Short Rider & Northern Lights Auto Grow

Hey doni, plants are looking nice! I just noticed that you went way down on the nutes. Cause my plants just hit week two today, and they look a little bit smaller than yours, and seem to show no deficiencies. So I'm kinda iffy on feeding them atm. I have the nutes, and for week two it says 6tsp BB and 2tsp GB. Thinking of doing 1.5tsp of BB and .5tsp of GB? Seems a lot though... And when you mix GB and BB together, it says don't mix the concentrates. Is it ok to put the BB in the water, and then add the GB?

Oh and I just realized that I'll only be using 1/2 gal of water cause that's all I need to start seeing some runoff. So I'll be going .75tsp BB and .25tsp GB.. Sorry too lazy to delete and fix -.- lol. Any help would be appreciated .

Last thing.. how many inches is your scrog from your medium? I got mine at 7" away from the medium. Seems a little far away...

EDIT: I just added 1/8 tsp of GB to one quart of distilled water. Guess I'll have to wait and see tmrw how it turns out. I read somewhere not to add BB till five weeks in... Couldn't remember why, but have you heard anything about that? And now that I realized I only use a quart of water every time (about once every day and half - two days), it seems kinda off. Is that normal to only use one quart of water to my one gallon smart pot? It just starts to run off with the one quart.

And do you have to flush before you start on tiger bloom?

So my schedule might look like this..

Week one (starting today) - 1/8 tsp GB
Week two - 1/4 tsp GB

actually now that I think about it.. it should start to show flowers in the next two weeks... and if so when to implement BB and TB . Been going crazy with this stuff... lol

treegoesmoo said:

Hey doni, plants are looking nice! I just noticed that you went way down on the nutes. Cause my plants just hit week two today, and they look a little bit smaller than yours, and seem to show no deficiencies. So I'm kinda iffy on feeding them atm. I have the nutes, and for week two it says 6tsp BB and 2tsp GB. Thinking of doing 1.5tsp of BB and .5tsp of GB? Seems a lot though... And when you mix GB and BB together, it says don't mix the concentrates. Is it ok to put the BB in the water, and then add the GB?

Oh and I just realized that I'll only be using 1/2 gal of water cause that's all I need to start seeing some runoff. So I'll be going .75tsp BB and .25tsp GB.. Sorry too lazy to delete and fix -.- lol. Any help would be appreciated .

Last thing.. how many inches is your scrog from your medium? I got mine at 7" away from the medium. Seems a little far away...

EDIT: I just added 1/8 tsp of GB to one quart of distilled water. Guess I'll have to wait and see tmrw how it turns out. I read somewhere not to add BB till five weeks in... Couldn't remember why, but have you heard anything about that? And now that I realized I only use a quart of water every time (about once every day and half - two days), it seems kinda off. Is that normal to only use one quart of water to my one gallon smart pot? It just starts to run off with the one quart.

And do you have to flush before you start on tiger bloom?

So my schedule might look like this..

Week one (starting today) - 1/8 tsp GB
Week two - 1/4 tsp GB

actually now that I think about it.. it should start to show flowers in the next two weeks... and if so when to implement BB and TB . Been going crazy with this stuff... lol

Click to expand...

Yea, I started out with only 150 PPM of nutes total towards the end of week #2 from sprouting. Out of the nutes that you have, I only mixed .5ts Grow Big, .5ts Big Bloom into a whole gallon of water, so for you it would be 1/4 tsps if you're using 1/2 gallon water. I started out way low because I do not want to burn my pants. I just keep a log of the PPM level and how much of each nute I added, so if the plants do okay, I can slowly increase it... I give a little nutes, then water 2-3 days later or whenever the plant needs watering, and then I feed again about 2-3 days later, so I have a few day in between feeding to monitor how the plants are doing on the amount of nutes I previously gave them.

I'm playing the nutes by ear. There's no exact science, and I'm no expert. I'm learning as I go. I've mixed the same amount of nutes into a gallon of water, fed my photoperiod plants with it, and burnt the shit out of some plants while the other plants did fine and took the nutes well... Now I just start low, monitor each plant, keep records, and slowly increase. Just keep in mind that what your plants can tolerate will be different from mine and may be different form plant to plant (unless you're growing photoperiod clones).

BB and GB are meant to be used throughout the entire grow, i.e., veg & flowering, and you can mix them both into the water at the same time. People see the word "Bloom" in the name and incorrectly assume that it's only for flowering plants... I thought the same thing at first too. - No, I do not plan on flushing before going on to Tiger Bloom. - As far as how much water your plant is using now goes, once your plant has more roots, it will take more water and will need to be watered more frequently. - My plants should get to be about 2-3ft tall, so I have about 8-10 inches or so between the medium and my pants. This is my first time scrogging, so I'm playing that by ear too....

