There were three new 20A circuits installed with new outlets for each circuit. This gives me four total 20A circuits in the room, plus the A/C. I am not using nearly this many watts but it sure is nice to be operating with safe electrical work!

Seriously though, don't grow if your electrical isn't up to code. It's not worth it. Take that from me if nothing else.







Some pics of the:

Veg setup





Flower end



Hashing cart and automatic hash washer



I think the only thing I could have done to make Area 51 more proper than it is now is if I would've finished the floor. It took forever, but I really think I nailed it! Everything is done right and with good equipment and the right knowledge. I'm so excited to share this grow with you.

I transplanted my plants into their 2.2 gallon veg containers yesterday afternoon. It was relatively simple to transplant out of the dividers that the plants were previously in.

There were .55 gallons of coco/perlite for each plant in the divider. I subtracted this from 2.2 gallons and that left 1.65 gallons of coco/perlite that would require V-Basis, the beanstalk veg nutrient. At a rate of 25 grams per gallon, that would mean I would need to add 41.25 grams of V-basis to each pot when I transplanted.

It was too easy to add these nutrients to the coco/perlite and now all I will need to do is add water to the reservoir and pH the water. I had turned the reservoir off after transplanting, leaving the water that was in the bases already to see if the plants were able to bottom feed. To my surprise, 24 hours later and the bases were dry. This allowed me to open the system back up for self watering.

It really is amazing how the plants don't seem to be stressed out from transplanting when using the autopots. This is something I realized last time I transplanted and again this time. The plants almost seem to just keep growing. Even the runty blueberry bang bang seems to have grown bigger immediately following the transplant.

It is important to note that I poured 2 solo cups worth of pHed tap water on top of the coco/perlite after transplant. I think that may be all I need to do in terms of top watering.



I'm hoping that the runt in the bottom right will recover and I will have 6 healthy plants for flower. I'm not sure exactly on how to shut off water to just one of the autopot xxl bases. I supposed I could plug the line.

The plants continue to grow. The runty BBB seems to be recovering.

There's a nice bit new growth they just need a bit time now.
What's your reason for potting them off centre, I'm guessing it's to do with keeping space later in grow?

Star Dog said:

There's a nice bit new growth they just need a bit time now.
What's your reason for potting them off centre, I'm guessing it's to do with keeping space later in grow?

Click to expand...

No reason, some of the plants were leaning over when I transplanted. I'll try to take a good picture of that when I get a chance. It does look like that though.

The growth is crazy if you really compare both photos post transplant. The first picture was taken about a day after transplant and the second picture was forty-eight hours after that. I didn't do anything particularly special when I transplanted and yet I am seeing virtually little to no transplant shock and the plants are one node higher.

You can see the stem in this photo.



Tonight I checked the aquavalves to make sure that they are functioning properly. The problem that occurs is the plant bases stay full of water and do not ebb & flow as designed. This was an issue I ran into last year although issue is a strong word because the plants never seemed to mind. You would think the roots would need some oxygen at some point.

I checked the valves by pulling water out of the plant bases with a large syringe. The bases with the two largest plants, the two The Hive phenos in the back of the tent, did not seem to be working. I could tell because I would remove water halfway, and the base would immediately begin to fill back up. So I turned off the system, cleaned the valve, returned the valve to the base, turned on the system, and repeated pulling water out. Once all the valves seemed to be working I replaced the covers on the plant bases. I placed them upside down to make it easier to check the valves without potentially shaking the base and causing the base to refill with water.

I just found this post which goes over the problem I was having with my aquavalves and how to fix it. Apparently placing a washer or weight on the valve float will ensure that the valve works properly. I will test this out in the coming days.

Using what I could find, I sticky-tacked some nuts to the valve floats on all the aquavalves in the veg tent. I'm hoping this fixes the problem for good. This has been the main negative to the autopots is that the aquavalves don't always work like they should. Autopot should adjust this for the aquavalve 6.

Just wondering if you have contacted Autopot about this issue? I'm using autopot right now and haven't had this happen yet. I'm using the fabric pots (geo pot I think it's called) and have had roots grow through the copper pot socks and get into the valve area. Luckily I caught it in time to remove them before they wrapped up the valve.
I believe I would call them about your problem. They might be helpful.

