Auto Pots... Yay or Nay !!!

Tasman69

Tasman69

Active Member
Hi Team, going to do a 12 pot grow and considering using auto pots.
1st, has anyone used a 12 pot system and what were your thoughts on yeild, quality etc.???
2nd, what medium have you used and what do you recommend.
Eventually I will probably go to a full reticulated dwc system but I'm keen yo find out if the auto pots are a viable system.
Cheers in advance for any info.
 
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Treesomewanted77

Well-Known Member
Tasman69 said:
Hi Team, going to do a 12 pot grow and considering using auto pots.
1st, has anyone used a 12 pot system and what were your thoughts on yeild, quality etc.???
2nd, what medium have you used and what do you recommend.
Eventually I will probably go to a full reticulated dwc system but I'm keen yo find out if the auto pots are a viable system.
Cheers in advance for any info.
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I don’t like the auto pots they aren’t anything great you can do much better with just 3g pots with a drain setup and auto feed and run DTW coco.
Some have had good luck with the auto pots but they didn’t work that great for me. There is plenty of forums on here about then just search auto pots.
 
coreywebster

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
I've still got several 4 pot xl autopots gathering dust.

They are all right for the lazy grower but don't compare to a proper auto watering system or other hydro set ups.

It's advised you upgrade the tubes as the 4mm do block with salt based nutrients, though i think you can get some sort of line cleaning stuff to add to your res.

Root mass wise I found all the roots tend to be at the bottom of the pot.

I used them for several grows several years back and after having blocked pipes a few times I gave up on them. Used with a few inch if hydroton and coco.

It's very easy to make a basic drain to waste or recirculation system .

The one plus for autopots is they are silent.

This is my opinion and I know there are folks on here who are very happy with them.
 
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Treesomewanted77

Well-Known Member
coreywebster said:
I've still got several 4 pot xl autopots gathering dust.

They are all right for the lazy grower but don't compare to a proper auto watering system or other hydro set ups.

It's advised you upgrade the tubes as the 4mm do block with salt based nutrients, though i think you can get some sort of line cleaning stuff to add to your res.

Root mass wise I found all the roots tend to be at the bottom of the pot.

I used them for several grows several years back and after having blocked pipes a few times I gave up on them. Used with a few inch if hydroton and coco.

It's very easy to make a basic drain to waste or recirculation system .

The one plus for autopots is they are silent.

This is my opinion and I know there are folks on here who are very happy with them.
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Same here they just sit around collecting dust but they bring me to my current grow style of DTW coco. I used them as a drain system and top fed them and that got me headed in the direction of DTW. So for that I thank them but it was a waste of money.
If I was to do it again with what I know now I would get a decent DTW system like the flora flex kits they are cheap and easy to run and provide great results but once you understand how the systems work it’s super easy to make your own setup that fits your space
 
MOMedical

MOMedical

Well-Known Member
Tasman69 said:
Hi Team, going to do a 12 pot grow and considering using auto pots.
1st, has anyone used a 12 pot system and what were your thoughts on yeild, quality etc.???
2nd, what medium have you used and what do you recommend.
Eventually I will probably go to a full reticulated dwc system but I'm keen yo find out if the auto pots are a viable system.
Cheers in advance for any info.
Click to expand...
Autopots are amazing, they just take some time to dial in and a lot of people don't like to work and just move on to other things without really learning or mastering anything, it's a big mistake new growers make mainly. By my 3rd run they were just dominating my hand water comparisons that I've had dialed in for years.

Athena Blended is the most recommended, it's almost foolproof and just follow their feed chart or close, it's pretty accurate for most phenos.

As for the upgrade comment, they changed to larger valves and lines the 5th gen probably 2 years ago so that hasn't been an issue for awhile now.
 
radicaldank42

radicaldank42

Well-Known Member
to be fair id just get a 5 gal bucket put the plant in it then newxt to it burry a 2 liter bottle that has small holes drilled out all around it make sure that the cap is just poking out. what youll do is youll just fill up those bottles with youre water/nutrients water bath. that is a form of deep watering and gets you excelent resulkts
 
twalte

twalte

Well-Known Member
I purchased some autopots, but the risk of leaks in my tent stopped me from ever implementing them. I’m going to try Octopots instead. They have a 6 gallon reservoir with each Octopot, and they can be hooked up to a larger reservoir if desired. They recommend a coco or peat medium with 40% perlite. Definitely worth looking into.

