Pot size will help that, I use half a gallon worth of coco in a one gallon pot. Used to use 3 gallon pots but they required lots of water like what your describing now with just a few plants. I get the same results I mean sure they will have thicker trunks possibly more yield but just adding an extra plant will do it IMO.
If ur room gets higher than 76F its warm enough to rot the rez and ya pool shock or bleach will help and maybe solve it. It didnt for me though. My only option is get a RO filter and or water chiller. I dont have 300-600w to do that and it might not work so hesitant to try.
I just got used to using 5 gal bucket per plant and its own pump. Im enjoying the benefit of being able to give a seperate plant its own ec because it needs half the ec my main plant uses. Shes just a heavy feeder. I do 6 plants max so 6 buckets, 7 oz per plant.
I need to feed 12x a day though unless it has less roots to slurp up water like a straw so it can do 8x a day. 12x a day need refill bucket daily 8x is every 1.5 days. I spend like 5 mins per bucket so 30 mins a morning watering plants. More coco would just ruin it by needing much more water.
If you can get away with 4-6x a day fed it will last two days maybe more but then it rots. So I keep a empty bucket to rinse/fill then put the pump/lid into the new bucket and repeat. I dont “top it off” its literally swapped but not cleaned. It can last indefinatly like this but always good to bleach the lines/manifolds/halos and pump each run.
Id need to get rid of a tent or wait until winter when portable ac isnt needed and maybe summer if to use home ac but it doesnt cool my room like a portable ac. 2x a day isnt very good in dtw coco Ive never done one grow successfully that way even with 3 gal pots.
Someone here actually does it and claims its fine but my experience wouldnt allow it so I do what I do now. When my roots arent decked out I feel like there are patches in the coco that get salted up and just aint hard for the ecosystem in the pots to be off. Just in my words, like high ph runoff from bacteria and bugs or acidic for reasons I forget, salt build up? 6.0 is good. I havent been into runoff ph for long.
So when I had clones not decked out it got salt build up easier so I had to increase runoff amount and I think I added extra feed per day to correct. When its decked out and feeding in the 5-6x a day range I just get a healthier root system. Theres actually a lot going on in there even in a sterile dtw coco setup.
Are there algae and white salt crystals spotted through out coco on the top where you can see? Are the roots just going crazy poking out the sides of pot all the way up or just the bottom? For it to be sipping so slowly and not drying out visibly bone dry in moderate conditions overnight it just doesnt sound great. I understand cant do much but somwthing to consider, its a pain dealing with 3 gallons.
