How long can you be away from indoor crop?

[Samsara]

Hi All,

I'm a newb at this so sorry if this is a stupid question. Baisically i am going to be growing up to 4 feminized Northern lights plants in a closet type setup (the closet would be in the shed outside) I will be around for the 1st three weeks but then it is probable that i may have to travel for 1-2 weeks. I'm not sure yet whether its going to be a full hydro setup but im leaning that way, anyway, before i beign i was wanting to know if anyone has built an extremely low maintanence setup that could handle almost 2 weeks of neglect? I'm guessing that the watering wouldnt be too hard to calculate on a digital dripmeter but i wont be able to adjust PH or give extra nutrients etc. I'm beggining to think it could be inviting disaster but if anyone has tried to do this b4 then any advice would be great

 

Cheers

[Gazza2001au]

set up a coco/perlite run to waist system as u mention use a res with a pump on a digital timer once u have the watering set you'll be sweet only thing i can see u having a problem with is the plants growing into the lamp im sure u can work around this

[thc24]

flower clones Probally would need 4 to 9 per meter, as gazza said coco and run2 waste with a big res maby two 44 gallon drums = 400lt with a good mixing pump could last 4 weeks with 2 lights. Only needing one top up mix half way into flower that should get you pretty close to the end.

 

Its possiable but not practical on small problem like bugs, heat or overwater could kill the crop at any time without you noticing.

[Chato]

yeah 2 good responses but i'd say go re-circ dwc with a big rez and use fluros for the veg time while your away. i have left dwc sysems go for 3 weeks plus without toppin up but that's not vegging hard and with suitable rez. flower is another story and let alone bigger lights your looking in the range that thc quoted 400L+, that's a shitload of water the by the way .

 

peace

c

[Stoney]

ya could always go for soil and repot just befor ya go so then ya wont have to worry about nutes so much and your soil will hold alot more water so wont have to water as much in otherwords you wont have to worry about a huge res. if you let a dripper add 1lt to ya soil say every 2 days you should be all good so then a 20lt res tank would be heaps and you can even add some extra nutes to that if ya want

but then with soil you have more of a chance of gvettin bugs so that could suck if ya aint there to nuke the fuckers

 

cheers

[pipeman]

if your plants are well established in vegetative growth you should'nt have a big problem as long as you've got pleny in the res and some sort of automated watering system. Use fluros as chato said for when your'e away this will ensure slower growth (less chance of something going wrong) and if the plants get too close to the fluros they won't get damaged much.

 

If you are planning on going away a couple weeks after you germinate seeds I wouldn't recommend this. As you will be going away just around the time you'll be needing to plant the seeds and pop some seedlings.

Edited June 15, 2006 by pipeman

[Samsara]

Cheers for pointing me in the right direction, now i just got to figure out what dwc and run 2 waste means and i'll be right! . I read some posts saying that coco was a great water retainer so thats why im thinking of choosing that over soil. Its bad though becuse it looks like i could be traveling regularly..would be sad not to be able to watch em grow, not to mention coming back to dead/dying plants

 

Think on this i will

[Gazza2001au]

u can do a search on those methods in ur case the most rewarding would be a very basic system a pot filled with coco/perlite it'll need watering once every 3-7 days i have a nice mother plant in a coco/perlite mix last time she got a watering was about 4-5 days ago shes right to go another 2 days say if u were to use this system u just need a small tub probably 20 litres drop a water pump in there run a feeding line to ur plants set the timer to water once every 5 days easy as put some type of catchment under the plants to catch any run off this is "run to waist" with or without the timer

[Samsara]

Cheers, at the moment me thinking about autopots as this seems to have the benifits of self-regulating water usage. But then the system you suggest gazza would no doubt be much cheaper hey