Another Grow system worth looking at might be the GroTech GroBuckets…..another sub-irrigated planter with a one gallon reservoir.
 
Highway61

Highway61

Well-Known Member
I tried auto pots for part of one grow and decided they were not for me. Some people figure out how to make them work very well but the problems of roots sitting in stagnant water and mineral salts concentrating in the medium caused me to switch back to hand watering to runoff. My own problems could have been sorted out eventually but I was unwilling to sacrifice the plants in the tent to do so in order to dial them in. I lost one of four to root rot before I got rid of the trays and put the pots on risers for hand watering.
 
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Treesomewanted77

Well-Known Member
calvin.m16 said:
Thumbs down from me. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. I ran their 6 pot system and it was not good, even following their strict guidelines and using no nutrients/additives that could clog lines it was always malfunctioning on a weekly basis and I had to eventually just move the containers onto normal trays and hand water. I would not recommend that system you are better off spending money on a simple pump some 1/2 poly tubing and some form of drainage system for the runoff to go to.
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I highly recommend the bucket company medical kits. I use the 3gal kit and it’s hands down a great kit and works very well with coco or hydroton or even perlite. Heck you can run soil but I wouldn’t bother with soil in one.
there are very reasonably priced to for a complete kit. If you want it super fancy add the drain pump but you can source that much cheaper off Amazon and I would get a decent feed pump.
 
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Treesomewanted77

Well-Known Member
I still want to play with a flood table and rockwool cubes and drip feed. But it’s dang near same as coco or hydroton in my book just needs to be treated little differently
 
calvin.m16

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
Treesomewanted77 said:
I highly recommend the bucket company medical kits. I use the 3gal kit and it’s hands down a great kit and works very well with coco or hydroton or even perlite. Heck you can run soil but I wouldn’t bother with soil in one.
there are very reasonably priced to for a complete kit. If you want it super fancy add the drain pump but you can source that much cheaper off Amazon and I would get a decent feed pump.
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I accidentally deleted my post instead of editing it. D: glad you quoted it. Now that is a company I can stand behind cause it makes sense. Top feed drain to waste. I only built my own system cause I wanted to save money and I'm growing 36 10 gal plants at a time.
 
calvin.m16

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
Highway61 said:
I tried auto pots for part of one grow and decided they were not for me. Some people figure out how to make them work very well but the problems of roots sitting in stagnant water and mineral salts concentrating in the medium caused me to switch back to hand watering to runoff. My own problems could have been sorted out eventually but I was unwilling to sacrifice the plants in the tent to do so in order to dial them in. I lost one of four to root rot before I got rid of the trays and put the pots on risers for hand watering.
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I had terrible results using Octopots. I would look into automating top feed & runoff instead of buying expensive stuff like that. TheBucketCompany is plug & play top feed system mentioned by another user above if you want to buy a system and not have the headache of designing & piecing it together yourself.
 
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Treesomewanted77

Well-Known Member
calvin.m16 said:
I accidentally deleted my post instead of editing it. D: glad you quoted it. Now that is a company I can stand behind cause it makes sense. Top feed drain to waste. I only built my own system cause I wanted to save money and I'm growing 36 10 gal plants at a time.
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Wow 10gal coco? That’s a huge pot for coco. How long do you veg them for? I personally never needed anything bigger than 3gal cuz when I used 5gal I wasn’t filling half the medium with roots so I cut it down to 3.5gal hempy buckets before I got the 3gal bucket company kit. The only thing I don’t like about the bucket company kits is the manifolds they don’t sit flat on the buckets because of the way they are made so I don’t use them I put in drip rings but they are small so I’m upgrading those to a homemade square design that will soak all the medium when watered
 
