Right now debating upgrading all my lines and fittings 1/2". it is the same OD that Octo uses on their autorefill.
Looks like the floats I previously purchase are the same for 1/4/, 3/8 and 1/2 by the little adapter. so searching for a 1/4" bsptr to 1/2" Tube OD Quick connector and I will not have to mess with the installed float in the ammo can.
Having trouble finding a manifold. current plan is max of 2 plants in the 3x3 so I’ll make do with a Y splitter.
I like a winter project.
I put my plants on autopilot for nine weeks, Here’s How
Greetings Octopodlers,
This thread has attracted a small encyclopedia of details on what works and what doesn’t for the simple autofiller design we’re using as a model. I think we’ve got it more or less dialed in and fine tuning is the order of the day. For the most part at least.
But I’ve been experimenting with a technique that can allow very lengthy periods of hands-off veg growth. That might come in handy sometime. I’m writing this on the presumption that it will prove useful to Y’all.
In late July I realized that I had everything I needed, to try an experiment that my pal @gpaw suggested a year or more ago. He found that he could significantly slow the growth of cannabis mother plants by reducing their lighting to extremely low levels. The plants remained healthy, they just grew really slowly. I was soon to leave on a lengthy journey and I wondered if I could combine low level lighting with an autofiller system to keep a room full of plants alive while I was gone.
As it turned out, that was successful and below I’ll try to detail what I did, what worked and what didn’t
Here’s my setup. We have a simple autofiller system with the reservoir on the left, the water level controller on the floor below the reservoir. The large reservoir is just a heavy duty tote that holds 30 gallons. It is tilted to get the last drop out to the plants. The nutrient water you put in the big reservoir is delivered to the controller then to the octopots as needed by the plants.
There are six cannabis plants in the picture; one on the right, two front Left and two each in the back row pots(two large & two very small ones). Together, the represent the spectrum of growth stages: the two smallest were young clones, the four mid-sized plant were 3-4 weeks old from seed, and the larger specimen on the right is a mother plant that has been around for over a year (clearly in need of Mother Maintenance & a good haircut!)
The five individual micro octopods are sitting on rotating platters and connected with 3mm/1/8” tubing arranged so that each pot can be rotated for even lighting and easy pruning. This is a simple and inexpensive way to provide adjustable automated feeding for Octopot-style SIP systems.
The big reservoir was sized using some very sketchy assumptions and rough estimates of how much combined water & food the plant were likely to use. Based on the octopot’s daily drawdown I guestimated water usage between a quarter and a half gallon per day… That would allow the plants to be watered and fed for about 60 days. The reservoir tote holds a nominal 30 gallons and it was filled before we departed with Jack’s 20-20-20 at 50% of full strength (EC:0.68). I also added 1 tsp epsom & 2 tsp gypsum per gallon and a ml of Hydroguard in each octopot. The final feed water was pH adjusted to ~6.0.
Above the plants are three ViparSpectra XS2000 LED grow lights. In late July I began ramping down the light levels in stages from 900 PPFD, down to an average 50 PPFD (DLI ~ 3) at canopy level. The lighting timers were set at 18/6 for this entire run.
The room has pretty good environmental controls and I dialed in an average VPD range of 0.6- 0.8kPa with the intention of keeping the room fairly moist as if they were seedlings. I expected the plants to complain bitterly as they were deprived of the photon flood, but it was surprisingly uneventful. They just slowed down.
Setup and fine tuning was completed in early August and I hovered over the system for the next few weeks, watching and worrying, but afraid to make any last minute adjustments. On the evening before we left I filled the reservoir one last time, gave the plants a pat on the head and walked away.
When we returned in mid October I rushed down to the basement “Laboratory” and found a healthy jungle!Despite being spindly, they looked quite healthy and ready to reenter a more normal world.
On closer inspection I saw that the reservoir still had water to spare, but the individual octos were nearly bone dry! As I opened the controller box I noticed that water wasn’t getting to it but just removing the lid jiggled the float valve and the water began to flow. Apparently the salty nutes managed to clog the little float valve and cut the reservoir supply off from the controller and plants. That weak link is a problem that needs a solution.
So, that’s my story and I hope it will be helpful to others. I’d like to refine this into a common technique rather than a sort of a stunt since it opens up some possibilities that I hadn’t considered before. Questions & comments are welcomed.
Respectfully Submitted,
-Grouchy 
PS, It turns out there is more to learn about gently “WakingUp,” plants from hibernation. I think I have increased the light intensity too quickly for their liking, resulting in some minor but concerning leaf damage…
Got some more supplies since I had a few ideas.