RottyRzr said:

Just wondering if you have contacted Autopot about this issue? I'm using autopot right now and haven't had this happen yet. I'm using the fabric pots (geo pot I think it's called) and have had roots grow through the copper pot socks and get into the valve area. Luckily I caught it in time to remove them before they wrapped up the valve.
I believe I would call them about your problem. They might be helpful.

Click to expand...

I haven't called them but I have read their troubleshooting guides. The guides don't mention this issue except for saying that the valve should be seated firmly and on a level surface.

I checked the valves again this morning, this fix seems to be working. I will contact autopot with this information in an email although I am sure they are aware. It doesn't seem to be a problem for everyone, but a big enough problem that many people are having the same issue.

From a reddit AMA:



Seems like the autopot folks don't like the idea of adding a weight to the float valve but I did everything they suggest through their troubleshooting guides to remedy the issue of the bases not draining and the weight is the only thing that's helped. The folks there don't want to admit it could be a problem with the design but in my little opinion I believe there is a design flaw if multiple people are having the same problem. I look forward to talking with them and seeing if we can come up with a solution without the weight but for now it is working with the weight.

The plants continue to grow and are looking mad decent regardless.

I've reached out to autopot and I will be talking with them on the phone tomorrow. I wouldn't recommend this "hack" as autopot claims it is detrimental, although I'm going to keep the weight on the aquavalve for the time being because it does seem to be working. I manually removed some water from the trays after letting them refill as they do fill a tad bit higher with the weights on the float valves.

I checked the pH of my res and to my surprise it skyrocketed to about 7.0 over the course of the last four days. I refilled the res and pH'd to 5.6. The autopots make it possible for you to leave the grow for days at a time if you so choose although I would be wary about pH drift in the reservoir. I might want to invest in a bluelab pH controller for the flower reservoir.

In fact, growgeneration has one at a deep discount right now. I bought one. This way I know my flower reservoir will always be at the proper pH. I may upgrade to a larger reservoir another day and possibly use it to feed into both the veg and bloom autopots. I might regret this tomorrow but the discount was real and I know it will add to the convenience of my set up and if I do go on vacation I know I won't have to worry about coming home to fried plants.

Thanks for posting that response from Autopot. Please keep us updated with the issue. It sounds like they want to help.

I've different types of aqua valves the mk2 valves I originally used are better quality than the newer mk3 6mm blue version they feel fragile af

The newer mk4 or 5 grey type are meant to be more reliable being 9mm but tbh I've not had problems with any autopots.

The Hive pheno in the front middle died on me so I replaced it with the backup GMS that I was keeping in the solo cup. I switched up the pots so that the Hive phenos, the GMS phenos and the BBB phenos are next to each other in the planters.



Also did a defoliation on the plants as well. The bottom right plant is the GMS that I just transplanted.

Growing right along.

ryan s said:

I've reached out to autopot and I will be talking with them on the phone tomorrow. I wouldn't recommend this "hack" as autopot claims it is detrimental, although I'm going to keep the weight on the aquavalve for the time being because it does seem to be working. I manually removed some water from the trays after letting them refill as they do fill a tad bit higher with the weights on the float valves.

I checked the pH of my res and to my surprise it skyrocketed to about 7.0 over the course of the last four days. I refilled the res and pH'd to 5.6. The autopots make it possible for you to leave the grow for days at a time if you so choose although I would be wary about pH drift in the reservoir. I might want to invest in a bluelab pH controller for the flower reservoir.

In fact, growgeneration has one at a deep discount right now. I bought one. This way I know my flower reservoir will always be at the proper pH. I may upgrade to a larger reservoir another day and possibly use it to feed into both the veg and bloom autopots. I might regret this tomorrow but the discount was real and I know it will add to the convenience of my set up and if I do go on vacation I know I won't have to worry about coming home to fried plants.

Click to expand...

I've been curious as to what you found out. Did you talk with them?

RottyRzr said:

I've been curious as to what you found out. Did you talk with them?

Click to expand...

I actually couldn't reach them on the phone number while I was at work but I got Luke's number at autopot. In the mean time everything has been working great so I didn't prioritize it like maybe I should have. I will message Luke back and see what he thinks. Everything has been growing very well and the autopot issue was fixed by the weights. Just saying that. The information in the AMA was not correct in my experience.

The plants seem to be growing very well. The Hive may be my keepers for the next grow although I am interested to see how the other strains turn out, especially the Blueberry Bang Bang.



Also, shout out to Beanstalk CRF, these plants are looking great!