calvin.m16

calvin.m16

Well-Known Member
Treesomewanted77 said:
Wow 10gal coco? That’s a huge pot for coco. How long do you veg them for? I personally never needed anything bigger than 3gal cuz when I used 5gal I wasn’t filling half the medium with roots so I cut it down to 3.5gal hempy buckets before I got the 3gal bucket company kit. The only thing I don’t like about the bucket company kits is the manifolds they don’t sit flat on the buckets because of the way they are made so I don’t use them I put in drip rings but they are small so I’m upgrading those to a homemade square design that will soak all the medium when watered
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Sounds like a good system you have going. I veg for around 8-9 weeks in the 10s. By the time I harvest the coco is literally a sponge of roots you can barely poke your finger into at all. 5 gallon I have had plants get root bound and finish horribly. The plants in flower are 5-6 ft tall depending on the plant.

I had a friend with a large grow with 10 foot ceilings that used 20 gallon pots but he was growing TREES like 5 ft x 5 ft 8 ft tall trees. You had to climb a painters ladder to get to the tops and the plants required stakes + 3-4 layers of scrog to prevent them from falling over or busting branches.
IMG_5371.jpeg
Some people prefer growing a bunch of dinky small plants and some prefer growing a few large ones. Depends on your grow style & space what pot size you use. Coco doesn't magically make the rootzone capacity bigger you will always need more medium of any kind if you want huge plants. The guys posting their cute little tables with 5 gals are growing tiny baby plants idc what they say cause they'll use 1 example of someone getting 2 pounds off a 5 gallon pot in 2013.
 
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Treesomewanted77

Well-Known Member
calvin.m16 said:
Sounds like a good system you have going. I veg for around 8-9 weeks in the 10s. By the time I harvest the coco is literally a sponge of roots you can barely poke your finger into at all. 5 gallon I have had plants get root bound and finish horribly. The plants in flower are 5-6 ft tall depending on the plant.

I had a friend with a large grow with 10 foot ceilings that used 20 gallon pots but he was growing TREES like 5 ft x 5 ft 8 ft tall trees. You had to climb a painters ladder to get to the tops and the plants required stakes + 3-4 layers of scrog to prevent them from falling over or busting branches.
View attachment 5247216
Some people prefer growing a bunch of dinky small plants and some prefer growing a few large ones. Depends on your grow style & space what pot size you use. Coco doesn't magically make the rootzone capacity bigger you will always need more medium of any kind if you want huge plants. The guys posting their cute little tables with 5 gals are growing tiny baby plants idc what they say cause they'll use 1 example of someone getting 2 pounds off a 5 gallon pot in 2013.
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Dam nice trees lol. Now I see why you chose that size it’s definitely needed. I don’t have that kind of space so I got to keep them much smaller. I do let my outdoor hoop house get way bigger but still not that big. Someday maybe I will get a bigger space but stuck for now.
 
N

Nope_49595933949

Well-Known Member
calvin.m16 said:
Sounds like a good system you have going. I veg for around 8-9 weeks in the 10s. By the time I harvest the coco is literally a sponge of roots you can barely poke your finger into at all. 5 gallon I have had plants get root bound and finish horribly. The plants in flower are 5-6 ft tall depending on the plant.

I had a friend with a large grow with 10 foot ceilings that used 20 gallon pots but he was growing TREES like 5 ft x 5 ft 8 ft tall trees. You had to climb a painters ladder to get to the tops and the plants required stakes + 3-4 layers of scrog to prevent them from falling over or busting branches.
View attachment 5247216
Some people prefer growing a bunch of dinky small plants and some prefer growing a few large ones. Depends on your grow style & space what pot size you use. Coco doesn't magically make the rootzone capacity bigger you will always need more medium of any kind if you want huge plants. The guys posting their cute little tables with 5 gals are growing tiny baby plants idc what they say cause they'll use 1 example of someone getting 2 pounds off a 5 gallon pot in 2013.
Click to expand...
Wow
 
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