1/2 inch Bulkhead Connector
Silicone tubing
Valves
Looked at the float valve I had purchased in 22. same seller still sells them for 1/4 / 3/8 and 1/2 OD line. all the same floats, only difference is the push fit connector.
got the connectors. now I do not have to re install the float.
My largest logistical problem is the replacement of the bulkheads in the µ-Octos, control box and main reservoir.
Reasoning it through, main rez has a lot of pressure at the spigot. if I change the gage of the line that goes to the controll box, it should work fine.
manifold can be sorted out later (prolly a combo of barbed Tees and valves) as max I’m planing now is 2 plants at a time.
that’s all I got
LOL, Amazing results! 
9 weeks unattended… wow… 
and a salt hydro system ‘to boot’… Now that’s stoner engineering at its best!
Well done!
Cheers
G
I’m feeling teh LoL too Brother! 
But with irony frosting! If we’d been gone yet another week… All would have been lost!
Most plants in octos seem to like letting their water level get really low for a little while, like having a deep breath of pure oxygen! But if those roots actually dry out, Yikes!
That, my friend would have been a greek tragedy! LoL
So, I came so near to being a complete Kook, all for the price of a $2.00 float valve! Ms. Knife is showing us The Way forward! I’m doing a retrofit as soon as she shares some more details.
-Grouchy
Hi @GrouchyOldMan !
So what do you think the salt buildup happened because of?
Would using a 1/2 inch piping help?
Or automating the mixing of the rez using perilstatic pumps like these?
Very nice, Almost 2 month of nonattendance. Great work.
Keep up the awesome work. 
“So what do you think the salt buildup happened because of?
Would using a 1/2 inch piping help?
Or automating the mixing of the rez using [perilstatic pumps like these”
Good Questions Kev,
Inorganic salt nutes can crystalize out of solution for a variety of reasons and form a crust that can clog the float valve in our systems. That seems to be the weak link. I haven’t seen or heard of a clog in the small tubing we use, or the fittings that connect them.
I don’t think that using liquid nutes will change the equation, they either have the same salts, or organic versions of the same components which have more particulates that would increase the chances for clogging. Mixing the nutes in the rez wouldn’t help because the problem is in the controller.
The talented @SaintAliasKnife suggests replacing our 1/4" float valves with a 1/2" version that looks “plug compatible” to fit in our Controller boxes. It will require either running 1/2" tubing up to the main Rez, or an adaptor to convert 1/2 → 1/4 tubing upstream of the float valve.
I think that’s the solution.
-Grouchy
PS, Best Practices is to power flush all autofill components after each grow, but you already know that…
After re-reading that until I understood what you were sayin, I totally agree. The main Rez is the only component that really does have much water pressure. So,resolve the diameter problem at the main rez, bulkhead increase 1/4” up to 1/2” tubing and take that all the way to the controller & float valve. Then use your existing 1/4” manifold and feed lines, valves, all the way to Octo.
Good Call Knife, pls post pics and results for us…
-Grouchy
PS, what does this flavor of 1/2” tubing look like? Is it the Daddy of our 1/4” tubing?
And some BudPorn (These are the orphans who I didn’t have room for in the suspended animation pots. I tossed them into the veggie garden and abandoned them to their fate. They did pretty well on their own, considering.)
Taking this LITFA to a whole new level @GrouchyOldMan
I think the tubing listed above is the soft kind. Pretty sure you found leakage issues with this.
Maybe something like this would work better
If it’s the SharkBite PEX stuff it really is heavy duty., designed for plumbing pre-fab housing and RV’s. Plenty reliable for our use. Not sure on the flexibility. Maybe PEX and the fittings are pricey?
Let’s see what @SaintAliasKnife reports.
Been dealing with a light plague in the house and haven’t been willing to do much. Need to pickup a stepped drill but as the bulkheads I got were 1inch in diameter. The 1/2" OD tube i found was black silicone food grade.
I’ll update when I get it implemented.
Waking Up From Suspended Animation
Well golly, I feel like I’m back in Cannabis 101. Turns out that putting our babies into suspended animation is easier than waking them up.
Suffice it to say that when you revive cannabis plants from deep hibernation, you should take it slow and ramp them back up to normalcy with care.
I’m not pretending that I’ve got this process dialed in, but I want to share what I’ve learned so far.
