You’ve been busy lol
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trying to get a perpetual going of 8 plants, with a harvest of two plants every month
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Good luck that a great goal
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I’ll never seen this problem with my Octopots before, I was doing a reservoir refill and noticed the far back right bag (the one I can’t reach) is covered in a white fungus . so I crawled back in the tent wiped everything off with a towel it came off quite easily it was actually quite moist to the touch
I really should’ve taken pictures it didn’t affect any other fabric ba g in the tent
I was thinking of spraying the bag with a lite mix of bleach and water
And of course increase air flow
Has everyone seen this before ?
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this is what i see
and yes, if you keep a fan blowing below the canopy you can reduce the moistness of the bags exterior.
i noticed running the grid system wire mesh thing, stopped this from happening due to double layer
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I use this and have not seen anything like that on my Octopots. I have seen a white mold before on the outside of non Octo fabric pots filled with coco. It didnt effect anything as far I could tell. It was only the one time and I dont know why it showed up.
Lack of air flow at the height of the pots maybe.
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I know nothing of organics , but could it be the mycorrhizae in the promix blooming ?
: )
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Salt deposit and algae
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what i was told from holly (a employee), its normal and part of the breakdown process. let me see if i can find what she said.
from that image she said it was algae
this is what my bags look like right now, after about 4 grows and no washing, just shake and add more medium
i haven’t noticed any mold or anything on my buds, it stays contained to the far bottom 1/3 of the bag.
now that you mention that, i do supplement my coco with myco
and in my image it looks like the start of mushrooms then it dies, hense the yellow vs the white
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Also looks like Octo has fallen on hard times. (would explain the sudden disappearance of @OctoKaley)
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This I’ve seen many times.before but the this wet fuzzy blooming white furry stuff I’ve never seen it’s different but it cleaned off and extra air flow worked so far thanks for the reply’s
Paps
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Returning to personal growing after a 22 year absence. In the 90’s I hand-watered Pro-Mix in buckets with the GH trio and had pretty good results. After a lot of research I decided the Octopot design checked a lot of boxes for what I wanted and now I’ve just entered week 5 from the flip.
I have two 6 gallon Octopots in a 2x4 tent. One Octopot in a 2x4 would be adequate but I wanted variety and some insurance. I’m running Humboldt Seed Company’s Raspberry Parfait and Humboldt Dream in 60/40 coco/perlite using Jacks 321 and Hydroguard in RO water. I’ve been top-watering 8oz of Recharge once per week.
Thus far I have been impressed with the Octopots performance and plan to continue using them but still have more to learn on fine-tuning pH, EC and nutrients for the system. One of the major attractions to the Octopots for me was the promise of being able to fill it up and leave them unattended for a while without much risk of something going wrong. I would say this has proven to be true except for the case of pH maintenance and I’ve read many similar reports. From a water consumption perspective I would be comfortable leaving them alone for maybe 4-5 days but from a pH perspective I’m not sure I would want to leave them alone for more than 48 hours. When the plants are smaller it isn’t much of an issue but in late veg and flower the pH swings have become fairly dramatic.
With the Humboldt Dream, the plant that is doing the best, I’m setting pH at 6.1 with EC of 1.3 and within 24 hours the plant has consumed ~1 gallon and reservoir pH is 6.6.(calibrated Apera PH60). I do not use airstones. I understand pH swinging is entirely to be expected with a rapidly growing plant plus the biological activity of the Hydroguard, etc. but I’m interested in learning more about pH in this system with goal of being able to leave them unattended for longer periods.
I’ve read various takes on this issue:
-Don’t worry about it, just let it swing. (But swing for how long and how high?)
-Use tap water.(mine is 0.7EC)
-Mix tap with RO for more stability
-Higher EC will result in less swing (I’m already approaching the upper limit of EC recommended for SIPs)
-Don’t use airstones or limit their on time (I don’t use airstones)
-Use nutes that are more pH stable (Jack’s is supposed to be pretty stable already)
-Set the pH lower so you have a wider swing range (set to 5.8 and let it climb to 6.5? Set to 5.8 for coco?)
