Hydrotron is what I had around. I've got another loaded with lava. I ran out of hydrotron. I went to the local bottle store. The hydrotron they had was super small. I guess the mine that produces hydrotron is closing. They tried to sell me on the growstones (recycled glass product) but I can get lava way cheaper than hydrotron or growstones. We are doing this on the cheap. Any thoughts on the original question with decaying roots and no-till. One thought I had was to em-1 the res and let it evap off before reloading. Second thought was to pull the smartpots out and scrape the roots off the wick and reseat. Second sounds like a PITA but it would be a small price to pay considering how easy this system is running. Thanks for the kind words. I am but a humble farmer and organic student.
Decaying roots in reservoirs is waaay outta the spectrum of what I know or could even give a semi educated guess at Sticky. I'd post the question in a couple of threads like Jerry's, maybe even Eddro's SIP thread since he's been running SIPS for awhile. What I can say is if it were me I'd clean them all out. Water and decaying roots sounds like trouble to me, but again....I dunno Lava rock...I had no idea it actually held water. I always thought of it more in terms of aeration...lava rock is pretty cheap
I'll run it up the flag pole, but I think I already know what to do. Just looking for a path of least resistance. I wouldn't use lava or hydrotron as a wicking media. In my setup it acts just as a support media for the smartpots. All the wicking is done via the net pot and soil. I think the use of highly aireated media like perlite, lava, hydrotron actually helps the overall system. If I used something like gravel I don't think it would work as well. I'm just speculating at this point.
I forgot that...you've got soil going down into the reservoir right! That's what kept me from doing something similar. Sure looks like it's working for ya though! I went looking for a tray like yours and the least expensive one I could find was like $36....I'm still looking Sent from my iPad using GC Forum
Damn that's expensive. I get hosed on shipping but I've never paid that much. Depot has a similar size.
Cool, and me with one 10 miles away You don't happen to know the department?? Oh duh....mortar pan Just ignore the bonehead
Yes! At both stores they are in the cement section usually on the shelf. There are 2 sizes that both carry the 36" and the 24".
You're awesome Stick thanks. You know, I was just thinkin....I've got a HUGE, heavy duty pond liner still in the box that I bought about 10 yrs ago, before my back went totally bad on me. Had a smallish water garden with koi, plants, frogs and was going to make it bigger. I could build a frame with lumber (any size I wanted!), put a plywood 'floor' on it, maybe some casters even and line it with the liner. That'd hold me some perlite I betcha
Hell yes noob that would be awesome. Plus you already own it. I love reusing and recycling where I can.
Just a side note for anyone thinking about trying this, NONE of the materials mentioned here are written in stone, including the smart pot, though I do think it works best with one. AND perhaps organic soil. During my initial trial I set up a hard pot with perlite tray underneath for wicking and it worked perfectly. I should say it was a mature plant in flower, so the root system was (is) well developed. I pressed the pot down into the perlite perhaps 1/2" or so to insure contact between the damp perlite and soil and it worked like a charm. No rope, or any other wicking material necessary. I've since had to remove that particular strain from the system because it reacted poorly to having it's 'feet wet' (and just about everything else! ) but the system did work. For me though the whole system works best with a smartpot... The reservoir can be just about anything that holds water, keeping in mind you wouldn't want to use a container that may contain or have absorbed toxic substances of course! The range is endless...from plant saucers (I've got 2 3gal smarties in a seedstarter tray with great results...who doesn't have one of those laying around?) to kiddie swimming pools (my latest bright idea ). Got one of those big canning pots? A bucket? You've got a reservoir.
Got an idea from Faye to hit the feed store to see if I can find one of those deep water dishes. Im gonna go check it out tomorrow. If I cant find some of those, I also am thinking that I can use the buckets that I have as resevoirs, place a 3 gallon smartie with perlite in the bucket with water submerging it half way up the smartie, place the planted smartie on top of tha with the bottom in contact with the perlitet. The bucket should be deep enough to hold enough water for approx 4-5 days...possibly longer?? Plus the bucket will provide stability to keep the stacked pots from falling over. What you all think? The best part is that I already have all the stuff laying around.
