Yeah i was thinking about it on the way to work, ill make a 2liter smartpot and have that sit on a bed of perlite in a 3liter bottle, how easy is it to tell when the perlite res needs topping up?
Thats not a bad idea. Would there be any problems if was to get a plastic box thats roughly the same size as my grow space floor (16"x20") fill that with perlite and use it as my res and have 6 pots sitting on that
Intersting idea, you could control how much water a pot gets by just planting it on top of the perlite or burying it in about a half inch for more wicking. But your tent is going to be bigtime humid and it will be very hard to control
Ahh an increase in humidity wont be a bad thing, its always been low in there. Find a suitable box later and get it made up.
No idea. Not sure if perlite is your best bet. Maybe hydroton? Also you will have algae buildup if you have the perlite in the light. Maybe only trying on one plant to start?
I have a bag of perlite so ill try it, i have 3 seedlings waiting to be transplanted so theyll be the guinea pigs ha, in the link Serverchris posted the lad said cover the perlite if your worrid about algae, so ill lay some weed controll fabric that i make my smart pots from over it.
Wow that's a great idea I'm gonna give this a shot, I'm not the greatest when it comes to DIY so something like this suits me perfectly!
This is cool looking even if it's not working. From what I saw with my set up it seems like there is a height limit for how high water can easily wick. I have one fabric where it climbs up about 5" and seems to stop. Also where I compressed it it didn't look wet. So maybe where you compressed this in the neck of the bottle it is too compressed and you should try to find a way to have it less compressed?Easier said than done, i I followed and then modified a 2 liter bottle sip, you cut the bottom of the bottle, that becomes your res and then you invert the other part of the bottle and thats the pot, so i have the neck/lid portion of the bottle on the bottom and then fabric sides with no fabric base, height in my grow space is also limited bit ill see what i can do for the next lot of pots.
I do run a dehumidifier in my tent to keep the humidity down but to be honest I needed to run one even when it was just 6 10 gallon smart pots by themselves. It works really well though.
I've never reused the perlite after a cycle but I'm sure you could steralize it and use it again. That's the only downside to this method. Ive been too scared to just try to run the same perlite again as I'm limited on space so cant make any mistakes. I saw someone mention trying hydroton but he was advised against it, if I remember correctly they said it wouldn't wick as good as the perlite. Idk myself though, hydroton may work but perlite is cheaper here anyway so that's what I use.
I think my initial problem with this pot is that the living soil i have bought is dehydrated and hydrophobic so ot wouldnt wick up the water, i potted up new pots last night and left them soaking in a sink of water overnight and they now hold water. So maybe now my 3 liter bottle sips would work but im just going to use homemade 3liter (2.8 to be percise) fabric pots sat on a bed of perlite.
right you need to have all your soil moist before the wick will start and maintain. Also you need a cover crop or mulch or something to keep your top soil from drying out. This is KEY in any SIP AND living soil also. The soil needs to stay moist (not wet per say) all the time. There are people (and they have voiced their opinions earlier on this thread) that think this is the incorrect approach for canabis and think it needs to go through this wet dry cycle. I for one whole heartedly disagree with that. But yes if you look at the instructions for the inntainer posted earlier, in the end it talks about building the soil and making sure to wet everything as you add it and make sure the wick is also nice and wet to start the wicking process. You are on the right path man!
It also sounds like you may benefit from looking into the world of Hempys! Sounds like you might be shooting for some kind of hybrid.
That's reassuring that wetting the soil is going to make it work. But I'm still trying to figure out the limits exactly. I found that if you dangle a fabric in water, it only wicks so high. And if you compress the fabric by squeezing it through a hole for example, it seems to block the water from climbing considerably, which isn't surprising. There is probably some limit to how long your wick can be and if I could I'd like it longer so I can wait longer between refilling.
You know I've did hempys before and was kind of thinking how similar this is to one. The benefit to this way is being able to bottom water unlike hempys. Also a bigger resivour than a hempy would have. I did coco hempys and got fungus gnats because the coco needed watering so much. Have you ever seen anyone do a living organic soil hempy? I'm curious, I dont think I have.
i transplated my 3 seedlings last night, and like you said i watered the soil as i went.
i had a quick look into hempys, most what i read said they are good for big plants and my set up is more micro so big plants for me is not an option, also im all set up for sips nownbut thanks for the info, will keep it in mind if get more space in the future.
