100L RES W 8 x 25L autopots system

**WakaWaka** · 28-03-17, 01:27 PM

I know not many people have used autopots but basically it comes down to a a plant sitting in a bucket of nutes. Supposedly they imitate the wet and dry conditions but I dont ever really see my pots go dry unless I fuck up or the res runs out.

Me being lazy as I am I decided to upgrade the sys size as I believe my plants would prefer 25L to 15L and filling that damn 47L res once a week is annoying in a way. Ive been ordering nutes in the ludicrous size aswell (5 and 10L )

I have a air pump in my reservoirs and one has a water pump that recircs the junk in the tank.

I am lazy to the point where I grab a 100Ml syringe and just give the 47L res 200Ml of coco A B some calmag and liq silicon and ph down. I believe the E C readings were easily 1.8 but I have never had nute burn and I gave this stuff to the plants as soon as they popped over the ground.

Should I push for higher ec? Any tips into my set up? Im getting the 100l res so ill be dumping a ton of nutes and correcting a bad batch will be a catastrophic option. Am I bubbling the autopot res for no reason or does it legit oxygenate the mix? And if autopots are such no brainers why doesnt everyone just dump their plants in a puddle of nutes instead of measuring runoff etc? Thx in advance guys.

**TomKing** · 28-03-17, 01:52 PM

I've used auto pots for a while, I use four 27L autopots, and I use two 47L tanks, one tank per two pots.

I love the 27L pots, I do large scrogs, and at first I was using one pot under a 1.2M scrog, I took near 18oz from that. I upgraded to two per 1.2M scrog and I pulled 23oz from that.

I don't put any air in the res any more, I found it drifted my ph too much. I do use a tiny re circ pump though, its essential.

Do you use air domes in your auto pots? if you don't you 100% should, i saw easily 30% increases from doing that alone.

My experience really has been that auto pots really are that simple, I make sure I give the res a clean out every so often, and once in a while will just give them ph'd water for a week. I never measure run off, and always get great results from them.

**WakaWaka** · 28-03-17, 04:14 PM

Yeah I have air stones in some of em but only just started since an ebay seller decided to screw me over by never sending the pump and waited for the return.period to run out

**TomKing** · 30-03-17, 12:54 AM

Stones? Or domes? You need domes in the bottom of the pots.

I leave mine off for a week when I first transplant to the 27l pots.

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**mrnice586** · 30-03-17, 01:02 AM

Iv not done auto pots but considering trying them. Iv read mixed things about them airdomes some say they are great some say they dont make any differance.

I would have thought that the ec in auto pots would have to be lower than normal since its always sitting in the nutrient.

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**WakaWaka** · 30-03-17, 09:41 AM

Airstones for me...did i mess up? I can diy some air rings

Mr Legend · 30-03-17, 10:42 AM

I've been running autopots for couple of years now and I'm really satisfied with their performance, I feed only RO water through the system as my nutrients organic and they're premixed in the substrate...

I don't use air domes but I do have an air stone in the tank bubbling 24/7...

**TomKing** · 30-03-17, 07:16 PM

Yeah auto pot make it a pain to see how they think it's best, but after many grows through my autopots,

I find the air domes

Really do make a difference, but you need to put a reasonable amount of air in them, my pump is "ok" I've seen results with better pumps... massive.

When filling the pots, air done at the bottom then washed clay pebbles until I can only see about an inch of the air dome when the pebbles are levelled, then add 60/40 coco perlite, until about an inch from the top,

Then I run 30/40litres of plain ph'd (ph5.9) water through each 27 litre pot, and let them sit for an hour or sit to dry out just a little.

Then transplant.

I leave the air domes off, and don't connect the water tanks for minimum at week, you do not want stagnant water sitting in the bottom of tray being bubbled, which slowly runs the ph up.

I do water with a small amount of very weak feed, with plenty of root booster. Just to settle the transplant in and give the plant something to start with.

Then I wait, it may need one small feed from the top before I'm happy to turn on the auto pot tanks and air domes.

If I do feed I use a jug and pour it just around the stem. I don't want to be wetting everything.

Then just keep topping the tank up, until I switch to flower, then run RO water (ph5.8-6.0) for a week. Then switch it over to flower nutes.

Then back to plain RO water for the last two weeks to flush it.

It's very important to not top feed again after you have turned the autopot tanks on. A lot of salts gather in the top two inches. If you top water you push this poison through and will burn your plants.

I think that's everything...

But I generally have no problems.

But!

-keep the res outside of the groom
-I keep a small circ pump in the res tank, best on a timer to circulate for 15mins every hour, to keep the heat in check.