DD, if I were going to use a bucket I'd fill the bucket with perlite (to the top, fill it with water to within 1" of the top) then set the potted (arr, arr, 'potted' get it? ) smart pot on top. No stability issues, lots of water and the smart pot still has the benefit (their main advantage imo) of air circulation all around the pot. If you want to save on perlite you could use Sticky's trick and fill the bottom of the bucket with plastic soda bottles (lava rock, etc) or the like....just make sure there's at least an inch or two of perlite at the very top to wick the water. The trick with using a bucket or any deep container is knowing where the water level is and when to fill it. With a light colored bucket you could see it, a dark one not so much. If you look at the photos I posted at the beginning of the thread I have a cup or soda bottle with the bottom cut off I place in the corner with no perlite in it. I use this to fill, and to gauge the depth of the free standing water. With a dark bucket unless you used a tube (like in SIPS) or my hempy bucket idea you'd have to guess at the water level. Am I making any sense? I am sooo not good at explaining things. If I were going to use a bucket (I actually AM with my next grow) I would do it up hempy style. Fill it with perlite to the top, then drill a hole oh I don't know...half way up the bucket. Just a small hole, or you could be smart and drill the hole before you filled the bucket and glue a bit of screen to the hole Anyway, place the bucket in something to catch runoff and fill with water to the hole. You'd need to do this several times at set up until the perlite is saturated and the water level is stable, after that piece of cake. This would water the plant (depending on the size of the bucket and plant) for DAYS at least...maybe weeks. If you did need to have someone add water they could never over water because of the hole in the bucket for overflow. I encourage people to try variations though....maybe your idea would be better?
For those of you that may be confused or need clarification when I mention hempy buckets, I found a decent tutorial here. Hempys are used in hydroponic growing, and since we're using organic soil as our medium here and want the advantages (without the disadvantages) of the smart pot we're not going to place the plants directly in the perlite, but rather use the perlite as a 'bed' of moisture if you will to keep our soil alive and healthy! Since we don't need room for our roots to grow into the perlite, we can bring the hole up MUCH closer to the top...up to an inch from the top depending on how much water you want to store in the bucket. Keep in mind though the more water you use, the heavier the bucket is going to be. I've set aside wet perlite without standing water to let it dry and gone back days later to find it still wet, so the perlite itself holds a lot of water, and I think a good 'air layer' beneath the smart pot (perlite with no standing water) can only add to the health of the system. Bear in mind though there was no plant wicking moisture from the perlite I set aside so I'm not suggesting you should depend on damp perlite alone to keep your plants hydrated! Some would say if you're going to use buckets, why not just go with a SIP, and they'd have a point! The reason I came up with this method is because I wanted to keep using my smart pots, and I wanted all sides exposed to air but hydrated. If you don't feel the same you might want to consider a smaller perlite bed, or simply go with a sip.
Yes! Thats so much easier than what I was going to do and it also frees up two more smart pots for me to use for plants! I had something a bit more complicated in mind for water measurment but just drilling a whole is much more simple. Thanks Noob!
Hey Noob, I have another question for you. I got all my supplies laid out in the garage right now. I plan to run this through and throw some of my cycling soil in the pot then watch it over the next few days in order to observe. I have read in SIP set ups where there is an intial watering of the soil in the bucket then the bucket "maintains" itself with the resevoir (Im not even sure if that the correct procedure). Am I supposed to let the soil just sit on the top and soak it up? I assume this to be the case since its a "wicking" action...but I hate to assume. Thanks. BTW, I plan to take some pics for my own mental recall if this works for me. Would you mind if I post some here?
Hey DD I'd LOVE for you to post pics! This thread is all about suggestions/variations/troubleshooting and feedback! Like I said it's a pretty basic set up with unlimited possibilities really....I expect y'all to be teaching me a thing or two if it ever catches on It's all about healthy plants for me! As or the wicking and set up, all I can tell you is what I've done. I put them in pretty dry the first time, and by morning they're as if they've been thoroughly watered. Since then I've just stick them on there in whatever state they're in...doesn't seem to matter. Again, this is using smartpot brand smarties (in another thread someone suggested another brand didn't wick as well) and all that I've tried so far have had well established root systems. I've yet to start a new plant .... What I would suggest is make sure the plant is moist enough to not DIE overnight and try it. If it's still dry overnight we'll troubleshoot it from there...if it's wicking the pot will be heavy, and you'll know it's working! I'm excited for ya!
I'll interject my experience. When I first established my SIPs. Thought that my soil was moist enough. I was only getting wicking about a 3rd of the way up the pot. It wasn't until it saturated the soil from the top filling the res. This is the first and last time I water from the top. From then on out its been solid. I've done 3 (6 pots total) like this.
Thanks Sticky. Still won't let me +rep ya yet. This made me realize I frgot to mention (yes, I AM a bonehead) that I do occasionally top water. Nt for hydration, but rather to water in things like protekt, and fert teas. It seems the generally accepted method used by successful SIPers, so I figure it was good enough for me. Papawayne had an excellent post on the topic yesterday I think...I'm gonna try to find it and post it here. Anyway, thus far I've not had any issues with it effecting the wicking process one way or another.