In my first grow I've been using a SIP tray setup with about three inches of perlite in a mortar pan, soaked with water and smart pots sitting on top, wicking water up via the perlite. It works well enough. The pots stay moist but not wet. Three 5 gallon pots will dry out the perlite in about three days, and will themselves be needing water in about five. I just add water to the perlite ever two or three days and LITFA. One of the problems I've had with this setup is that if I need to take any of the pots out for any reason, I get perlite everywhere. Somewhere I saw where someone (marv?) was using a permeable cloth bag to hold a pillow of perlite which sits in the water and the smart pot sits on top of that. I liked that idea, but am taking a slightly different route on my next grow. I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on it. this is just another experiment. This round I'm using the 5 gallon smart pots for my autos again. But I am putting the pot with my soil into a 7 gal. pot with about 4" of perlite in the bottom. That will sit in the mortar pan in about 3" of water. I see this as an advantage in that is I need to move the pots around (rotate occasionally) I can do that without trailing perlite everywhere. A few drops of water aren't a big deal. Also, on my current run the roots eventually grew through the pots and into the perlite which was what made it scatter everywhere when you lifted a pot out of it. in this method they can grow into the perlite all they want, and a few will make it out into the reservoir, but they can be moved around a lot easier this way. I know someone will say "Why not just use the larger pots for the soil and get larger plants?" Mainly because I want to try this with the same sized growing medium as my current run for comparison. But also, I'm using a fairly small space and other than SCROGing it, I don't want them to get much bigger.
I think that'd work just fine. Another idea: use your mortar pan/smart pot setup and put a piece of landscape cloth in between the smartie and the perlite... the wicking should still work the same and you won't end up with perlite all over the place... the problem with the roots growing down into the perlite can be fixed by rotating the plants daily. Breaking off those little feeder roots won't hurt a thing. With the double smart pot setup, the roots will still try to grow down into the perlite, so you'd have to rotate 'em regardless.
I feel your pain, bruva. Perlite. Everywhere. I've been sitting each of my 5gal smarties in these: Kind of the same idea, much less space taken up. 4 fit nicely in my 3x3 tent.
I like this and I think im going to try this in my flower tent cant in the veg closet its to small all my girls go from sprout straight into their final 3 gallon homes. ... so I can only get eight in the closet at a time gggrrrrrr.... lol when your this hated, its hard to be loved.......
1/4 turn everyday ChefZiggy will prune any roots that grow through the smartpots. I've recently adapted my mortar pans to use just the 10" net pots filled with a combination of lava, perilite, and hydrotron and 35gal fabric pots. It's my basic setup with the 4" drain pipe around the perimeter with the 2 net pot filled with the wicking rocks in the center. The pot drapes over the net pots and rests on the 4" pipe. Still in beta. It keeps the room super clean, allows massive airflow to the bottom of the pots, and contains all the wicking media in the 2 net pots. I'm not moving the 35 in and out of the mortar pans. They are on dollies and I wheel them from veg to flower. Also there are no rules on how many plants in a pot, just saying.
So far so good they have all three soaked up a couple of inches of water. I added some more to the trays this evening. Getting these conditioned for another run of auto fems to start in about a week or so. I'll plant them directly into these pots after soaking the seeds. Doing one each of Cherry Bomb, AK49, and one other that escapes my mind right now. Edit: The other one is Amnesia Haze. Rather apropos... Sent from somewhere over there. No, not there...over THERE.
This is exactly the bin I was talking about! I saw your setup in a different thread and went to Walmart to get the bins. Thankfully I measured first and my tent is 2'7"x 2'7" so it would have been just a little too small. You're popping up everywhere it's awesome.
Since my relocation and current instability towards a larger garden atm I've been making some plans for a couple cabinets I'll be putting together shortly. This is what I plan on using as a container for my soil - http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rubbermaid-54-Gal-42-1-2-in-x-21-1-2-in-x-18-3-5-in-Hi-Top-Storage-Tote-FG3A05H2MICBL/100673965?N=5yc1vZc89jZ1z0tuqh i plan on also making it work as a self contained SIP tray for ease of maintenance in a confined area. Handy for 2x4 or 4x4 areas.
GiMiK, have you seen these? Heavier sides that don't crack. I got 2 of the 70's (not sips) and CW uses the 300 for his sip. Plus they are plumbed at the bottom. http://www.rubbermaidcommercial.com/rcp/products/searchresults.jsp?search_text=stock+tank&search=stock+tank&submitIt.x=0&submitIt.y=0&submitIt=submit
Yeah but unfortunately they seem to be a bit too big for what I plan on doing. I would love to have the space for some of those 300s though, sometime in the future.
I'm surprised that more people dont use capillary mats that wick to a main reservoir....I think the capillary wicking action of a mat would be better then landscaping fabric laid on top, too.
Heya GiMIk, I have that exact tote bro. I use it for mixing/storing soil. It is kind of floppy though, a roll of duct tape fixed it for me.