Mr.Sparkle’s Arduino Controlled 5 Gal Bucket Micro Grow 2017

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 23, did some training on the Cream Mandarine XL and Big Devil XL, just a rubber band holding down the tops slightly, also bent over the Dark Devil top which will catch up shortly alongside the Red Poison,

If left as they were they would of ate of the height quickly over the next week or two, so in order to keep them in check i'll also probably defoliate slightly as we go on.

That and i started doing an approximate half and half mix of MaxiBloom and Gro at 400ppm total concentration, just cause they are starting to flower so i can start transitioning to bloom nutrients, also i'll up the feed if they start asking for it but with the increased watering frequency that may not be needed, i need to get my feeding schedule locked down for this bucket as it seems a little more finicky, my guess is due to a lower light concentration but i don't know, that or less air circulation compared to my PC cases.

Oh also Killed my DHT22 sensor, got it wet, so now it throws off a false RH% reading, not really needed but nice to know.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 26 did some defoliation yesterday, will probably need to do it again in the next couple of weeks but the less i touch it the better, still the odd fungus gnat or root aphid flyer which i just kill any that i see and im not to concerned at the moment as it bound to happen as they are in full force outside right now.

It will be interesting to see how much these plants will start to pack on here on out, the only real issue is the Dark Devil F1 is doing a weird leaf crinkle on the upper most bud site but is fine other wise, mind you it was a little funky since the get go so here's hoping that it wont be an issue.

 

[Jellypowered]

I'll be interested to see what you get outta this bucket this round vs your cases. I finished one of my grows,

400w hps, lots of mistakes, .35gpw for a total of 5 ounces.

Best smoke i've ever had, and i've paid dearly for some "primo" junk.

I kinda want to put cases and buckets all over my living room in the winter lol, if I gotta pay for heat, Might as well be growing something lol.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

I'll be interested to see what you get outta this bucket this round vs your cases. I finished one of my grows,

400w hps, lots of mistakes, .35gpw for a total of 5 ounces.

Best smoke i've ever had, and i've paid dearly for some "primo" junk.

I kinda want to put cases and buckets all over my living room in the winter lol, if I gotta pay for heat, Might as well be growing something lol.

Lol very true might as well create some byproduct heat with numerous mini jungles lol or a couple of bigger ones, a win win.

As to the first part ideally if i can get in the 0.75-1.0gpw range ill be happy, i just have a sneaking suspicion that i probably wont as one i don't have it anywhere near dialed imo and am running into the odd issues here and there, or something about the setup is off such as air circulation or something.

It will evolve though as im already thinking about about making a new bucket, as i have some newer parts i want to play with, but am holding off for a run or two to see what other things need more tweaks or changes.

As for your grow, any day you have some decent homegrown bud is a good day in my books, you'll definitely get better

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

i think i found one of the bigger culprits today, i think i've been under watering but just couldn't tell, as over the last little bit ive been manually triggering more frequent watering events, and have noticed today that the root growth is similar to how my pc cases are when things are going good, so i have that sneaky suspicion this may of been one of the issues for the lack luster results last round, and how the plants have been growing up till now, so i'll have to see if that is the case on the next round.

Downside to the increased watering is the fliers are liking the wetter environment, so i will have to keep an eye on things so they don't cause issues till the summer bug season is over.

Also accidentally broke off the Dark Devil top today, but it shouldn't be hampered too much.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 29 Almost half way there moving along but when i re inserted my soil sensor yesterday it was either bumped and wasn't making soil contact or something else but it ended up giving some false readings, and flooded the pots, so much so it emptied the reservoir and the excess poured into the outer 5 gal bucket, which bring up a good point to have your electronics higher than your lowest air intake just encase which all mine were was but yeah anyways no damage was done and the plants didn't even slowed down.

Definitely looking better this round, im gonna have to tie down the red poison shortly i think which is in the bottom left.

 

[Tbonegrower]

Everything is looking extra nice in the bucket. Glad I could stop through!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 33 Starting to bud out and color up

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 36 Moving along, upped the feed to 550ppm to see how they react over the next week, and will dial back as needed, was noticing some issues as you can see, but still looking decent.

 

[thenewstyle]

Looking good Mr Sparkle!
the deep red one looks beautiful!

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 42 Well been busy and haven't had the time to closely look after things so that over fertilization issue that was starting got worse and i didn't have time to fix it but i suspect it was a two fold issue, one salt levels built up in the coco to an ec of 1.2-1.4 which isn't bad but i think it was scavenging what it needed and leaving the undesirables, also now that i'm in flowering the plants have been acidifying the coco and because of that my ph dropped to the lower end of the spectrum.

So shitty, but finally got around to giving them a flush today and will be feeding slightly higher ph feed currently at 0.7ec and will up it on the weekend if the change in the plants is slower than i want.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 47 meh starting to finish out, definite improvements to be made for next round, i'll up the feed over the next week but its a little to late to have the plants respond to it, and may need to chop some early depending on the plants level of being done as im gonna be gone for a week.

The dark devil and red poison are looking nice, the big devil xl is a mess and the cream manderine xl is along the same route but better, so if anything the XL versions may not be ideal for my grow style, but ill run a couple more next round unless some other seeds eventually show up "Mephisto July Sale"

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 50 Recovering but as i figured too late to really matter as they are starting to finish out, probably will be one of the ugliest harvest in quite some time.

I'm also gonna be gone for a bit so i'll probably let these run out till day 60 which will put some possibly on the over done side of the spectrum due to them wanting to finish earlier due to the stress and the slight delayed start.

The Dark Devil and Red Poison are looking nice though.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 52, well we will see how they finish out over the next week as i'll be away, some are pretty close but we will see how they do.

 

[Gantz]

Everything looks AWESOME Mr. Sparkle.

I was wondering how many hours of light they are getting. Also, I see that the plants grow out of the 2gal and spread out into the 5gal. Do they occupy the entire space? How close to the lights do they get?

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Everything looks AWESOME Mr. Sparkle.

I was wondering how many hours of light they are getting. Also, I see that the plants grow out of the 2gal and spread out into the 5gal. Do they occupy the entire space? How close to the lights do they get?

This round i was giving them 20/4 being that they are autos but i use to run 18/6 might switch back after another round or two to see.

As for occupying the space pretty much i stripped the bottom two-three inches or so just cause the canopy is dense so it would of just been fluffy useless stuff.

As for how close they get, the top buds that were tied down got within an inch or two depending on how the lid was aligned.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

Day 60 They survived and i chopped them all down yesterday, definitely not run the best but oh well also the Big Devil could of gone a bit longer but time to start a new cycle.

 

[starke]

Beautiful harvest and pictures. Congrats. I can't wait to see your next run.

 

[Goats]

nice work sparkle. always a bit disappointing when things don't go how you had hoped, but you still have some flowers to puff on

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

nice work sparkle. always a bit disappointing when things don't go how you had hoped, but you still have some flowers to puff on

agreed, im thinking i'll probably turn most of it into extracts but will do some sampling of the ones i haven't run before first.