good morning, i feel your making a wonderful choice for yourself, just you wait till you see how much your work load is going to go DOWN!!!, no more mixing nutes, heck i dont even ph my water, because you get the buffering of ph from the soil, ( unless you live someplace that has insane ph levels most city water is stable), mix yourself up a good soil batch and its water only the whole ride, many of us do the dry nute soil trench, your going to like the growbox, the front fill res and the ability to see into the res is a major upgrade from the earthbox, plus there is no mess, you will need some way to get to those fill ports if you stack them all into a grow space side by side, you could insert fill tubes like the earth box uses so you can fill from the top, you can even place some styrofoam on a scewer and make a home made float so you can see water level with the glance of an eye ( like the ocotopot uses),, you can also make a self filling res by using gravity and some cheap plastic tubing, there is a video on youtube about that someplace, i can draw you a picture or try and describe it if your interested,,, there is no pump, no fittings, and no leaks using the gravity fill technique, plus you could draw a line in the fill res that shows water level ,, all thoughts to considerThe other day I got fed up with RDWC and hydro in general (after 20+ years). I felt like the Grateful Dead in 1970- after all the high powered experimenting, time to go back to a nice, stripped down organic type grow. I'm hoping for American Beauty quality, or at least Working Man's Dead!
Sorry for the hippie reference, LOL. Anyway @Tim Fox recommended I look into SIPs. After looking at various grow types, I am ready to go this route. I even read all the 91 pages here and a few SIP grow journals.
Right now I have a few plants finishing up in the RDWC (which is really DWC now since the water pump broke). They should be done within a month. I am then removing the system. I will run some DWC buckets next, since I have some nice plants in DWC veg. Along with finishing up the DWC plants, I will slowly add some SIPs until the room is all organic SIPs. I transplanted some bare root cuttings into one gallon organic pots yesterday and they look great today. I'm running all Bodhi gear ATM, with 2 new crosses germinating now.
Of course, I looked at Earthpot and Growbox, as well as some of the DIYs on here. I'm still undecided how to proceed (and I have time to build or do more research). Right now I am leaning toward the Growbox for the larger rez. I may even buy the 6 pack for $200 from the agardenpatch.com site.
So, yea, at this point I am just looking for suggestions. I want to run organic, amended soil with just H2O in the rez. My local shop recommends this:
https://www.greentreegardensupply.com/collections/agricultural-potting-soil/products/greentree-ultimate-blend
I can run 12 plants legally (hence the 6 Growpot idea) and I'd also like to use air stones in the rez. I have a nice Alita pump and I just like the idea of keeping things oxygenated. I know it's not necessary, but I like the idea of the the water roots growing into a H20 saturated environment, like hydro.
Lets see, what else... my space is 7x3, I run about 1000 watts of COB and QB, no CO2. I like variety and can have anywhere from 4-8 strains going at any given time.
Sorry for the overly long post, but I just wanted to introduce myself. I hope to make this thread my go-to for this project and I look forward to joining this SIP revolution
in this video he shows what we are talking about with the nute trench,,, you can reused your old soil too if your interested,, i jsut always bought a new bag each growThe other day I got fed up with RDWC and hydro in general (after 20+ years). I felt like the Grateful Dead in 1970- after all the high powered experimenting, time to go back to a nice, stripped down organic type grow. I'm hoping for American Beauty quality, or at least Working Man's Dead!
Sorry for the hippie reference, LOL. Anyway @Tim Fox recommended I look into SIPs. After looking at various grow types, I am ready to go this route. I even read all the 91 pages here and a few SIP grow journals.
Right now I have a few plants finishing up in the RDWC (which is really DWC now since the water pump broke). They should be done within a month. I am then removing the system. I will run some DWC buckets next, since I have some nice plants in DWC veg. Along with finishing up the DWC plants, I will slowly add some SIPs until the room is all organic SIPs. I transplanted some bare root cuttings into one gallon organic pots yesterday and they look great today. I'm running all Bodhi gear ATM, with 2 new crosses germinating now.
Of course, I looked at Earthpot and Growbox, as well as some of the DIYs on here. I'm still undecided how to proceed (and I have time to build or do more research). Right now I am leaning toward the Growbox for the larger rez. I may even buy the 6 pack for $200 from the agardenpatch.com site.
So, yea, at this point I am just looking for suggestions. I want to run organic, amended soil with just H2O in the rez. My local shop recommends this:
https://www.greentreegardensupply.com/collections/agricultural-potting-soil/products/greentree-ultimate-blend
I can run 12 plants legally (hence the 6 Growpot idea) and I'd also like to use air stones in the rez. I have a nice Alita pump and I just like the idea of keeping things oxygenated. I know it's not necessary, but I like the idea of the the water roots growing into a H20 saturated environment, like hydro.
Lets see, what else... my space is 7x3, I run about 1000 watts of COB and QB, no CO2. I like variety and can have anywhere from 4-8 strains going at any given time.
Sorry for the overly long post, but I just wanted to introduce myself. I hope to make this thread my go-to for this project and I look forward to joining this SIP revolution