hydro/soil hybrid plans

[willyhaze]

Ok, well i am planning to make a system where you put potted plants with soil into a tub containing ~ 1" of water at all times being refilled by a reservior. Heres a rough sketch:




here is the self-watering soil that i will be using. I will try to keep the reservior as isolated as possible so the heat from the room won't raise water temp. Probably also keep a lid on the tub with cut-outs for the pots.

I was wondering if anyone else has done this,
and i have concerns of:

possibility of root mold or other kinds of mold
how/how frequently to fertilize (filling reservior with suggested mixture of fert as often as recommended?)
how to keep water temps down


criticisms and recommendations are greatly appreciated

[rocks]

hey, i'm building something just like this, here's a pic:



I can't complete it yet, because I'm waiting for space in my grow room. I'm going to have 8 LowRyder plants going, all in 6" pots.

To keep the water-level at 1" it'll be using a Smartvalve MKII:
http://www.futuregarden.com/hydroponics/smartvalve.html

The resevoir isnt in the pic, but I'll just be using a regular cooler..it'll be raised just like you have in your sketch. And for the soil, that autopot soil you've linked to from gardeners will do the trick!

Anyone have any ideas about the water/root mold?

I personally dont think it's going to be a problem because it's 1" of water, and the plants will be sucking it up at a pretty constant rate, therefore there will be fresh water flooding into the pan pretty often.

Can't wait to see pics!

[HydrOKuSh]

nice job man good luck and keep posted...so how does that smartvalve actually work? i dont understand because it looks like the plant dont get no water because its only an inch at the bottem of the pot..how does this work? im gonna buy an autopot but wanna design a grow around it. please show how it works..thank you