Wow thanks a lot doni, appreciate it. I guess next feeding I"ll add some BB to the GB. My plants have to be under 2' o.o so I might invest in some pvc cutters. Do you know if its safe to be drying qwiso in the grow box?

And hows your girls doing? Any more updates pics?

Just a real quick update. Plants are close to 10 inches tall now and are doing well. The oldest 3 plants (2 Short Riders and 1 Northern Lights) have started to flower. My other Northern Light that hasn't flowered yet is only 2 weeks old. I've feed with about 350PPM of nutes this week with no signs of burns or deficiencies so far... I have 4 seedlings started (2 more Short Riders & Northern Lights) that are approaching 1 week of age. I have them sitting on 2 crates which pretty much keeps my canopy even.

Taking into account that I have 6 Regs flowering that use a gallon of water each on top of me having to water these 8, the process of mixing and PHing nutes in several 1 gallon milk jugs was a huge pain in my ass. I decided to put together a drip system to auto water my plants... Now all I should have to do is to top off the reservoir once a week, and change it out every other week.

Suggestions are welcomed...




Took the pics with my cellphone's shitty camera so...

Looks very nice and low maintenance except for maybe watching out for algae and mold forming in that reservoir, which it seems that you already have under control. Just looking at the picture of the reservoir (which I assume is the blue bucket), I see on the left a larger tube coming in. Is that the main water supply? I can see the pump - or what I assume to be the pump - to the right (it's white, maybe???) which feeds to the drip tubes...I just have a question, cause if there is a water supply going to the reservoir, why do you have to top it off? Obviously, I could be way off if there's no water supply actually coming in and that would answer my questions...but as I said before, getting more and more ideas from you for the next grow!
By the way, those autos are looking nice and bushy. Nice nice job !

fanofpanic said:

Looks very nice and low maintenance except for maybe watching out for algae and mold forming in that reservoir, which it seems that you already have under control. Just looking at the picture of the reservoir (which I assume is the blue bucket), I see on the left a larger tube coming in. Is that the main water supply? I can see the pump - or what I assume to be the pump - to the right (it's white, maybe???) which feeds to the drip tubes...I just have a question, cause if there is a water supply going to the reservoir, why do you have to top it off? Obviously, I could be way off if there's no water supply actually coming in and that would answer my questions...but as I said before, getting more and more ideas from you for the next grow!
By the way, those autos are looking nice and bushy. Nice nice job !

Click to expand...

Keeping the lid on the reservoir and keeping light out should prevent any algae. The silver pump in the pic is an air pump that's runs into the reservoir and is attached to an air stone. This should airigate the water, help with mold, and stop the water from becoming stagnant. This is a 4x4 tent sitting in a bedroom, so there's no water supply going reservoir. The large tube carries water/nute to the plants. It's connected to a submersible water pump that's on a timer and is sitting in the bottom of the reservoir.....

The Air Pump that's connected to an Air Stone stays on 24/7, but the Water Pump is set on a 7 Day Timer.

A Submersible Water Pump sits in the reservoir. A 1/2 inch tube connects to the Submersible Water Pump, is ran between the plants, and is closed off using an End Hose Clamp. I have 8 plants, so I punched 8 holes into the main 1/2 inch water line tube using a special Tube Hole Punch tool. I then placed 8 1/4 inch Double Barbed Connectors into the punched holes, and then I used 1/4 inch tubing to run water to the plants. Once at the plant medium, the 1/4 inch tubing is then connected to a Drip Ring that I made using 1/4 inch drip tubing (tube with premade reinforced drip holes) and 1/4 inch Double Barbed Tee Connectors.

Once the main 1/4 inch tubing fills with water an equal amount of pressure pushes water up to the plants and through the drip rings. I add nutes to the reservoir at the beginning of the first week. Around the middle of the week, I'll top off the reservoir basically diluting the leftover nute solution that will be fed to the plants. At the beginning of the second week, I'll take a PPM reading and will add enough nutes to bring the PPM level back to where it was at the beginning of week #1. I'll top off once in the middle of week, and will clean the reservoir and start over before starting week #3... Basically all I have to do now is measure out nutes once a week, and simply pure more water in the reservoir some time later in the week... Either way, it's less labor, and I can be away from the grow a little longer.. Plus it's soil, so unlike with hydro, I'll be okay if the pump should happen to fail while I'm away...

This if my first time growing autos, scrogging, and using and/or setting up a drip system, so I may or may not encounter problems.