-Get some Torus Hydros (Pretty expensive for this use case, multiple reservoirs)
-Use the autofill system (somewhat space constrained, additional complexity, not sure exactly how much stabilization this would add)
-Get a pH dosing system (complexity, cost, multiple dosing sites, not a single reservoir)
-If you had a planned absence you could dial the light and temp levels down to slow the plant’s transpiration. (sub-optimal?)
-Use some kind of amended soil mix and just feed pH’d water. (prefer to avoid soil)
If you are using Octopots:
-What is your media?
-When you fill the reservoir what do you set pH at?
-What range do you let the pH swing before adjustment and about how long does it take before you need to make the adjustment in a given growth stage usually?
I’m just looking for any general advice on pH ranges and adjustments from those with a bunch of Octopot runs.
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You shouldn’t top water after the inital water, you’ll keep the roots in the bag instead of letting them grow into the res. Taking away from the main benefit of the octopot.
50/50 coco/perlite w/ 4 layers of myco. (1 layer every 5 inches)
6.2 - 6.5
Out of the year I’ve had these octopots not once have I adjusted the PH once it hit the rez.
Who ever said that is a idiot, and yes I’m calling you out who ever said that. Not only is that bad advice but can also kill your plant.
that high af, i would recommend running that though RO or buying water from a store.
Higher EC brings down PH, temp can fluctuate the PH and EC as it warms up or cools down, always get your tap water to room temp before feeding it to prevent fluctuation after entering the rez, if your mixing all your nutes up when the water is 58 degrees, then yeah when it warms up the numbers will change.
you can use airstones with your nute mixing, but there should be NO airstones in the octopots, and if there is, its ran in 15 mins on and 45 mins off cycle. With airstones on, the PH will change due to the movement of air though the water.
jacks is very stable and wont swing on their own unless your temps of the water when you mix up the nutes is either really high or really low compared to the ambient room temp.
no clue what that is, but i dont run it in my octos.
that wont change the fact of the temp flux with mixing of nutes and changing the EC and PH as the temp moves in either direction.
i mean you could do that, and take yourself out of the growing equation completely.
you want mold/budrot, thats how you get budrot.
super soils shouldnt be used in octopots.
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My understanding is that this is generally correct but I’m not really top feeding here. The Octopot manual states, “Octopots are bottom fed systems, and top watering/feeding is not generally recommended. However, organic nutrients can be washed into the soil approximately once per week.”
8oz of Recharge from the top isn’t much in a 6 gallon sleeve, kind of enough to wet a pocket of the sleeve with the beneficials without draining into the reservoir. My reservoirs are completely filled with roots and drinking heavily.
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it wont penetrate the soil deep enough to matter, (root mass starts widening around 8 inches down the bag) and by wetting the top of the bag, you are giving a place for bugs to call home. the dry top acts as a gnat barrier, because most bugs wont call the soil home if the first few inches are dry as hell.
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Are you saying your pH doesn’t swing above 6.5 or that you don’t really pay attention to the upper limit and just reset it to 6.2-6.5 when you fill?
I already use 0 ppm RO water because my tap is high. Water sits until it reaches ambient temps before I mix nutrients, about 64-65F. My reservoirs in the tent seem to sit around 66-67F with lights on. Lights off air temps are 65-68F, lights on air temps are 75-78F.
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my ph stays at where i set it. i never had to change it, and for the first few grows i checked the ph and ec in the octo-rez every day and for 5 days it never changed.
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Great conversation, thanks.
I hope others chime in and this important topic is fully hashed out.
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Apologies if I’ve overlooked it earlier in this thread but could you tell me what you are using in your reservoir? RO or tap(ppm?), nutes, additives, peak EC?
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Just checked my octo-rez. The water has been in the rez for 5 days, I’m watering today.
EC
Ph
Inside of octo-rez
The plant I just showed you the inside of its octo-rez
My Tap water, stright from the city, no RO or anything.
Tap, jacks tap, bud candy and cal-mag, 2.4 EC 4 weeks before harvest, for one feeding. then back down to 1.8 until finish then 0.6 last week.
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