First a quick recap. After nine weeks of travel I returned to find six very stretchy but healthy plants living in five micro octopots. They had survived under very low lighting and 50% nutrients delivered from a large reservoir through an autofiller system that kept the plants topped off.
My excitement at finding them alive overcame good judgement and I promptly set about “normalizing” their environmentals; raising the VPD to dry them out a bit, bringing up the light levels, correcting a flow problem to allow the autofiller to bring the pot levels back up and mixing a new batch of full strength Veg nutes.
Big Mistake. Huge!
Three weeks later all but one have returned to health, but it was a struggle. Here are some suggestions:
Empty and clean the main reservoir. My 30 gallon rez was crusty with dried inorganic salts after weeks of use. Adding new nutes resulted in a much higher EC/PPM strength than I intended. Dump the residual and give the res a good rinse with fresh water before reusing it. This likely applies to the individual pots as well. It would be a headache to empty and flush each of them, but probably a good idea.
Disconnect the autofiller and manage each octopot separately. My plants each responded differently on awakening. Letting the autofill deliver the same mix and water level was a mistake. Hand fill each pot and monitor pH, EC and water usage separately until they are back on track. The octo feed process drops water levels slowly, increases pH slowly, and maintains a steady EC as a matter of course. So that’s what you are looking for. Check em every day until they are back on track.
Watch for mineral deficiencies. Two of my plants indicated a severe magnesium deficiency for reasons unknown. Troubleshooting was tricksie because they were on the autofeed so I couldn’t dose them individually. I think the problem was a pH related, nutrient lockout and the fix was a complete reservoir dump and fill with properly pH-ed water, light nutes and strong doses of both Ca & Mg using epsom and gypsum.
Ramp up the light intensity VERY slowly. PPFD was 50-100 when the plants were sleeping, I raised the level to 500 over the course of a week and that ten-fold increase produced some very unhappy toasty taco leaves. If I do this again I will limit the increase to 20% per week.
Raise VPD slowly. I intentionally keep the room fairly juicy VPD ~ 0.7 to treat them like young-ish seedlings. Raising the VPD to dry the room up to normal veg conditions (VPD ~1.3) was too much too fast.
When troubleshooting, test your changes using selective defoliation. Make a change to correct a problem, then trim all the damaged leaves on a branch or two and watch & learn whether your fix is working.
So, keeping the plants asleep was pretty easy and worked well. Waking them is a more delicate process. If you try this, take care with the awakening: go slow, gentle lights, gentle nutes, personal attention for each plant.
Respectfully Submitted,
-Grouchy
PS, here they are in the first week of flower! (Two mother plants healthy but not shown)
Really interesting
Great write up
Thank yous both : )
Are you going to play with the depth of sleep you put them in ?
For ease of normalising after
To eliminate some of the stretching
Sorry if you stated but when you adjusted the environment to sleep , did you lower temp ?
Haha I’ve so much to do today but this is way more interesting
Great question @ifish.
I think not. I was so impressed with the healthy vigor of the plants during hibernation that I won’t likely experiment further with the parameters: Very low light, low VPD, half-strength nutes & high water levels to keep the soil very moist.
They were very stretchy, but none of them complained when I trimmed them back hard on awakening. The next step was into flowering and I just treated them to a Schawzzy pre-flower pruning. Here’s a pic.
PS, temp ~75 degrees I think to maintain a sub 0.8 VPD
[Edits: checked my records and VPD was set to average 0.7, temp 75, RH 73%]
@GrouchyOldMan Have you experimented with Calcium Hypochlorite aka HTH Pool Shock? Will it help with the salt accumulation?
Or a filter in between the rez and the control box?
I don’t think pool shock would help with the salt buildup since it is a product of evaporating the nute-rich water.
I use Hydrogen Peroxide to oxygenate the small pots for root problems, and I have a UV sterilization light in the main Rez to kill any bugs in the area.
I also just bought the gear to increase the plumbing between the main Rez and the float valve in the controller. Lots of sizing compatibility issues with the 3/8” fittings, not sure I’ve got it right yet. The only component that really needs to have a larger orifice is the float valve itself. I haven’t seen a clog in the 1/4” tubing yet.
Makes sense!
I read that it affects the nitrate or some other nutrient, did you face any such issue? How long do you keep it on for?
Thankfully I do have a 3/8 fitting from my rez to control that fits perfectly!
I do have the other end of the problem though! Since its a 3/8 float valve the minimum level that it sets is higher than the one the 1/4 float valve does!
